I am making a Modpack Website!

[stibbons]

2 hours ago, ForumUser said:

Modpacks will follow Creative Commons

I suspect you're going to have a very hard time with a blanket rule specifying which license uploaded modpacks may use.

For example, the one that you've uploaded contains your own More Habitable Planets Mod, right? From what I can see on https://spacedock.info/mod/1215/More Habitable Planets Mod! that is licensed under GPLv2. As such, you can't properly distribute it in a modpack under a creative commons license. The hairiest difference is the "must provide source code" requirement of the GPL - no creative commons license has an equivalent. For that specific mod you might scrape by, but any GPL mod that uses a plugin (for example, Kerbal Engineer Redux) will not be able to be redistributed in modpacks through your site.

I think it's great that you want to contribute to the KSP community, but can only ask again that you carefully consider the concerns that have been raised in the recent discussions that you've been a part of. There's a lot of good info, and decent suggestions for how to shape your contributions in the most meaningful way in those threads.

[Deddly]

Hi @ForumUser! It's definitely getting better from a legal perspective. But it's not quite there yet, so I removed the link. The legalities involved in bundling more than one work into a package are pretty complex, and the one-liner you have provided at the bottom of the page is unfortunately not enough. For example, did you know that there is more than one Creative Commons license, and some of them are more restrictive than others? We are happy to help you with this, but once again, please remember what @Snark said here:

Also, I merged your two threads together. You don't need more than one for this subject.

[stibbons]

For what it's worth, this sticky thread on creative-commons license compatibility is also pretty great to say what can be remixed with what.

 

[cantab]

As a user, I'm disappointed in the general hostility I'm seeing towards mod packs. Mod management in KSP is godawful. Squad and Curse have provided nothing, CKAN is problematic, AVC is not a complete solution, and manually managing mods like it's the stone age doesn't scale well. Compatibility problems between different mods can and do occur and are then difficult for everyone to track down.

Modpacks might have offered a solution, it seems to work for Minecraft. But now I'm seeing a concerted general effort to slam the door on that, and I don't see any effort to make things any better. Do modders really want KSP players forever doomed to bug-inducing CKAN or spending hours fiddling with everything by hand?

And I will say to modders, if you don't want your work redistributed, don't use a license that explicitly allows redistribution. But perhaps consider whether it's worth throwing the free software, creative commons, collaboration baby out with the modpack bathwater.

Edited March 13, 2017 by cantab
Had to restart fx mid-post.

[dboi88]

6 minutes ago, cantab said:

As a user, I'm disappointed in the general hostility I'm seeing towards mod packs. Mod management in KSP is godawful. Squad and Curse have provided nothing, CKAN is problematic, AVC is not a complete solution, and manually managing mods like it's the stone age doesn't scale well. Compatibility problems between different mods can and do occur and are then difficult for everyone to track down.

Modpacks might have offered a solution, it seems to work for Minecraft. But now I'm seeing a concerted general effort to slam the door on that, and I don't see any effort to make things any better. Do modders really want KSP players forever doomed to bug-inducing CKAN or spending hours fiddling with everything by hand?

And I will say to modders, if you don't want your work redistributed, don't use a license that explicitly allows redistribution. But perhaps consider whether it's worth throwing the free software, creative commons, collaboration baby out with the modpack bathwater.

I've seen no hostility to mod packs in general, only towards low effort mod packs/packers, which i'm sure you will agree cause more problems than they solve. High quality curated & supported modpacks are what we want. This is what the new rules are striving to achieve. 

[Galileo]

7 minutes ago, cantab said:

As a user, I'm disappointed in the general hostility I'm seeing towards mod packs. Mod management in KSP is godawful. Squad and Curse have provided nothing, CKAN is problematic, AVC is not a complete solution, and manually managing mods like it's the stone age doesn't scale well. Compatibility problems between different mods can and do occur and are then difficult for everyone to track down.

Modpacks might have offered a solution, it seems to work for Minecraft. But now I'm seeing a concerted general effort to slam the door on that, and I don't see any effort to make things any better. Do modders really want KSP players forever doomed to bug-inducing CKAN or spending hours fiddling with everything by hand?

And I will say to modders, if you don't want your work redistributed, don't use a license that explicitly allows redistribution. But perhaps consider whether it's worth throwing the free software, creative commons, collaboration baby out with the modpack bathwater.

Maybe you haven't read this, or it's last page. Mod packs are allowed, so long as they follow the rules. 

 

 

[cantab]

2 minutes ago, Galileo said:

Maybe you haven't read this, or it's last page. Mod packs are allowed, so long as they follow the rules. 

I read the last few pages. Yes, it's been allowed, but the ban was seriously considered by Squad and supported by a majority of poll voters. Hence "general hostility".

[Deddly]

13 minutes ago, cantab said:

I read the last few pages. Yes, it's been allowed, but the ban was seriously considered by Squad and supported by a majority of poll voters. Hence "general hostility".

That's because, unfortunately, the majority of mod packs that have been posted up until this point have not been legal and have been very poor quality.

