[1.8.1-1] [PLEASE FORK ME] Kopernicus & KittopiaTech

[Vanamonde]

Keep in mind that mod makers are unpaid volunteers, and that they have other commitments. They update when they are able, and when they feel like it. Mod use is on a take it or leave it basis. No one has a right to insist on anything more from the mod makers. Makers and users must abide by the licensing rules. If you don't like that, don't use the mod. 

[Nightside]

1 hour ago, Vanamonde said:

Keep in mind that mod makers are unpaid volunteers, and that they have other commitments. They update when they are able, and when they feel like it. Mod use is on a take it or leave it basis. No one has a right to insist on anything more from the mod makers. Makers and users must abide by the licensing rules. If you don't like that, don't use the mod. 

True, but it is also a keystone of this community and so it’s fate should be fair game for (non-obnoxious) discussion.

Edited June 21, 2020 by Nightside
Clarify acceptable types of discussion

[Quoniam Kerman]

4 hours ago, Alexoff said:

It seems to me that the creator of the mod could express himself, I'm not sure that he needs lawyers. The fact is that the game updates faster than kopernicus that is blocked for new versions. And the game often spoils the save when updating. In two weeks, the next version of the game will be released, and then what? Will we ask each other to be patient before the release of KSP 2?

I don't know from wich country the modder is but you know that we are in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, right? What if he or someone of his family has the disease and can't access his computer or is too tired or unavailable for the moment? It could take some time.

Edited June 21, 2020 by Quoniam Kerman

[Vanamonde]

The mod's fate is in the hands of its maker. No one else gets a say. That may be frustrating, but if you don't like it your remedy is to not use the mod. 

[Cubivore]

nevermind

Edited June 21, 2020 by Cubivore

[Vanamonde]

Fairness has nothing to do with it. The fact remains that you get access to a mod when and if the maker makes it available. No debate, discussion, or demands will change that. Either use the mod as-is or don't. Or, if you consider it essential, make your own alternative to it. We're not saying you have to like this. It's simply the reality of the situation. No one has a right to demand more from an unpaid volunteer. 

[SingABrightSong]

As with all mods, it will be updated when the authors darn well feel like it. Compile it yourself if you need it that much, but personally I've been moving away from using Kopernicus as it isn't needed for most visual overhauls anymore.

 

Addendum: It occurs to me that with it becoming increasingly common for users to compile their own versions of Kopernicus, the authors may be refraining from working in public.

Edited June 21, 2020 by SingABrightSong
Addendum

[Guest]

Except that kind of attitude helps nobody. Yes, the mod's fate is in the hands of its maker, what I'm saying is that we need a new maker, which is allowed by the very license (by which both users and mod makers) have to abide by. LGG had taken over many other mods which were abandoned by their authors, often without heaving a single a word from them. Just why would it be different for Kopernicus? LGPL was chosen by the original author precisely to prevent that sort of thing, and I'd say we should honor his wishes and keep the mod alive. Even if there's not a shred of Bryce's code left in this thing, he's still the original author. Why is it that community fixes and recompiles are OK for every mod but this one?

EDIT: In fact, let me jog your memory give you a history lesson:

The whole point of Kopernicus was to replace a mod that could not be maintained by the community. Maybe let's spare ourselves repeating the story of Planet Factory when a license doesn't actually stand in anyone's way. This whole mess, is completely and utterly against the author's wishes, because Kopernicus, at its conception, was free software. Free as in GPL, not just as in beer.

Edited June 21, 2020 by Guest

[Poodmund]

5 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

The mod's fate is in the hands of its maker. No one else gets a say. That may be frustrating, but if you don't like it your remedy is to not use the mod. 

That's actually completely false when you consider the licensing that this mod uses, of which the add-on rules of this forum have enforced upon it. The fate of this mod is in the hands of ANY community member that wishes to contribute their time, effort and capability to work on the mod.

The best remedy is not to 'not use the mod', the best remedy is to educate yourself in C# and invest a lot of time and effort to fork and contribute effectively towards development.

Please don't use such statements when talking about mods in this way as you are actively turning potential developers away from contributing.

Edited June 21, 2020 by Poodmund
Typo

[hendrack]

8 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

Why is it that community fixes and recompiles are OK for every mod but this one?

I'd say because Kopernicus is a lot more complex than a navball plugin updated to 1.9. This is not just a simple recompile, Kopernicus alters a lot of Unity inner workings I don't even want to understand. Do you want corrupted save files after months because of some bug?

I downgraded my KSP to 1.8 because I want to play JNSQ and I'd say 98% of the mods I use (about 200) work fine with 1.8, so I really don't understand the fuss about this.

Go ahead, fork it, you have my blessing. Let's see how that goes. 

