regex Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 5 minutes ago, soundnfury said: Getting rid of CKAN won't solve the "dumb users can't read" problem. It will, however, cause plenty of new problems, so at least the original problem will have lots of friends. No, things will go back to the way they were before CKAN. Manageable, without randos controlling distribution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ferram4 Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 17 minutes ago, soundnfury said: If I'm reading rightly, for instance, @ferram4 effectively said at one point that something like CKAN was only acceptable if it never made a mistake. Not "strives to minimise mistakes", not "fixes mistakes when they're spotted / reported"; no, apparently it's unacceptable to have "issues that allow inaccurate metadata to be added and for any kinds of install errors to occur". In other words, CKAN is required to somehow guarantee that it will never have a bug and will catch any and all typos, thinkos, and other errors in metadata. In other words, CKAN should not introduce bugs beyond the ones that exist in the package itself. It should not be a less effective means of installing mods than following manual instructions. Unreasonable? From the perspective of a CKAN author or a user, absolutely. From the perspective of someone who has had to deal with these issues with no recourse, the only responses being, "you know, there wouldn't be problems if you fixed the metadata for us" or "you can just change your license" and hope that there are no hostile forks and the support requests don't come to me, this isn't so unreasonable. The only way for support to be as low as before CKAN was introduced is for it to be perfect, especially considering it has the large deficit to make up every time it does fail and the install issues are compounded well beyond what a single user could ever hope to do. Were there more courtesy involved in handling CKAN issues, it wouldn't be necessary for my attitude to be that CKAN basically not exist from my perspective. Consider how many of these issues would be fixed by a staging repo. Or auditing metadata every time a NetKAN is inflated. Or having human eyes check problems that show up. None of these are done currently, and it's been nearly a year since CKAN first showed that it has serious metadata issues. Maybe when this is all over there can be a far more amicable agreement, like we almost had yesterday. 17 minutes ago, soundnfury said: Fun fact, @ferram4 mentioned how hard it was to get users to use his bug tracker... which isn't actually linked in his OP! Pretty sure I tried that once and it didn't get users to add issues to the github. Turns out that users take the path of least resistance. Probably got removed when I made the link to the CKAN support thread and was cleaning things up in the OP. I still get pretty much the same number of actual github issues as opposed to forum post issues as before so nothing has changed. Funny that. 7 minutes ago, soundnfury said: Getting rid of CKAN won't solve the "dumb users can't read" problem. It will, however, cause plenty of new problems, so at least the original problem will have lots of friends. And none of the demands have been about getting rid of CKAN. CKAN is quite fine existing so long as it causes minimal issues and provides some courtesy wrt modders when it does cause issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoverDude Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 @drhay53 - the compromise (one that was proposed, and seemed on the verge of being accepted until everything went south) was based on CKAN respecting modder's wishes regarding listing. As I stated before. There are issues. Issues we can solve with a conversation. But when a request as simple as 'well, I would not like this mod on CKAN please' is stonewalled, and the only recourse is to express intent through a license file while ignoring a direct request (despite the issue not being a license one), then that's a problem. Now. Maybe the CKAN folks will come around so we can get back to sorting the reason *why* someone would want to de-index a mod (either temporarily or permanently). There have already been some good proposals - staging areas, better tools, etc. - but when one side has absolutely zero motivation to pursue change, and the other side is essentially held captive, you're not going to have a healthy conversation. For me personally, a change in CKAN policy will mean I will immediately re-list the mods I have that are ready for distribution. And in time, some may be de-indexed as they are consolidated or retired, temporarily pulled down while I move bits around, or just left online in their stable state. And if there's a major problem, I'll be confident that there will be more enthusiasm for resolving issues precisely because the policies will encourage working through issues (either party can step away) vs. ignoring or downplaying them (you will participate whether you like it or not, and you will like it). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ferram4 Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 And like @RoverDude, if CKAN policy changes, CKAN installs will be supported again for FAR and my other mods, and I'll work with them, because I am assured to know that they have reason to be responsive without requiring the threat of license changes and full-on de-listing to even get a conversation started as we have right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drhay53 Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 @RoverDude I'm glad you picked up on the fact that I was not particularly taking sides, and thank you for explaining your part of the issue well. I did not know what's been proposed and so I try not to take sides too strongly, but at the same time, I'm upset by what's happening as a user who enjoys all of these mods and uses CKAN to make managing them possible for me. There was a day when I kept a document manually with all of my mods, links, and versions, and I surely don't want to go back. