Kerbal Stuff Closed to the public

[cantab]

3 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Please be sure to honor the licenses that do not permit redistribution.

Surely the horse fled *that* stable when the torrent was released.

[inigma]

2 hours ago, Yemo said:

Thought that money at least was a small part of it, but @SirCmpwn said in chat just an hour ago or so, that money was irrelevant (so no interest in patreon and so on from his side). As far as I can tell, it was the reaction of squad ("none") and the community (criticism when something did not work, ignorance when everything worked).

Maybe all his site needed was a "like" button.

I really hope he reconsiders shutting it down. Quitting is easy.

For now we on the SpaceDock team will do our best to get things moving along. 

With the arbitrary shutdown, I just wonder if @SirCmpwn realizes that he may have inadvertently justified one of Squad's initial reasons for using Curse. Curse is not prone to shut down due to personal grievances. Unfortunately this shutdown does not add to the positive track record for community managed fan sites, and quite possibly will make it harder for any such project to ever secure an endorsement in the future.

@SirCmpwn could still turn this around, by turning the site back on and work on building a team so he doesnt get burned out and can ensure continuity, but whatever he decides to do with KerbalStuff is of course up to him. 

Edited February 16, 2016 by inigma

[Joshwoo70]

3 minutes ago, cantab said:

Surely the horse fled *that* stable when the torrent was released.

Explain cantab?

EDIT:Meaning that licenses were revoked?

Edited February 16, 2016 by Joshwoo69

[Red Iron Crown]

6 minutes ago, cantab said:

Surely the horse fled *that* stable when the torrent was released.

Indeed. We've been giving the torrent a pass due to the sudden nature of KerbalStuff being taken down, but there's a qualitative difference between SirCmpwn finding a low bandwidth way to keep the data available and someone rehosting mods at a more permanent location.

This is a sticky situation and we'd appreciate it if people could do their best to honor the wishes of modders as expressed in their licenses.

[cantab]

Bittorrent makes everyone who downloads a torrent also redistribute it, even if they don't seed after the download completes. So if there are mods with licenses prohibiting redistribution, well those licenses are being broken right now by everyone in the torrent's swarm. Though there may be the defence that it's not even possible to *read* the licenses any more without downloading the torrent.

[razark]

Is enforcing licenses for third-party add-ons on third-party sites within Squad's responsibility?

I can see Squad taking the position of "if the license is being violated, thou shalt not discuss it here", but can (or should) they enforce it any further?

[Seeker89]

KerbalStuff closing is pretty sad. I didn't really notice till today when I decided to get back into it, but oh well I guess I'll wait till it's replaced or go through all my mods... 

[Frybert]

2 minutes ago, razark said:

Is enforcing licenses for third-party add-ons on third-party sites within Squad's responsibility?

I can see Squad taking the position of "if the license is being violated, thou shalt not discuss it here", but can (or should) they enforce it any further?

I'm pretty sure that was the donkey RIC was trying to cover.

[Ghost2501]

4 hours ago, Badie said:

that's why we try to do the best for you guys. However, this is something out of our control.

And yet you chose Curse...

[Andem]

2 minutes ago, Ghost2501 said:

And yet you chose Curse...

Welcome to the forums! I am a little saddened that your first post was here in a little noxious pit in the community, but what's done is done. Curse is what it is, (Literally IMPO) and a third party shutting down should not mean that the entire Mod using community has a grudge match over curse, regardless of our own opinions on the subject.

[daniel l.]

2 minutes ago, Ghost2501 said:

And yet you chose Curse...

Ikr? Its laggy and so loaded with ads that you feel cramped! Not to mention Orange is nowhere near the kerbals favorite color, And the UI is ridiculously hard to use! I understand the old Spaceport was bad but really? ONE community member created a mod site that literally took the wind out of SQUAD's sails! If SQUAD was actually trying to serve the community in getting rid of spaceport they would have made something similar to kerbalstuff rather than paired up with some crappy site that had nothing at all to offer but money! 

[NecroBones]

4 hours ago, Yemo said:

Thought that money at least was a small part of it, but @SirCmpwn said in chat just an hour ago or so, that money was irrelevant (so no interest in patreon and so on from his side). As far as I can tell, it was the reaction of squad ("none") and the community (criticism when something did not work, ignorance when everything worked).

 

As a SysAdmin, I understand his frustration--- But having said that, it just comes with the territory of running a system that has users. When everything works, no one really notices. When things break, suddenly it's a crisis. And everyone has an opinion about what sucks, and what could be better. A publicly facing system is going to have these issues. Frustrating or not, it's just reality.

 

1 hour ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Please be sure to honor the licenses that do not permit redistribution.