 

[Guest]

I'm actually using the recompiled version from Git right now, and it works. I suppose I could post that in a separate thread, with appropriate licensing and credits, and then make the adjustments for 1.10. That said, I'm not the best person to do this, because I don't care about the other cruft that's not needed for JNSQ (and most other packs). I don't want to maintain features I don't use, and in fact, I'm not really that good at C#, so I'd likely dike them out and peddle that version as Kopernicus Lite. Multiple star packs and such would unfortunately get the shaft. If I still care enough about KSP by 1.10 and no one better suited steps up, I can probably do it, but don't expect me to develop it any further, just keep it working in JNSQ and maybe RSS. 

[vossiewulf]

I have a problem with the Trajectories mod is not showing up in-game, its button is missing from the toolbar. I asked in the Trajectories thread, the maker sent me here because of what I saw in my ksp.log. I'll quote the relevant part from the other thread:

Quote

I just started a new JNSQ 1.81 game and used CKAN to grab most of what I needed, including Trajectories. However, in game the Trajectories button does not appear on the toolbar. I'm using LGG's Toolbar Controller, btw.

Anyway, looking in the log all looks well...

[LOG 13:36:55.855] [TrajectoriesBootstrap] Trajectories loaded!

But then I see this: 

[LOG 13:41:19.735] [Kopernicus] Could not load 'C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Kerbal Space Program/KSP_x64_Data/../GameData/Trajectories\Plugin\Trajectories.bin'
[LOG 13:41:19.919] [Kopernicus] Could not load 'C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Kerbal Space Program/KSP_x64_Data/../GameData/Trajectories\Plugin\Trajectories13.bin'

...etc. through a series of .bin files. 

Those are the only log statements showing anything odd with respect to Trajectories, and its maker says he has no idea why Kopernicus would be trying to load his binaries, and to ask here. Can anyone explain why Kopernicus is trying to interact with Trajectories?

[Alexoff]

9 hours ago, Quoniam Kerman said:

I don't know from wich country the modder is but you know that we are in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, right? What if he or someone of his family has the disease and can't access his computer or is too tired or unavailable for the moment? It could take some time.

Or maybe the author has his own factory for the production of toilet paper or protective masks and now he has become fabulously rich and he is not up to the KSP.  If you look at the history of the mod, you can see how many different people  did it and they all left without a pandemic. And this was not only with this mod.

[The-Doctor]

I'm confused, is there something going on around the mod? Is there something going on with the mod maker etc?

[Nightside]

3 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

I have a problem with the Trajectories mod is not showing up in-game, its button is missing from the toolbar. I asked in the Trajectories thread, the maker sent me here because of what I saw in my ksp.log. I'll quote the relevant part from the other thread:

Those are the only log statements showing anything odd with respect to Trajectories, and its maker says he has no idea why Kopernicus would be trying to load his binaries, and to ask here. Can anyone explain why Kopernicus is trying to interact with Trajectories?

All I know is that Kopernicus caches it’s planet data in .bin files.

it looks like it found an unrelated .bin file in Trajectories.

[DeadJohn]

1 hour ago, The-Doctor said:

I'm confused, is there something going on around the mod? Is there something going on with the mod maker etc?

Some people are conjecturing because Kopernicus hasn't been updated to 1.9.1 yet. They are wondering whether the mod has been abandoned.

Other people are concerned that the mod will be abandoned if the mod maker is annoyed by too many questions.

[Alexoff]

Imagine that in two weeks 1.10 will be released and the module manager will stop working. And its creator for six months will go into the unknown. Will we all play vanilla without mods?

[Thomas P.]

12 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

The mod's fate is in the hands of its maker. No one else gets a say. That may be frustrating, but if you don't like it your remedy is to not use the mod. 

If that was true, Kopernicus would have died with KSP 0.25 or so, because its original creators left. If noone else would have a say, I would never have been able to fork it and start working on improving it. @Dragon01 also gave the example of PlanetFactory which scratches the same itch. As long as it stays respectful, people who want to advance independently from the main developer should not be silenced just because it might annoy the main developer.

The license explicitly allows forking, and I encourage forking it. The sad truth is that I have been done with KSP a long time ago, and I always tried to communicate it that way. I tried to keep Kopernicus updated as much as my time allowed it, but I reached a point where I don't have a lot of free time, and would prefer to use the time I have available to work on projects that I actually use and enjoy working on. I simply don't have the time and motivation to get the code for 1.9 into a shape where I would feel comfortable with releasing and supporting it. And adding to that, I dont want to push out releases without having the time and motivation to support them properly.

That's why you haven't seen, and probably won't see a 1.9 release from me (or a 1.1x release for that matter). I'm sorry for not communicating this better, but I've been trying to figure this out myself too for some time...