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt in the sense that I believe people understand when they're being unreasonable, even if pride or something else gets in the way of admitting it and coming to a solution. I just wanted to put a user's thought-out perspective out there that tries to convey how bad this conflict can be for the community, in the hopes of getting all major players in the situation to put aside pride or whatever else is holding them back and do what's best for the community as a whole, authors and users alike. My hope is that we'll come to a system where it's expected that mod authors will WANT to list their addons on whatever management system we have, as it's convenient for them to get exposure for their time and effort, and less work on them in managing it's distribution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundnfury Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 5 minutes ago, ferram4 said: In other words, CKAN should not introduce bugs beyond the ones that exist in the package itself. It should not be a less effective means of installing mods than following manual instructions. Unreasonable? From the perspective of a CKAN author or a user, absolutely. From the perspective of someone who has had to deal with these issues with no recourse, the only responses being, "you know, there wouldn't be problems if you fixed the metadata for us" or "you can just change your license" and hope that there are no hostile forks and the support requests don't come to me, this isn't so unreasonable. The only way for support to be as low as before CKAN was introduced is for it to be perfect, especially considering it has the large deficit to make up every time it does fail and the install issues are compounded well beyond what a single user could ever hope to do. Were there more courtesy involved in handling CKAN issues, it wouldn't be necessary for my attitude to be that CKAN basically not exist from my perspective. Despite protestations to the contrary, you clearly place non-zero value on your mods being used by others, else you wouldn't share them at all. Moreover, the "SNR" argument implies that 'real' bug reports have value to you. Thus, a fairer criterion for acceptability would be that CKAN provides you with more benefit in terms of CKAN users finding non-CKAN-caused bugs than cost in terms of CKAN users reporting CKAN-caused breakage. Given how low the SNR is without CKAN problems, the ratio for CKAN users doesn't need to be raised all that high before it becomes a net improvement. Therefore, the "CKAN needs to be perfect else I hate it" position is unreasonable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Blue Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 Funny... I was just reading up on Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) , an open license, and spotted THIS at the bottom... Seems relevant, and its funny how people on the open-source side do not seem to have noticed "The Fine Print": Notices: You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation. No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ferram4 Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 2 minutes ago, soundnfury said: Thus, a fairer criterion for acceptability would be that CKAN provides you with more benefit in terms of CKAN users finding non-CKAN-caused bugs than cost in terms of CKAN users reporting CKAN-caused breakage. Given how low the SNR is without CKAN problems, the ratio for CKAN users doesn't need to be raised all that high before it becomes a net improvement. CKAN users are, in my experience, not a group that provides valuable bug reports compared to manual users. I say this as someone who had a lot of manual users before CKAN existed who were a lot more useful. CKAN users introduction has not improved the SNR because I had a better SNR before CKAN existed. Despite CKAN supporters insistence to the contrary, CKAN is a net increase in support workload for me that I don't benefit from. I really don't know why you guys keep insisting that it's a good thing for me when I had the only install errors that happened prior to CKAN existing sorted and CKAN has only added new and exciting ways for it to fail. So much for that. And ultimately, this distracts from the problem which is: even if CKAN was a great and wonderful improvement to my support workload (hah) I have no recourse in dealing with them on the support issues they do cause because they lack incentive to address the issues. Because they would like to try and turn a courtesy issue into a legality issue only. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anxcon Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 CC isnt for code Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DuoDex Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 @RoverDude I think you're not giving the CKAN types enough credit. We've just seen major changes to their indexing policy, @politas has expressed his willingness to try and repair CKAN's relations with you, and a FOSS mod has recently been indexed by request of the author. Let's just all keep our fingers away from the "NUKE CKAN" button. It's still a very useful tool and watching it collapse would cause more harm than good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anxcon Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 everyone will kiss and make up in a few days and things will go back to normal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundnfury Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 (edited) 42 minutes ago, ferram4 said: Consider how many of these issues would be fixed by a staging repo. Or auditing metadata every time a NetKAN is inflated. Or having human eyes check problems that show up. A staging repo would probably fix none, or at least not enough to justify the human effort required. It can only help if someone tests it with the right combination of other mods to produce the conflict. One hopes that all submitted .ckan files have at least been install-tested by their author — if not, maybe CKAN should start blacklisting people whose (third-party) submissions fail to install on vanilla, and not take PRs from them in future. As for the NetKAN system, I have to admit I don't like it — I think automated packaging without human intervention