The first day of the Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) kicked off on Wednesday in Texas, USA with a developer meeting titled: “Application selection in the default install”.

Over three posts I’ll cover the main ideas, discussions and tentative decisions that took place in these meetings: Whittling the default game selection down; removing GIMP from the default install; and what to include for photo editing and video editing (yes, PiTiVi may be a default app in Lucid Lynx).

However, remember that nothing mentioned in my UDS recaps is final, and that even if decisions are agreed on, things can still change over the course of the development cycle.

Ubuntu’s Game Selection

The ‘topic’ for the first part of the session was titled “Game selection. Can we choose fewer, better games by default, especially ones that include a social component?”.

There wasn’t a whole lot of concrete decisions to report, however:

  • gBrainy, Solitaire and Sudoku will be included by default
  • GNOME Games meta-package will be removed; games installed individually
  • Tetris-clone Quadrapassel may stay installed by default… or may not

Other things that came up:

  • Idea of adding ‘online games’ as menu entries was put forward… and shot down.
  • Frozen Bubble was a game many suggested should be installed, but it would take up too much space on the Ubuntu ISO (which needs to fit on a 700MB CD).
  • Rewriting GNOME Games in Clutter proposed. Some hardware continues to exhibit issues with clutter so, for now, this isn’t the best move.
  • “Mines” (Minesweeper clone) is a prime target for removal, with many feeling that it is outdated and too “Windows 95”.
  • Other games suggested included Atomix, Hearts, and others which are part of the GNOME Games selection.

Ultimately, the biggest factor in what games are (or are not) chosen comes down to their package size (and any dependencies). The Ubuntu live image has to fit on a 700mb CD, and room is at a premium for games given there are other big changes planned.

Gaming with pals

A lot of talk centred around the idea of making games more “social”; creating or adding multi-player elements, preferably using Telepathy/Empathy (as it’s open source and part of the default install).

The idea has merit. Who wouldn’t love to challenge their friends to a game of chess or Tetris on Ubuntu?!

Despite many games already offering multiplayer elements, the vision is they’d all transition to use the same one, ideally via the aforementioned Telepathy framework.

Two games were singled out for this: Chess and Sudoku. Tetrinet was also mooted, as you can’t have a games selection without some form of Tetris!

Whether it happens this cycle, or beyond, TBD.

Still all to play for…

No formal or final decision has yet been agreed on. We will likely see developers undertake a few back-and-forth moves involving games during the course of the Lucid development cycle.

With that said, the idea to reduce the number of games – and offer amore interesting variety of games – is a sound one. How many of us play every game installed? I don’t. In fact, they’re one of the first things I remove on a default install.

I’m pleased the “one-package” install of 10 gnome-games is being split out. Not everyone wants 3 or 4 card games installed, and it was frustrating to those who wanted to keep one or two, but had the entirely lot uninstalled when removing the rest.

What games do you think should be nuked or be saved?