The Best Game of the Year - Kaz Kompo 2007

[carmel_andrews]

Cas/Carsten...What about the software that appears or appeared on Abbuc's magazine disks and also, the magazine disks themselves (i'm sure i've seen them available for download somewhere)

 

Still Carsten...let's see what you can do

[cas]

Cas/Carsten...What about the software that appears or appeared on Abbuc's magazine disks and also, the magazine disks themselves (i'm sure i've seen them available for download somewhere)

 

Still Carsten...let's see what you can do

 

Same applies here. The Authors sending in Software or Articles are doing that for publication in the ABBUC Magazin disks. Not all Software / Articles are restricted, many are Open Source/Freeware/Public Domain and can also be found elsewhere.

 

Also, the ABBUC Member base has decided not to make the ABBUC Magazines available for everyone. That can only be changed in a democratic process, by ABBUC members voting for making the ABBUC Magazines available for all. That is nothing Wolfgang (Chairman), Bunsen, Andreas (Webmaster) or any other ABBUC member can decide alone.

 

I can only invite anyone to come to the annual assembly meeting, or write an article for the ABBUC Magazine, explaining why the members should vote to make the content and services free for all.

 

One thing is clear: ABBUC cannot provide some services without getting money from members (see below). It is hard to reason why content created with the help of the money of paying members should then be free for everyone. It might work in a perfect world, where everyone getting free service from ABBUC would pay ABBUC if the content is useful. But I do not see that we are living in that perfect world.

 

It's the same like other computer clubs (ACM or IEEE being big examples). They all have member only services. Because without member only services, there is less motivation to join the club.

 

But ABBUC needs a big membership base to be able to finance projects like Turbo-Freezer XL or SIO2USB or printing on new books (Compy Shop Technik Handbuch - 216 , Datenaustausch zwischen Atari XL/XE und PC- 226 pages). For these projects the club has financed about 10.000 Euro each in advance. This cannot be done with a small club or individual persons. This is the idea behind having a club: getting a big user base to be able to finish even bigger projects, each member only paying a small amount (2.60 Euro/Month) but the big number of members allow for professional projects.

 

How the projects are published is up to the authors or project team members:

 

For example the project team of Turbo Freezer XL decided to place everything (Hardware/Firmware/Documentation) into OpenSource (http://www.horus.com/~hias/freezer/).

 

The other example is SIO2USB, where some project team members decided that the firmware should be closed

 

ABBUC does not make any rules about that. It's always the decision of the authors, not ABBUCs decision. If a project is fundet by ABBUC, the only rule is that the project outcome has to be available for ABBUC members. It can be also available for anyone else as OpenSource/Freeware/PublicDomain/Commercial Product.

 

I know that ABBUC disks are available for download somewhere. Strictly thinking that is not correct. but we have better things to do then to go after people publishing pirate copies of ABBUC disks.

Edited January 3, 2008 by cas

[cas]

And let's go back to discussion about ABBUC rules. Carsten wrote:

 

thus the releases in ABBUC Mag would be commercial releases. (...) Where is then the difference between commercial games and games on ABBUC magazines?"

 

But ABBUC doesn't work as a shop, where I can buy a program. Which shop force you to be a member of any organisation? Or to respect a set of extra rules you even don't know? Don't forget I'm not German but ABBUC is registered in Germany and restricted by German law.

 

The German law in respect of clubs works in favor to the members and mostly effects people working in the bord of directors. These law dictate how to make the bookkeeping, how decision about how money is spend must be decided by voting in an annual assembly meeting and such.

 

As a normal member, there are no rules or restriction. It is very similar to a subscription. You pay the membership fee, and in return you get the club services

 

* 4 printed magazines a year with floppy disk (MD, 2 sides)

* special magazines or special publications (like the ABBUC published books)

* access to the download sections on the webpage

* access to the ABBUC hardware repair service

* discounts for some commercial offerings outside ABBUC

* right to vote at the annual meeting

 

ABBUC is a club in germany with about 90% of it's members are from germany. The content published by ABBUC comes directly from it's members, so naturally the most content is in german language and therefor not easy acessible for anyone not speaking that language. Solving that is another discussion.

 

No-one at ABBUC get payed for the work. All work is voluntary work. The membership fees are used for

 

* buying new floppy disks (400+ disks per magazine, 1600+ disks per year). You know how hard it is to get new 5 1/4" floppy disks theses days

* printing the magazine (color cover, b/w inside, 44pages, A5, sometimes even in full color)

* ABBUC Software/Hardware Competition prizes

* expenses for people doing ABBUC public work (like Beetle driving to Munich to Vintage Computer Festival)

* Infrastructure (new Webserver-Hardware this year, Internet connectivity)

* printing new books

* financing hardware projects (some hardware projects die, so money get sometimes lost)

* supporting external projects (for example ABBUC donated an Turbo Freezer XL for the SpartaDOS X team)

 

During the annual assembly meeting, the members get a report from the Board of Directory how the money have been spend in the last 12 month, and then the members vote how the money for the next 12 month should be spend.