If someone wants to work on Kopernicus, and needs help with understanding how the code works and what it does, feel free to ping me on the Kopernicus Discord, open a GitHub issue, send a carrier pigeon, smoke signals etc. I'm happy to help with that. And if there is some specific problem that needs to be solved, and I have an idea for that, I'll even happily write the code for it. It's just the testing, release and support work that has become really painful for me to do, to the point where there are literally 1000 things I would rather do.

Again, sorry for not really communicating (and / or realizing, I guess?) that earlier....

So, please: Don't stop people from discussing how Kopernicus development could continue, or even moderate them, in the name of some "Thomas just needs time" crusade. The license allows you to fork and work on it. I want you to fork and work on it. Kopernicus deserves a maintainer who has no lost interest in KSP 4 years ago and just keeps maintaining it just because he feels responsible for it. People should have fun with development and maintainance, which sadly is something I lost a while ago.

[Tonka Crash]

13 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

Imagine that in two weeks 1.10 will be released and the module manager will stop working. And its creator for six months will go into the unknown. Will we all play vanilla without mods?

Vanilla has no appeal to me. Most of us that rely on mods would stay on 1.9 just like Kopernicus users have been playing on 1.8 for months. There will also always be the adventurous few that will figure out how to compile it on the new release and play whatever version they want.

@Thomas P. Thank you for clearly stating what's going on.  Understanding that updates will not be coming from you should hopefully encourage someone else to carry on with support for this mod.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Thomas P. said:

So, please: Don't stop people from discussing how Kopernicus development could continue, or even moderate them, in the name of some "Thomas just needs time" crusade. The license allows you to fork and work on it. I want you to fork and work on it. Kopernicus deserves a maintainer who has no lost interest in KSP 4 years ago and just keeps maintaining it just because he feels responsible for it. People should have fun with development and maintainance, which sadly is something I lost a while ago.

@linuxgurugamer, that's your cue!  

Seriously, though, thanks for coming and explicitly stating that. I'd recommend updating the OP or even the thread title with a "looking for a new home" type statement. This post will get buried in the thread, and it will just be back to business as usual. You can't count on peoples' initiative, especially given that more than a few potential new maintainers were dogpiled on in the past. If you state your wishes somewhere visible, we should have no more of that, and maybe someone will take maintaining the mod off your shoulders.

[Burning Kan]

@Thomas P. thanks for all u have done(make the universe a bit better),also in ksp

best wishes for your projects

live long and prosper

[Vanamonde]

8 hours ago, Poodmund said:

That's actually completely false when you consider the licensing that this mod uses, of which the add-on rules of this forum have enforced upon it. The fate of this mod is in the hands of ANY community member that wishes to contribute their time, effort and capability to work on the mod.

The best remedy is not to 'not use the mod', the best remedy is to educate yourself in C# and invest a lot of time and effort to fork and contribute effectively towards development.

Please don't use such statements when talking about mods in this way as you are actively turning potential developers away from contributing.

Which is why I said, 

Quote

Or, if you consider it essential, make your own alternative to it. 

But rather than do that, a number of people in this thread are trying to impose their demands on the makers of this mod. 

[Guest]

42 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

But rather than do that, a number of people in this thread are trying to impose their demands on the makers of this mod. 

Examples? Nobody is trying to impose anything on anyone, other than maybe the idea of passing the mod to someone else. In fact, people were being courteous more than anything, because there's nothing in LGPL that calls for anyone's permission to fork, and the idea behind it is exactly the opposite. If they weren't, someone would have just went and done a fork without asking, and it'd end up like last time someone tried to post a recompile in public.

"Make your own alternative" sounds like you're telling people they have to start a new plugin from scratch. This is how Kopernicus came to be, and the license was chosen exactly to prevent people from having to do that again. You're essentially going against the @BryceSchroeder's wishes here, which were plainly stated in the thread I linked to. I totally agree we should respect mod authors and their wishes, including the ones who no longer stick around here. 

[DasSkelett]

9 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

and it'd end up like last time someone tried to post a recompile in public.

There is a big difference between just recompiling the mod (only changing the version lock) and uploading the zipped binaries, and properly forking it, with own repository, own README, own forum thread to give support, changing the mod name (be it only adding "Continued") so users don't accidentally ask for support on the original thread, spending time properly testing it, doing actual development work...

The one recompilation you are probably speaking of was of the first type (at least initially), same with the recompilation that is currently passed around. And uploading binaries of LGPL-licensed source code without offering the source code for download IS violating this license, and it's definitely NOT the idea behind the license. On the contrary, it's there to prevent exactly that.

[prestja]

I'd be willing to upload a proper fork of Kopernicus, however I would like to call upon the knowledge of more experienced modders and developers who would be able to assist in said fork. Doing a simple recompile and version change is one thing, maintaining a mod for years to come is another.