Bill won't let people work on KGS, that's precisely the complaint people are voicing in this thread.
There are a ton of ways Bill could let others contribute: make client code opensource, make server code opensource or just make the client protocol open so others can write clients.


That's not "work to make it happen", that's "throw money at it and hope it will happen".
If Bill wants to keep it a one man show and not let others contribute, fine, his decision, but don't expect others to validate this kind of behaviour by sponsoring him.

In particular, I see no valid reason whats-o-ever not to have the client protocol public. (Most of the features people wish for are client-side.)
Looks to me like Bill just wants to keep a monopoly on which client is being used.
Good for him, but again, don't expect people to reward this kind of behaviour.

This is my point. Bill has stated repeatedly that he's going to retain ownership of the code and he doesn't want to bring in any other developers (i.e., he likes doing the development, not project managing others). Simply bringing up open source yet again isn't going to solve anything.

People want new functionaliity. At present, Bill doesn't have the time to build it as fast as people want. In the absence of a suitable funding model, progress on building new functionality is limited by the constraints on Bill's time.

This argument is one-sided, aligned with the perspective of the KGS administration. An argument to the contrary can be made for users of KGS, as follows:

Bill has stated repeatedly that he's going to retain ownership of the code and he doesn't want to bring in any other developers (i.e., he likes doing the development, not project managing others). Simply bringing up open source yet again isn't going to solve anything. People want new functionaliity. At present, Bill doesn't have the time to build it as fast as people want. In the absence of a suitable funding model, progress on building new functionality is limited by the constraints on Bill's time.
KGS users have stated repeatedly that an open source model would be better for KGS. Simply bringing up the fact that Bill doesn't want to make it open source yet again isn't going to solve anything. People want new functionality. At present, Bill won't build the new functionality as fast as people want. In the absence of suitable features, people will continue to gradually migrate to other go servers.

Everyone that's been involved in this argument knows the stances of both sides: Bill owns the server, doesn't have time to work on it. People want new features, they won't be implemented.

In your post, you suggest that the solution is to pay Bill money for his time. Maybe this would work, and maybe it wouldn't. But it's certainly not the only solution. KGS is KGS because of the community, and enough momentum builds up for people to move to a different server, it will happen.

Just look at this forum. People used to visit godiscussions.com, but after the site stopped functioning in a stable manner, the site effectively died and this one took over. Maybe if we paid the owner of godiscussions.com, it would have solved the problems with the site. But an alternative solution was found, and I believe the community is all the better for it.

So yes, people will continue to complain. And KGS can continue to blame the users for complaining. But what starts as a complaint is the seed of progress, and I look forward to the progress of the online go community, whether KGS is involved with it or not.

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be immersed

Would Billy be willing to rename the server to the firm's name including ads and an included shop? But I doubt there's a western firm potent enough to pump more than 1K per year into such a server. Too few Go players in the western world. So it would come down to a self-financed model. KGS is not kaya and WMS has proved he doesn't quit easily, so it'd depend from the amount of members if one could pull off some one-time payment-deal (so that WMS could work on KGS for a year e.g.). But that's gross speculation. Maybe KGS is just his hobby and he wants to keep it there.... Again: Let Kaya's downfall be a warning to all of those with too high ambitions.

Why? Because one of the owners got a job offer and stopped working on the project? Having high ambitions is admirable. What practically gets accomplished is what makes a difference, but this usually starts with some sort of dream.

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be immersed

You have to agree that the dream didn't include letting others fix the bugs, and the bugs in kaya were much worse than KGS's sound problem on newer JREs.

Perhaps, but this is unrelated to the topic of having high ambitions, is it not? Discounting high ambitions is like saying to quit before you start anything. How would KGS have been created without ambitions?

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be immersed

True. I didn't follow all the twists and turns of the thread at hand.

It is unfortunate that open protocol or open source servers have all failed. DGS is the only active one I can think of, but it's turn based.

What's next, sugarplum?

IGS was never really a failure, and contributed to KGS's inception. In any case, I stand by my previous comment that, if enough complaints and dissatisfaction build up, people will migrate. Either way, I'm confident that progress in online go will be made, whether it's an open source venture or not.

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be immersed

Indeed, which is why I don't see anybody asking him to quit his job and work on KGS full time.



