Copyright Law is Ridiculous. How to better cope to it?

[Lisias]

Well... I inadvertently derailed a thread, so I choose to move my post to a new thread here and clean up the OP.  Source.

-- -- -- -- -- 

On 2/2/2020 at 11:21 PM, steve_v said:

That is, frankly, ridiculous.

The whole Copyright Law is ridiculous. But yet, it's the Law.

 

On 2/2/2020 at 11:21 PM, steve_v said:

Forking the repo / changing the license etc. etc. etc. for a compiled dll with zero code changes is insane. It's the exact same code as in the OP, so the same licences apply.

Our current Copyright Legislators are insane. We are being ruled by STEM illiterates that are abusing their position for funds from some big players of the industry.

It's the exact same code? You need to prove it - otherwise you risk a copyright strike. The law is cristal clear, it's up to the content distributor to prove he/she is following the license terms, and the only way to prove that is... Forking the repo and publishing the compiled DLL from there (or from a place where the you can link to the repository, so anyone can verify your copyright claims).

 

On 2/2/2020 at 11:21 PM, steve_v said:

Why I need to take ownership for clicking "build project" is beyond me. If this is what your rules imply, then your rules need a rethink lest we loose a bunch of perfectly functional but unmaintained mods.

It's not their rules. It's the Copyright Law. It was ruled that LINKING to a copyright infringement material is a infringement itself. Forum need to cover their SAS.

 

On 2/2/2020 at 11:21 PM, steve_v said:

Imagine if FOSS development worked this way... every single linux distro forking upstream repos just to be allowed to build them from source... madness.

Uh... But it essentially what's happen? Gentoo, Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE, all of them has their own repositories publishes from where they compile their code.

-- -- -- 

On a side note, perhaps you are being sarcastic and I missed the point?  

Edited February 8, 2020 by Lisias
Changing tittle.

[steve_v]

Since we're playing hide-and seek now:
 

Spoiler

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

It's the exact same code? You need to prove it - otherwise you risk a copyright strike.

How many toolchains can you name that support true reproducible builds?

Sticking your name in the accompaning source repo proves nothing unless you can checksum the binary against some utterly trusted copy or decompile it back to verifiable source code. Care to explain how being in the same git repo proves that a binary was compiled from the claimed source? You have the uploaders word, nothing more.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

Uh... But it essentially what's happen? Gentoo, Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE, all of them has their own repositories publishes from where they compile their code.

Gentoo often pulls directly from upstream repos, though it's being phased out due to security concerns.

The rest do build from their own repos,  but that's for patch management and testing purposes, not to avoid some supposed copyright claim.

 

Had I been asked to provide artribution and link to the source and license, that would have been justified, as that's what the licence requires. Nothing more, except that pesky "no additional restrictions" clause.

 

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by steve_v

[Lisias]

From the source:

 

4 hours ago, steve_v said:

How many toolchains can you name that support true reproducible builds?

Sticking your name in the accompaning source repo proves nothing unless you can checksum the binary against some utterly trusted copy or decompile it back to verifiable source code. Care to explain how being in the same git repo proves that a binary was compiled from the claimed source? You have the uploaders word, nothing more.

You can download and rebuild the thing. YOU can't prove nothing by itself, you can provide evidences and allow someone else to check it.

Even PGP works this way. All you can prove is that you used one specific private key to sign the code, someone else that both sides trust must tell that you are the owner of the respective public key.

FOSS works on a chain of trust: you fork the repo, you compile the thing and you publish the DLL in a place both sides trust. Then anyone can double check your claims.

 

4 hours ago, steve_v said:

Gentoo often pulls directly from upstream repos, though it's being phased out due to security concerns.

The rest do build from their own repos,  but that's for patch management and testing purposes, not to avoid some supposed copyright claim.

But they provide a like link to download their patches and another link telling you from where they are downloading the third-parties material, right?

Under FOSS rules, you are usually obliged to provide all the source you used to compile thing, and/or inform from where the user can do it.

But if you are using GPL, you have yet another problem: you still need to provide the source in the case the link you used to provide it goes down - and it's simple like that. You provide a DLL and the source you linked goes down, you are in copyright infringement (I think I had read something about this requirement being waved after 5 years or something like that).

On the specific case of the Contract Configuration, it's on the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 and one of the clausules says:

Quote

• Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

So you are still obliged to acknowledge the source - but granted, you do not need to provide the source yourself. But you are still obliged to tell you had changed the thing (or not).