 

The board of directors is currently

 

Wolfgang Burger, President

Joost Küp, Vice-President

Udo Wrobel, Treasurer

 

for these people, the german law has some restriction on how they work in the club. For the normal member, there is not much rules. The ABBUC statute can be read in german and english -> http://www.abbuc.de/modules.php?name=DocTr...k=y&dtId=71

 

In addition to the board of directory, ABBUC has a group of SIG-Mamagers (SIG=Special Interest Group)

 

Public Domain Library, Wordprocessing Software - Walter Lojek

Repairservice Diskdrives and XEP80 Interfaces - Erhard Pütz (aka Floppydoc)

Repairservice computers - Andreas Hintermüller

EPROM-burning service - Günter Bartel

ABBUC Magazine archive and translations - Alexander Klinner

Managing of Events and Conventions - Markus Römer

Press, Public Relations - Florian Dingler

Hardware Development coordination - Andreas Mischka

Software Development coordination - Gunnar Kanold (aka Bunsen)

Webmaster - Andreas Bertelmann

Programming and Infothek - Carsten Strotmann

 

Pictures, Names, E-Mail Addresses can be found at http://www.abbuc.de/modules.php?name=DocTr...lk=y&dtId=7

 

The SIG-Manager are elected "on-demand" at the annual assembly, means that either

* a SIG-Manager cannot do the work anymore

* someone wants to take over the SIG work

* the assembly is unsatisfied with the SIG Managers work

 

A SIG Manager is not meant to _do_ all the work, instead the SIG-Manager should coordinate the work. For example the event coordinator does not organize all events, instead he coordinates the people organizing events, making sure that events don't overlap with other evens etc.

 

I'll start a discussion in the ABBUC forum wether it is possible to make the Magazin disks available in the ABBUC online-shop for people who do not like to become an ABBUC member.

[cas]

And let's go back to discussion about ABBUC rules. Carsten wrote:

 

thus the releases in ABBUC Mag would be commercial releases. (...) Where is then the difference between commercial games and games on ABBUC magazines?"

 

But ABBUC doesn't work as a shop, where I can buy a program. Which shop force you to be a member of any organisation? Or to respect a set of extra rules you even don't know? Don't forget I'm not German but ABBUC is registered in Germany and restricted by German law.

 

Sometimes ABBUC can be agile and change quickly. I've got information from Wolfgang that it's no problem at all to offer ABBUC Magazine and Disks in the ABBUC Shop so that everyone can by the Magazine and Disk without the need of becoming a member. The Magazines will appear over the coming weekend in the ABBUC Shop at http://www.abbuc.de/shopabbuc/index.php

 

This will not be possible for the entire backlog (see my posting regarding the publishing rights), but for more recent Magazines.

 

Best regards

 

Carsten

[Heaven/TQA]

Carsten, thanks for the long explanation even for me as long term ABBUC member... but it seems that I should more often read the results of the annual meetings... so I know how many and for what money was spend. I wasn't aware of the fact that Turbo Freezer XE (hehe... Thank god I have my one... ) and Sio2USB was prefinanced by us ABBUC members... good spend money.

 

Heaven

Edited January 3, 2008 by Heaven/TQA

[Bunsen]

I wrote the letter to Dieter with your wishes, greetings and questions (with translation)- three pages. Tomorrow I will give it to the post office.

[Kaz atarionline.pl]

Carsten and Bunsen - thank you very much for all interesting details about ABBUC and german law. Thus, this discussion is definitly significant (at least for me).

 

I'm observing also your discussion here:

http://www.abbuc.de/modules.php?name=Forum...asc&start=0

 

When we exclude all emotions it is giving me more material to get conclusions. I considered your arguments and I'm still thinking, that ABBUC is a closed organization and "being a club" is not good enough explanation for this. My understanding of word "closed" is probably slightly different than yours, but I'm mostly talking about "open mind" rather than "open software". And I’m talking about ABBUC-rules in equal of ABBUC-style or ABBUC-soul. Your webpage, your commercial software, compo rules are only results of old-fashion thinking, not reasons. I will try make myself more clear, but not now. Unfortunately my collage exams are waiting for me... Only few words.

 

What do you mean with internal compo? ABBUC contest is open for all.