That's being discussed in the "file pruning" issue on the GitHub discussion about pruning the list (assuming it's publicly accessible): https://github.com/KSP-SpaceDock/KerbalStuff-Reborn/issues/7  (as far as the Spacedock site is concerned)

 

Edited February 16, 2016 by NecroBones

[Corax]

7 hours ago, KasperVld said:

Aside from all the legal difficulties (for example: people who registered with KerbalStuff never agreed to have their account data shared with Squad) we already offer a mod repository in partnership with Curse. It makes no sense to compete with a platform we support. Furthermore, Kerbalstuff has always been a community website and it was initiated and marketed as such. Finally, any move to take it over now would cause problems with the community initiative that's already being undertaken to create a new version of KerbalStuff. Oh and then there's the logistics of acquiring hosting for the website, moderators and admins to moderate the new and existing content on the website et cetera.

If taking over Kerbal Stuff were to be a viable option we needed to have been notified a long time prior to the website shutting down, which didn't happen.

What I'm really trying to say is that it's far more complicated than people might think initially.

"all the legal difficulties" have never really stopped anyone - nobody asked me whether I'd be OK with Microsoft or Ebay getting my account data for Skype, or Ebay for PayPal, or Google for YouTube, or Yahoo for del.icio.us, or Condoleezza Rice for Dropbox... and that's just off the top of my head, and there are many, many, many more which I can't even remember, or didn't even notice.

I don't say they should, but if Squad really were interested in taking Kerbalstuff under their wings, I'm certain there would be a way, even on such a short notice.

Maybe in the future Squad could be a bit more supportive of services the community offers to each other, instead of plain ignoring them, even though they are currently in bed with a Curse. Rise... and shine ; )

[ShadowZone]

I am pretty sure Squad would like to focus on getting KSP 1.1 done and are very happy that somebody else, be that Curse, Kerbalstuff or Spacedock, is taking care of curating all those mods.

And you know what? I am all for that.

[Alex G]

57 minutes ago, ShadowZone said:

I am pretty sure Squad would like to focus on getting KSP 1.1 done and are very happy that somebody else, be that Curse, Kerbalstuff or Spacedock, is taking care of curating all those mods.

And you know what? I am all for that.

Very well said. 

[boborene]

1. Curse is cursed.

2. CKAN was almost mandatory for me to play KSP.

3. Sorry to say, but ksp stock is stock. Mods made ksp the jewelry for what I had payed.

4. Kerbal core peoples are in denial, blinded by marketing and yesman managers.

 

Not anymore to dispute.

[MerlinsMaster]

16 hours ago, technicalfool said:

 there were very, very few people who exclusively hosted on KerbalStuff (or Curse, come to think of it), and I'm hoping they are realising their rather drastic mistake about now.

Actually, I've been going to the forum pages of all of the mods that I have installed and want to install soon, and there are a large number of them that are exclusively hosted on Kerbalstuff, so it's not really that simple.

Until this thing is resolved, these mods will simply be unavailable.

[MerlinsMaster]

I think the issue that I have with Curse is that it doesn't allow CKAN access to its API, which is Curse's perogative, but makes it less than useless if you use CKAN.

[Squiggsy]

This makes me really sad. But I feel it's a bit odd that he says it was a thankless task and people never appreciated his work when there never even seemed to be a way to tell him we appreciated it. I never knew his name/screen name, it wasn't anywhere on the site, the site didn't provide any method of saying thanks like a forum or chat. I really loved that website and the work he did for it but I feel like if you stay in near total anonymity it's only natural that people aren't going to show you their appreciation for what you do, because they can't.

[daniel l.]

The problem with curse in general is that it is buggy, Ad infested, And its UI is confusing as hell, And think what the maker of kerbalstuff did, Just one man made a nearly bug free, User friendly, Ad free, And Virus free Site. SQUAD has a whole team of people, There is no reason why they couldnt have made something even better, And yet they moved to curse, Why?, Because curse is riddles with ads! Ads make money! Squad in making that decision abandoned any care for those who played their game so they could make even more money. And when kerbalstuff came along the first thing it did was cut deeply into the revenues, And as such SQUAD showed it no remorse when it shut down, Because now they thought we would finally move entirely to curse, And then they would have full revenue from the ads.

Its good that the community is reviving kerbalstuff as Spacedock.info because as long as spacedock takes of as fast as kerbalstuff did, Squad wont get its ill gotten boost.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, daniel l. said:

The problem with curse in general is that it is buggy, Ad infested, And its UI is confusing as hell, And think what the maker of kerbalstuff did, Just one man made a nearly bug free, User friendly, Ad free, And Virus free Site. SQUAD has a whole team of people, There is no reason why they couldnt have made something even better, And yet they moved to curse, Why?, Because curse is riddles with ads! Ads make money! Squad in making that decision abandoned any care for those who played their game so they could make even more money. And when kerbalstuff came along the first thing it did was cut deeply into the revenues, And as such SQUAD showed it no remorse when it shut down, Because now they thought we would finally move entirely to curse, And then they would have full revenue from the ads.