The easiest way out is to fork the damn thing and let GitHub do the hard lift for you. And forum rules says that you are obliged to provide the source nevertheless to have it linked here.

 

4 hours ago, steve_v said:

Had I been asked to provide artribution and link to the source and license, that would have been justified, as that's what the licence requires. Nothing more, except that pesky "no additional restrictions" clause.

On that, if linking is equivalent to distributing as you say, then squad risks breaching the terms of the cc by-nc-sa this code licenced under, by applying additional restrictions.

Nope. Forum is private land, they rule what can or cannot be published here.

Forum is not restricting the right to compile and publish the material. Forum is restricting the material from being linked here. The dude are still entitled to publish the material anywhere else.

And keep in mind that besides CC doesn't provide a term demanding the publishing of the Source Code, some Software Licenses does that - and by failing to provide it the guy would be in license infringement (that so implies in copyright infringement). And since Law says that linking to copyright infringement material is an infringement itself, the safer way out of the mess is to demand publishing the source in a way that would prevent liability to Forum.

Some time ago people used to publish the source code on the same package that the binary, instead of pinpoint a public repository. That would do too, as it will both satisfies the worst case licensing scenario as well the Forum Rules.

But, yet, forking the thing and linking to it is way more practical - and you earn a place to publish the binary too instead having to use your private quotas from DropBox or Goggle Drive. But I digressed.   

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by Lisias
Tyops, as usulla... Better phrasing an argument.

[steve_v]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

You can download and rebuild the thing. YOU can't prove nothing by itself, you can provide evidences and allow someone else to check it.

Even PGP works this way. All you can prove is that you used one specific private key to sign the code, someone else that both sides trust must tell that you are the owner of the respective public key.

FOSS works on a chain of trust: you fork the repo, you compile the thing and you publish the DLL in a place both sides trust. Then anyone can double check your claims.

The only trust involved is the word of the hoster and hostee. You take J. Random coder's word that the binary he provides was compiled from the source repo he claims it was, not just swiped from some unrelated website and uploaded to his account. My word is that the binary I linked was compiled from the source repo specified a few pages prior in the same document.

I can't prove it any more than he can, and nobody can double check anything without verifiable builds or some fancy cryptographic signature that ties binaries to the source code and the coders DNA, none of which we have. So you're left with trust in human decency.

What you really appear to be claiming here is that there is some inherent trustworthiness conferred by having a repository hosted by a large organisation, and frankly I don't see it. As far as I am concerned content hosted on a private server is every bit as trustworthy or not as something hosted on github/bitbucket/whatever corporate poison you choose.

Github provides no evidence that a binary was compiled from particular source, or where the uploader got it. It'll tell you who uploaded it, insofar as logins can be trusted, but that's it.
The forum software here told you a login called steve_v linked a file, and my nextcloud server will tell you a login called steve uploaded it.
Who actually signed up for any of these accounts or how a file came about in the first place is completely unknown, the "evidence" is entirely comparable, and there is no chain of trust whatsoever.
Perhaps you trust [insert well-known hoster] more than the box on my desk, but neither can prove that my name isn't really Muck the Terrible, and that I didn't steal someone else's work/implant a rat/cover it in cat poison.

PGP suggests that you exchange keys in person, and provides a verifiable cryptographic chain of trust from then on. KSP addons are unsigned, unverifiable, and nobody goes to check the security of a modders github login in person... so where were you going with this comparison again?

 

 

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

they provide a like to download their patches and another link telling you from where they are downloading the third-parties material, right?

...

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

As the licence, attribution and link to source are available in the same forum thread, along with the rest of the components required to make the file I uploaded function, I assumed that would suffice for "any reasonable manner,". If I was wrong on that score, I'll be sure to make such information more explicit in future.

 

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

you are still obliged to tell you had changed the thing (or not).

Hence the use of the word "recompile" (which I'll be sure not to use in future as the mods clearly have an alert on it), rather than "modify".

 

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

Forum is private land, they rule what can or cannot be published here.

Indeed, thus "risk" not "are". It's still draconian, unreasonable, and apt to stifle development.

The "process" that "includes an updated licence" and  "sets up a public repository of your forked code", in the post snark linked bears no resemblance to either the official addon posting rules or the licence of the mod in question. In fact it appears to be little more than someone's personal and imposing interpretation, designed to discourage such activity.