 

Internal means just internal:

- rules are internally set by club members only

- voting is only for internal members

- attendance of games restricted internally

- results (software) are only for members

 

And I suppose that you are only open for creators outside of ABBUC only because ABBUC members are not too creative… Remove all stuff from non-members and what you will have in your compo? Almost nothing. I remember discussion, where your member (-s?) complained that club spent money for external programmers.

 

Kaz Kompo to compare:

- rules were set initially by me, but everyone can change them using good arguments (we have a topic about KK rules)

- voting is for everyone

- every published game take a part in compo

- you can download software if it is available

 

But why so offend against the ABBUC (every third word in your text was ABBUC

 

I thought you knew why I used ABBUC word so often: my compo started as REACTION for ABBUC compo. I found out that ABBUC will never be a compo I dreamt about.

 

I see you changed it )?

 

Yes, I did. My aim was not to make people angry – but to explain why new compo was created. It is either a competition between two ideas of compo rules (as I said – I think ABBUC members are like mammoths who don’t understand that their time have gone ) and should stimulate creativity, not only negative emotions. My words were understood in wrong way, so it means I wrote it in wrong way. I also remove a part of text, because my words could be connected to Andreas Koch and they shouldn’t be. Andreas was explaining me ABBUC rules many times from long time, like you and Carsten now, but finally I found his thinking closer to mine than I expected. I also wanted him to help me with KK because of his experience with ABBUC compo. And he helped me, but it doesn’t mean that he should be responsible or blamed for my words.

[Shawn Jefferson]

I'm only an innocent bystander in this argument, but it seems to me that you could say that the ABBUC members are the ones who put up the money, so they have every right to restrict the judging to themselves, and also to set the rules whereby the winner gets that money. I think they actually put very little restriction on the programmer entering this competition.

 

Forgive me for not knowing, Kaz, but what are the prizes in your competition ?

[cas]

Carsten and Bunsen - thank you very much for all interesting details about ABBUC and german law. Thus, this discussion is definitly significant (at least for me).

 

I'm observing also your discussion here:

http://www.abbuc.de/modules.php?name=Forum...asc&start=0

 

When we exclude all emotions it is giving me more material to get conclusions. I considered your arguments and I'm still thinking, that ABBUC is a closed organization and "being a club" is not good enough explanation for this. My understanding of word "closed" is probably slightly different than yours, but I'm mostly talking about "open mind" rather than "open software". And I’m talking about ABBUC-rules in equal of ABBUC-style or ABBUC-soul. Your webpage, your commercial software, compo rules are only results of old-fashion thinking, not reasons. I will try make myself more clear, but not now. Unfortunately my collage exams are waiting for me... Only few words.

 

What do you mean with internal compo? ABBUC contest is open for all.

 

Internal means just internal:

- rules are internally set by club members only

- voting is only for internal members

- attendance of games restricted internally

- results (software) are only for members

 

And I suppose that you are only open for creators outside of ABBUC only because ABBUC members are not too creative… Remove all stuff from non-members and what you will have in your compo? Almost nothing. I remember discussion, where your member (-s?) complained that club spent money for external programmers.

 

You are right here. The ABBUC contest was created as an internal contest, for ABBUC members. One goal was to motivate programmers to write new programs (games, tools...), another goal was to get good content for the ABBUC magazine.

 

Maybe because there was no other competition of this kind (at the time the ABBUC contest was created), with prices, it has been picked up outside of ABBUC (like here in AtariAge). The ABBUC competition was never planned to be "open" in your sense. However, that might change. We will certainly have a new discussion about that on the next annual meeting. It might then well be that the competition will be more open in your sense, for 2009 (vote on the 2008 ABBUC annual meeting). We cannot change the rules halfway through the year, because we will not be able to reach all members to get their vote on it.

 

As for the discussion in the ABBUC forum. As you can see there are still people here in germany (but maybe these trolls can be found anywhere in the world, but germany has a horrible history because of this) that would like to make a competition germany vs. poland vs. other countries, instead comparing the skills of the programmers. I'm not in that game, and I will work internally in ABBUC to convince these people to rethink, or shut up.

 

Carsten

Edited January 4, 2008 by cas

[Heaven/TQA]

Shawn... valid point. It's our money and spend in a democratic decided decission process.

[Bunsen]

For me the ABBUC has a prosperousness history (22 years - more than ANY other Atari club). Nowadays many things are good at the ABBUC, some could be better, some can't be better.

The software contest was wowing, because of fantastic contributions.

I hope the atari year 2008 will be as good as 2007, and we will see many more good atari years . ABBUC will support!

 

OK, Kaz, I think for now it's enough said about the ABBUC. It makes no sense to repeat again and again the same statements.