Assuming wms works as a senior software developer in the US, he's probably making over a $100k a year and has reasonable job security while supporting a family. There's no way the tiny KGS community will be able to match that.

Another option is he could spend probably less than an hour and fix the sound problem, and that would stop many of the complaints of total abandonment. If he can't do that, he should just outsource minor maintenance like he does admin duties. He would still own the server. Alternatively, I agree with Kirby, people should keep on complaining and migrating elsewhere.

Folks, it's all moot. We've heard this going round and round in circles for a couple of years now.

In less than one year, the Western go community will have completed it's migration to OGS/Nova. There are already 300-400 users online at any given point in time, compared to around a 1000 on KGS, and OGS isn't currently getting any of the Japanese, Chinese or Russian traffic.

You can follow KGS development here https://plus.google.com/108736506961432085848

Off Topic:
I think established rivals such as wbaduk , tygem , IGS - are far more popular than OGS in terms of live play. Most users online on OGS are there for Correspondence play (at a guess). You can observe the popularity of OGS as a live play server here: http://online-go.com/observeGames - highest figure I saw was 2.

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North Lecale

Yes. WMS also had/has a job and didn't quit on KGS. He has proved endurance. What's the value of high ambitions on no reality grounds?

It does not matter with which level of ambition you start, to make a Go server work you need the same endurance and tenacity anyway, I assume. High ambition might function as a motivation, low ambition does not have any function as far as I can see - how can you ever pull through hard times when you have no drive to excel at something?
Lastly you do not quit a project solely because of high ambitions, respectively when you can't meet them. More often it's the simple combination of time(-management) and money.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

I really don't understand what you are trying to say here.

Its not about ambition with Kaya, is about having a bad bad business model (or not having one at all.) Since the Kaya development was financed (at least partly) by donations - what did it matter that one of the owners got a job? Didn't they *quit* their jobs precisely for the reason to work on Kaya?!? Didn't they ask for donations - and received them - precisely for the reasons of not needing a job?!?

A dream is for those who sleep.
When you really need to accomplish something, you need to be awake.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

I sense a disunity on the side of KGS bashers here.
On one side is - the server is dead, or its just routine maintenance to be done, or its a finished product.
On the other side is - people are screaming for new features and new functionalities constantly to the point they will leave to play somewhere else unless WMS delivers.

Can't have it both ways.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

I think they were recently graduateed students with no job who wanted to work on a project that looked impressive whilst seeking a job... but I could be completely wrong.

What do you think about cows by the way? Should KGS have cows?

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North Lecale

Ok, fine, 5 years. So? KGS exists much longer than that, even if you as KGS user don't.

My point is as follows:

• tremendous amount of work has been done to bring the server to the point when maintenance has stalled and the community was already big and thriving at that point.
• I hope we can agree that a lot of damage is being done to KGS by the fact that maintenance stalled for so long - this thread being just an example
• thus - you (or whoever) cannot say KGS has been 'functioning just fine with such model of no maintenance'
• what's more - it is possible a lot more work needs to be done right now to recover from the damage - work which might go far beyond mere bug fix and routine maintenance - thus whoever would take on KGS maintenance now needs to be prepared to do such work and not just fix the silly sound issue people are talking about so much.

It is possible that KGS will not survive this situation, I have no clue.
So, if you do have a list of programmers willing and eager to run such project for free for many years, and do it much better than WMS (I take it you are not happy with the way he does things) - then roll them out and get them started working on a new server which can replace KGS once it goes belly-up.

Personally - I am not willing to do that, and so I rather give KGS a chance and see what happens. If it dies, it dies, if it survives, so much the better. I can always go back to playing in a real club.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

IGS has an open protocol. IGS client sucks.
How many people do you see working on a new IGS client?!?

And how many people are upset because they have been using some half-baked IGS client which they eventually learned to like in spite of all the bugs and shortcomings - and which got broken and discarded because of the developer moving on to a more interesting hobby? I've been there, done that, and have the t-shirt to prove it. So for now I much rather stick with KGS model here, even without the sound fixed - at least I don't need to switch clients every few months, going from bad to worse, like on IGS.

The bottom line is - we have servers with open protocols and servers with closed ones.
When somebody has an itch to write a client, there you go, knock yourself out!

Personally - I would be more interested in a good SGF editor for mac, if you need a project to work on and can't think of anything by yourself.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!