[Galileo]

19 hours ago, cantab said:

I read the last few pages. Yes, it's been allowed, but the ban was seriously considered by Squad and supported by a majority of poll voters. Hence "general hostility".

Yes because it creates more problems for modders.

I just don't understand the lack of respect/consideration for modders wishes. This is something all modders do for free and I feel 90% of users forget this and feel entitled. Yes, licenses should be more restrictive if you do not want your mod in a pack. I agree with that 100%. I have talked to a few that will change their licenses to something like all rights reserved in the face of this mod pack stuff. Sucks for users and mod pack supporters but some hands have been forced here.

Im 29, married, and have a 4 year old daughter. I do not have time to support issues that may arise in a mod pack distribution. I barely have time to support my own distribution.

Am I wrong for saying "hey, don't make more work for me."? I don't think so. Obviously, I'm not alone with those feelings.

If you want to call that hostility, then so be it. I wouldn't call it that though. It's more like the people that want mod packs fail to look at the creators of these mods as people with lives and refuse to see why mod packs are looked down upon. The entitlement is what bothers me. 

Users tend to forget that mods are on life support and at any moment the developer can yank the cord and kill it. I only say this because it has happened multiple times, and it will probably happen again. Going against the wishes of the modders will only make it happen sooner and nobody wants that.

I'm not trying to fearmonger here, and if this post derails this thread then delete it. 

Also does me saying "I support mod packs, just not ones that include my mods" make me a hypocrite? I'm just looking out for me here, and I feel like this is how most modders feel as well. Kinda funny.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Galileo

[linuxgurugamer]

On 3/13/2017 at 0:34 PM, cantab said:

I read the last few pages. Yes, it's been allowed, but the ban was seriously considered by Squad and supported by a majority of poll voters. Hence "general hostility".

Why do you consider someone's opinion which disagrees with  you an expression of "general hostility"?

The conversation here has been civil, the fact that someone disagrees is  not "hostile".

[ShotgunNinja]

Modpacks could be implemented as simple CKAN packages 'requiring' a set of mods.

[Kerbart]

1 hour ago, ShotgunNinja said:

Modpacks could be implemented as simple CKAN packages 'requiring' a set of mods.

The problem regarding "low effort mod packs" lies mainly with mod creators, for reasons. A Venn diagram showing "problems mod creators have with Mod Packs and with CKAN would look more like this: O than like this: OO

[ShotgunNinja]

8 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

The problem regarding "low effort mod packs" lies mainly with mod creators, for reasons. A Venn diagram showing "problems mod creators have with Mod Packs and with CKAN would look more like this: O than like this: OO

There would be no difference for the mod author if their mod was installed by the user selecting it on CKAN manually, or as part of the automatic dependency selection of CKAN packages. The end result is that the 'modpack curator' is only shipping metadata, and the individual mods can still be kept updated using the facilities CKAN offer.

[DoctorDavinci]

20 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

There would be no difference for the mod author if their mod was installed by the user selecting it on CKAN manually, or as part of the automatic dependency selection of CKAN packages. The end result is that the 'modpack curator' is only shipping metadata, and the individual mods can still be kept updated using the facilities CKAN offer.

There would be a difference as there are many modders out there who refuse to support ckan installs

And yes, there would be more work for modders created as they would end up spending some of the precious time they have just to tell users who are having problems with a ckan install to go talk to the ckan people

Personally I don't see why a mod pack creator can't just make a list of mods they use in the OP of a new thread with download links to each of the respective mods

Perhaps the moderators would consider opening a new area of the forum specifically for mod packs

[Galileo]

15 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Personally I don't see why a mod pack creator can't just make a list of mods they use in the OP of a new thread with download links to each of the respective mod

That would require more work than a mod packer would want to put in.

15 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Perhaps the moderators would consider opening a new area of the forum specifically for mod packs

This would still cause nothing but a flood of people coming to the original developer about problems that could arise in a mod pack. You could host the modpack on a foreign secret server in Madagascar and people would still find their way to the original developer. 

[DoctorDavinci]

Just now, Galileo said:

That would require more work than a mod packer would want to put in.

Touchè 

1 minute ago, Galileo said:

This would still cause nothing but a flood of people coming to the original developer about problems that could arise in a mod pack. You could host the modpack on a foreign secret server in Madagascar and people would still find their way to the original developer. 

Very true, however it would keep the 'packers' from flooding the addons section which, IMO, would help with the misunderstanding that 'packers' are modders 

[Galileo]

4 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Very true, however it would keep the 'packers' from flooding the addons section which, IMO, would help with the misunderstanding that 'packers' are modders 

Well that's not the problem I have with mod packers. I couldn't care less if others think of them as modders or not. I just don't want to have to clean up their messes (which is inevitable)

Edited March 18, 2017 by Galileo

[DoctorDavinci]

Just now, Galileo said:

Well that's not the problem I have with mod packers. I couldn't care less if others think of them as modders or not. I just don't want to have to clean up their messes (which is inevitable)

Agreed

[ForumUser]

I just looked back at this and I am sorry for all of this.