[+remowilliams]

Also a bystander here, though I find some of this (especially the German laws part) quite interesting. Are ABBUC creations publicly available? It would seem that the answer is no.

[Mathy]

Hello Kaz

 

ABBUC is not a closed community, everybody can become a member of the ABBUC. Once somebody is a member of the ABBUC, (s)he can vote on the rules, the prices, etc. I'm a member of the ABBUC too. IIRC the first magazine I received was issue number 22. The latest one that dropped in the mail was number 91. As somebody already mentioned, there are four "normal" magazins per year. My calculator tells me I've been a member already for 17.5 years. I will be a member untill atleast 2010. I've been on the yearly meeting of the ABBUC the last 14 times I guess. When talks about a software contest started on I guess the old ABBUC Mailbox (or was that the site?), I was there, together with Stephan Birmanns (MSC-IDE interface) and Charlie Chaplin. I was there when the idea was brought to the meeting. I can tell you, each year, we talk about either the rules or the price money or both. Even about whether or not the contest should be held again. It's OUR money and WE decide what to do with it. If you don't want to understand that, that's YOUR closed mind.

 

Greetings

 

Mathy (living close to, but not in Germany)

[GameEngine]

I am not an ABBUC member but I am glad it is there. ABBUC steering committee focus seems to be on having as many members as possible for as long as possible. It seems they do a great job. I hope that having software contest open for non-members is as beneficial to ABBUC as it is to the community. I think it is nice to know that there are retro Atari fans that are ready to reward you with money (quite universal measure) in recognition of the effort you put. I can only hope Kaz Kompo is as successful in the long run. Odds are against you Kaz - only second edition this year, fewer sponsors and lower prize money. Good luck, though.

[eru]

While some of the ABBUC rules might seem controversial to some people, in the end, I think they're doing a great job keeping Atari alive.

 

ABBUC Software Contest entries for a short time (2-3 months) are only available to the members. I think it's a small privilege they deserve for organizing it. And while prize money is not a big reason to develop for Atari these days, having a competition, with a fixed deadline, rules, etc. helps to motivate programmers to do something.

 

KazKompo is completely different, but just as important - I think both competitions can go hand in hand, without competing with each other

 

Just my $0.02

[+remowilliams]

ABBUC Software Contest entries for a short time (2-3 months) are only available to the members.

So is all ABBUC software released to the public after a few months, or just contest entries?

[Shawn Jefferson]

So is all ABBUC software released to the public after a few months, or just contest entries?

 

I think it was stated that ABBUC can't release anything (due to restrictive German laws), but the authors of the software CAN. I don't know the details, as I'm not an ABBUC member (hurry up with that English translation!) but I think that at least the ABBUC software contest stipulates that the author cannot publish their entries elsewhere until a set time has elasped (2-3 months it was stated above.)

 

Not all that restrictive really, IMO.

[+remowilliams]

I think it was stated that ABBUC can't release anything (due to restrictive German laws), but the authors of the software CAN. I don't know the details, as I'm not an ABBUC member (hurry up with that English translation!) but I think that at least the ABBUC software contest stipulates that the author cannot publish their entries elsewhere until a set time has elasped (2-3 months it was stated above.)

Right, so do the ABBUC members release their software to the public?

[cas]

I think it was stated that ABBUC can't release anything (due to restrictive German laws), but the authors of the software CAN. I don't know the details, as I'm not an ABBUC member (hurry up with that English translation!) but I think that at least the ABBUC software contest stipulates that the author cannot publish their entries elsewhere until a set time has elasped (2-3 months it was stated above.)

Right, so do the ABBUC members release their software to the public?

 

So do, some don't. Some publish here on AtariAge.

 

ABBUC imposes no restrictions whatsoever on it's members in regards on publishing software.

 

The ABBUC Software contest rules say that software running in the contest must first be published in the ABBUC Magazine, and can be published elsewere by the Author after the contest results are public (e.g. End of October). This is true for any programm running in the contest, from ABBUC members or also from non-ABBUC members.

 

I, for example, publish everything under Open Source Licenses here in AtariAge or in my Wiki.

 

Carsten

[+remowilliams]

So do, some don't. Some publish here on AtariAge.

 

ABBUC imposes no restrictions whatsoever on it's members in regards on publishing software.

Cool thanks for the explanation. I've been aware of ABBUC for quite some time, but haven't had a good understanding of the group.

 

So much great A8 coding and projects come from Europe, but it's often hard to learn stuff due to language differences, etc.

[Kaz atarionline.pl]

Results of Kaz Kompo 2007 available here. Only in Polish now, but next language version will come... I hope

[eru]

Nice!