Its good that the community is reviving kerbalstuff as Spacedock.info because as long as spacedock takes of as fast as kerbalstuff did, Squad wont get its ill gotten boost.

The site that I've been using to get my mods, http://kerbal.curseforge.com/, is also bug free, user friendly, ad free, and virus free, and here is the big one, is still online and working fine.

And here is the rub, I am soooooo tired of seeing posts like this that bash Squad for doing what they needed to do. Well, I've got some news for ya. Squad could end all of this crap now, very easily, at any time. Yet they allow you to come here and express your opinion, even though posts like yours are looking to me like a well organized propaganda campaign. They could also end this crap very easily, at any time by just taking some of the money they have made and investing in Denuvo, closing down the game to modding all together. And you also seem to ignore the fact that Squad has in fact invested money in the modding community several times. Many of the developers working on 1.1 as we speak were once modders. I just hope enough people are able to see for themselves the real truth, Squad is not the bad guy. They aren't the ones who hold grudges. They aren't the ones that took their ball home crying when they didn't get what they wanted.

 

Edited February 16, 2016 by technicalfool
Just a little snip.

[Joshwoo70]

39 minutes ago, Otis said:

-snip-

 

Totally agreed. people should stop complaining about what squad is doing and deal with it. 

Edited February 16, 2016 by Joshwoo69
People.

[OrtwinS]

 

8 hours ago, inigma said:

With the arbitrary shutdown, I just wonder if @SirCmpwn realizes that he may have inadvertently justified one of Squad's initial reasons for using Curse. Curse is not prone to shut down due to personal grievances. Unfortunately this shutdown does not add to the positive track record for community managed fan sites, and quite possibly will make it harder for any such project to ever secure an endorsement in the future.

Unfortunately true. Not just because of the shut down, but mostly the way he did it.

 

8 hours ago, inigma said:

I really hope he reconsiders shutting it down. Quitting is easy.

...

@SirCmpwn could still turn this around, by turning the site back on and work on building a team so he doesnt get burned out and can ensure continuity, but whatever he decides to do with KerbalStuff is of course up to him. 

Reconsidering is not possible, not after this huge dramatic crash, 'burn-the-bridges' and 'leave a note with accusations'.

If he had put up a note and/or started a forum thread: 'server funds needed',  'help wanted!' or something similar this might have been prevented. 

 

 

Unfortunately this kind of thing happens more often. 

An individual who builds and maintains a system that grows very popular.  Little to no compensation or acknowledgement (and a continious financial drain).

After months of internal battle between feelings of frustration and responsibility, anger and love, etc. it goes BOOM. 

[Red Iron Crown]

3 hours ago, daniel l. said:

The problem with curse in general is that it is buggy, Ad infested, And its UI is confusing as hell, And think what the maker of kerbalstuff did, Just one man made a nearly bug free, User friendly, Ad free, And Virus free Site. SQUAD has a whole team of people, There is no reason why they couldnt have made something even better, And yet they moved to curse, Why?, Because curse is riddles with ads! Ads make money! Squad in making that decision abandoned any care for those who played their game so they could make even more money. And when kerbalstuff came along the first thing it did was cut deeply into the revenues, And as such SQUAD showed it no remorse when it shut down, Because now they thought we would finally move entirely to curse, And then they would have full revenue from the ads.

Its good that the community is reviving kerbalstuff as Spacedock.info because as long as spacedock takes of as fast as kerbalstuff did, Squad wont get its ill gotten boost.

Hard to know where to start with this, but I'll try:

- Squad does not earn ad revenue from Curse. As I understand it the arrangement does not have money exchanged between Squad and Curse. Curse pays for its staff and server/bandwidth costs through ad revenue, though you are free to use the Curseforge site with fewer ads or just block ads altogether.(Another way to look at this is Squad gave KerbalStuff exactly the same financial support it gives Curse )

- KerbalStuff did not affect Squad's revenue, because of the above.

- Squad has expressed remorse at the shutdown of KerbalStuff. Why wouldn't they? Any fansite supporting the game is a good thing, generally speaking.

- No one expects everyone to move to Curse now that KS is gone. There have always been other hosting options than KerbalStuff and Curse, and that remains unchanged. And it's looking like another KS-equivalent site will be online soon, which just about everyone thinks is a good thing. More hosting options is strictly better than fewer.

[Jabbman]

Thanks for the clarity.

I'd be interested to see how much revenue Curse gains from being Squads partner.

What is Squad gaining from endorsing Curse?

And, if Curse is making profit from the work of Squad and the community, shouldn't Squad be gaining something in return?

Could Squad bring community mod distribution in-house and retain profit for themselves?