is a pipe-dream. I think the right policy for CKAN to take here is that they should only accept NetKAN submissions from the mod author, because no-one else can know whether the metadata NetKAN sees will be accurate for its needs. Whereas, I still think it's fine to accept .ckan submissions from third parties, and I don't believe that should require the author's consent (unless the author actively maintains their own CKAN metadata, in which case they should have the option to disallow third-party interference). Regarding your third point, I don't know what you're asking for that doesn't already happen. Edited June 25, 2016 by soundnfury Clarification: If an author actively maintains their .ckan metadata, I'm fine with not allowing randoms to change it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoverDude Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 4 minutes ago, DuoDex said: @RoverDude I think you're not giving the CKAN types enough credit. We've just seen major changes to their indexing policy, @politas has expressed his willingness to try and repair CKAN's relations with you, and a FOSS mod has recently been indexed by request of the author. Let's just all keep our fingers away from the "NUKE CKAN" button. It's still a very useful tool and watching it collapse would cause more harm than good. Fair enough On the one hand, I hope that now that there are conversations taking place, they continue to move in a direction that fosters equal cooperation, and equal skin in the game. Like @ferram4, I regret that it took several licensing 'tactical nukes' to make this happen, but I am hopeful we can land in a decent place. The pull request from @politas was a very good one, and sorts a key issue, which means focus can move on to the best way to support issues that do arise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjl1966 Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 3 minutes ago, DuoDex said: @RoverDude I think you're not giving the CKAN types enough credit. We've just seen major changes to their indexing policy, @politas has expressed his willingness to try and repair CKAN's relations with you, and a FOSS mod has recently been indexed by request of the author. Let's just all keep our fingers away from the "NUKE CKAN" button. It's still a very useful tool and watching it collapse would cause more harm than good. While we're at it, perhaps it's prudent to acknowledge that it *can* be nuked by the people without whom it would not exist: the devs. I have yet to see an acknowledgement that their concerns are at least understood. Without their content, CKAN has no purpose. We should pause for a moment and remember that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Blue Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 (edited) 8 minutes ago, anxcon said: CC isnt for code Ok... The one word in the whole thing, and why I posted it was: " For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material." Just to illustrate just because something CAN be legally done, does NOT meant it SHOULD be done... And this is off about as open a license you can get... Edited June 25, 2016 by Stone Blue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cantab Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 21 minutes ago, ferram4 said: In other words, CKAN should not introduce bugs beyond the ones that exist in the package itself. It should not be a less effective means of installing mods than following manual instructions. Well, realistically any mod manager, or any other software, will occasionally screw up. (I still remember the Ubuntu update that completely broke the GUI for the entire operating system.)But I feel that CKAN's policies in the past have failed to give you and other developers confidence that such screw-ups are unlikely. 24 minutes ago, ferram4 said: Pretty sure I tried that once and it didn't get users to add issues to the github. Turns out that users take the path of least resistance. Probably got removed when I made the link to the CKAN support thread and was cleaning things up in the OP. I still get pretty much the same number of actual github issues as opposed to forum post issues as before so nothing has changed. Funny that. Personally, the reason I come to the forum thread first is because if I have a problem with FAR I typically don't know it's a 'bug' straight away, and my default assumption is that it's not. (Also, Github expects me to read three thousand words of legalese before signing up and I haven't got round to that yet.) 5 minutes ago, Stone Blue said: Funny... I was just reading up on Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) , an open license, and spotted THIS at the bottom... Seems relevant, and its funny how people on the open-source side do not seem to have noticed "The Fine Print": Point to make here, the "non commercial" CC licenses are not Open Source or Free Software, by the definitions of the OSI and FSF respectively. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundnfury Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 6 minutes ago, ferram4 said: CKAN users are, in my experience, not a group that provides valuable bug reports compared to manual users, I realise this. I was merely pointing out that your demand that it be perfect was a little over-the-top. For instance, if we could find ways to improve the behaviour of CKAN users, then the occasional CKAN mis-install wouldn't be such a problem. IOW, you made a statement that was strictly and technically false, and I'm a terrible pedant who can't let such things pass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Blue Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 Just now, cantab said: Point to make here, the "non commercial" CC licenses are not Open Source or Free Software, by the definitions of the OSI and FSF respectively. Ok... I am misunderstanding the specifics of the particular license then... Does it invalid my point, though? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoverDude Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 What CKAN has at the moment is a courtesy issue not a license one. Let's see if this PR gets merged. https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/commit/c6ec1e887c51fd7f88d1b5335b4ab2b5aecdabf8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundnfury Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 5 minutes ago, Stone Blue said: " For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material." Just to illustrate just because something CAN be legally done, does NOT meant it SHOULD be done... And this is off about as open a license you can get... Actually, the phrase "moral rights" in this context refers to a specific legal doctrine in some countries such as the right of attribution or the right of integrity. See this handy Wikipedia article. At least in the UK, these rights only obtain if they have been 'asserted'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Blue Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 13 minutes ago, soundnfury said: Actually, the phrase "moral rights" in this context refers to a specific legal doctrine in some countries such as the right of attribution or the right of integrity. See this handy Wikipedia article. At least in the UK, these rights only obtain if they have been 'asserted'. AGAIN, does this invalidate my point? It seems there is a large segment of the community that doesnt understand the simple words: JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE EVERY LEGAL RIGHT TO DO SOMETHING.... DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD DO IT.... Everyone keeps pointing out and specifying the letter of licensing law.... THIS WHOLE ARGUMENT, while in part is based on the legalities, the LEGALITIES ARE NOT THE REAL ISSUE HERE.... Modders are NOT denying they have used open licenses and it is with in CKANs right to do what they are doing.... But since CKAN does not seem to want to admit or address there is a MORAL or ETHICAL aspect to what they are doing, THAT is what is turning modders away... And now whether the CKAN team knows it or not, the WHOLE KSP community is about to suffer... Modders are NOT denying CKAN has the right to do what they are doing... However, they are saying if you continue to do what you are doing, and not consider MORAL or ETHICAL aspects, keep practicing your RIGHT to do what you do with mods that allow it thru licensing... But do not be surprised, or take umbrage with modders who have THEIR right to deny CKAN the ability to make their lives harder... Yes, something can be done LEGALLY... However there are still CONSEQUENCES of those actions under the law... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundnfury Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 1 minute ago, Stone Blue said: AGAIN, does this invalidate my point? It seems there is a large segment of the community that doesnt understand the simple words: JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE EVERY LEGAL RIGHT TO DO SOMETHING.... DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD DO IT.... And you, sir, completely miss my point: that the "moral rights" mentioned in that CC license have absolutely nothing to do with the argument you are making. That doesn't mean your argument is wrong. It just means that you were factually incorrect, and I corrected you, because I am a pedant. Please try not to take my pedantry quite so personally... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kerbart Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 One can mince legal words but the fact is that in its current setup, CKAN is biting the hand that it feeds. It is generally unwise to let such a situation continue for too long. The modders can do without CKAN; CKAN cannot do without the modders. That presents an uneven balance, as the modders have the nuclear option and CKAN does not. Hence, it's up to CKAN to fix the problem, whether they like it or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
`Orum Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 3 minutes ago, Stone Blue said: JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE EVERY LEGAL RIGHT TO DO SOMETHING.... DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD DO IT.... Everyone keeps pointing out and specifying the letter of licensing law.... THIS WHOLE ARGUMENT, while in part is based on the legalities, the LEGALITIES ARE NOT THE REAL ISSUE HERE.... Modders are NOT denying they have used open licenses and it is with in CKANs right to do what they are doing.... But since CKAN does not seem to want to admit or address there is a MORAL or ETHICAL aspect to what they are doing, THAT is what is turning modders away... And now whether the CKAN team knows it or not, the WHOLE KSP community is about to suffer... No, law is amoral, it says nothing about what you should or shouldn't do. The point of a license is to express your intent, and if your license fails to enforce what you "want" people to do, then perhaps you should have picked a different license or written your own. One cannot simply expect CKAN to know that you do or do not want your mod listed, so simply spell it out in black and white and this entire issue could have been avoided. It's not about understanding the words, or being nice/mean, you as a developer should assume anyone can and will do whatever they are permitted to by your license, and should write or choose a license accordingly. To release something that allows said rights, and then get upset when people exercise those rights is hypocrisy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Blue Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 Just now, soundnfury said: It just means that you were factually incorrect, and I corrected you, because I am a pedant. Please try not to take my pedantry quite so personally... Very well, I DID get that you implied this, and that I posted an incorrect or irrelevant fact in err, however my argument still stands, as far as I am concerned... It was not so much you, specifically, that I was saying is holding firm to the legality issue... You were just the latest in a long line, and i heatedly tried to re-iterate my stance... And by using an incorrect FACT, it sort of backfired... lol So, No, @soundnfury, NOT taken personally... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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