Subject:  WZebra current and future development


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Hi all,

As you've noticed, I haven't done a lot of development on WZebra for
quite some time. There are two main reasons for this: (1) WZebra is
rather mature as Othello programs go, and more importantly (2) I don't
have the same drive to spend as much time on the project as I once did.

My plans for the future of (W)Zebra are as follows:

(1) I will release WZebra 4.2.2 late this year. It will contain at
least one new translation (German), maybe several. I've fixed a few
buglets and will probably fix some more. I'll also try to implement
book merging.

(2) We (me and Lars) have decided to release the Zebra+WZebra code under
the GPL. This will also happen some time later this year.

(3) What happens next depends on if there are any helping hands
interested in continuing work on WZebra. I will help along to some
extent, and I can also organize releases and review kernel patches. I
haven't thought a great deal about how this should be organized -
contact me if you are willing to work on it. If there is no interest in
this I will probably work on WZebra at the pace I see fit (ranging from
hectic to glacial depending on my mood).

To people interested in (3): There's quite a lot of code and you have to
know to program well in order to contribute to most modules of the code.
The kernel is in C and Pentium assembly (but you don't have to know
any assembly, assembly is only used in two performance-critical parts of
the code). The GUI is in C++ using the wxWidgets interface.

There are many easy or moderately hard things to work on: Contributing a
new translation is trivial. Changing e.g. the Thor interface is rather
easy because it's a very isolated change. Rewriting the program to play
anti-10x10 is a very large effort.

/ Gunnar