As I read it, all I actually needed to do according to the addon posting rules was include the licence file in the archive, and perhaps change "don't bug nightingale about it" to "all credit nightingale".
Unless the definition of "every location you offer the plugin for download" WRT source code is individual posts rather than threads of course, in which case I should have linked to the original repo (as there are no code changes)... And mod authors can't post quick testing versions or recompiles in their threads without a new source link either - something which happens regularly.

 

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

forking the thing and linking to it is way more practical - and you earn a place to publish the binary too instead having to use your private quotas from DropBox or Goggle Drive. But I digressed.

I'll use equipment I own thanks, that way I can set up any hosting I like for free, without using any quota at all, and without dealing with filth like Microsoft, Dropbox or Google. But I also digress.

Edited February 3, 2020 by steve_v
Misspelling names is rude...

[Deddly]

The only problem I see in the recompile that you (@steve_v) provided (and in a number of other examples that others are involved in from time to time) is that, in this community, a recompile counts as republishing the mod. You say that the license allows it, so that's fine, but we generally only allow mods to be published/republished in a separate thread. And then, of course, source code and license etc need to be provided.

Although that might seem very strange from the standpoint of the open source community, from a moderator's perspective, this is very important. It's the best compromise we can manage in an attempt to balance free development, end-user experience, respecting mod creators and maintainers, and peace on the forum.

Are all of these aspects important? Not to everyone, no, so it's not ideal from any of those angles - it is, as I say, a compromise. But it's the best compromise we could come up with.

[Lisias]

2 hours ago, steve_v said:

The only trust involved is the word of the hoster and hostee. You take J. Random coder's word that the binary he provides was compiled from the source repo he claims it was, not just swiped from some unrelated website and uploaded to his account. My word is that the binary I linked was compiled from the source repo specified a few pages prior in the same document.

And then the linked repo changes name, or is deleted. And a copyright troll claims you are stealing this code. Good luck.

 

2 hours ago, steve_v said:

What you really appear to be claiming here is that there is some inherent trustworthiness conferred by having a repository hosted by a large organisation, and frankly I don't see it. As far as I am concerned content hosted on a private server is every bit as trustworthy or not as something hosted on github/bitbucket/whatever corporate poison you choose.

The trust is on how many eyes are looking into the repository and cloning it.

One can rebase the repository, "falsifying" timestamps on the commits (it's really easy on GIT, and one of the reasons I prefer Mercurial on professional works - you just can't do it on Mercurial, the older branch is archived and will be always available for inspection on the server!). The only defense you have against this is people cloning the repo, and you have way better chances to get the thing forked on a public repository.

Large organisations, usually, have a greater lifespan than personal hosting. So you are better served by cloning from there.

You must keep in mind: if someone challenge you on a copyright strike, it's yours the burden to prove you are right. It's way easier this way than your way.

 

2 hours ago, steve_v said:

The only trust involved is the word of the hoster and hostee. You take J. Random coder's word that the binary he provides was compiled from the
Github provides no evidence that a binary was compiled from particular source, or where the uploader got it. It'll tell you who uploaded it, insofar as logins can be trusted, but that's it.

You are getting it wrong. You are not protecting the downloader by doing it. You are protecting yourself.

It's your the SAS on the line, sir, not the downloader - he's getting what he had paid for, it's free as in beer, no guarantees.

All this stuff is needed by when people strikes you with copyright claims.

 

2 hours ago, steve_v said:

The forum software here told you a login called steve_v linked a file, and my nextcloud server will tell you a login called steve uploaded it.
Who actually signed up for any of these accounts or how a file came about in the first place is completely unknown, the "evidence" is entirely comparable, and there is no chain of trust whatsoever.

So Forum can't allow such a link to be published, as they would be liable in the case the download it's illegal.

Are you getting the point now?

 

2 hours ago, steve_v said:

PGP suggests that you exchange keys in person, and provides a verifiable cryptographic chain of trust from then on. KSP addons are unsigned, unverifiable, and nobody goes to check the security of a modders github login in person... so where were you going with this comparison again?

So do as PGP says, send the DLL in person instead of using Forum! 

Forum is a man in the middle. It's like a Key Repository for PGP, everybody must trust each other, or the thing just doesn't works. Forum needs to trust you that the DLL is license compliant, and the way to do that is forcing you to publish the code you used so anyone can inspect it.

Make no mistake, Forum is covering their SAS on it - not yours or mine. They just can't allow copyright infringement material being linked here - the costs of defending themselves from such a stunt would easily prompt TTI to shutdown this thing as the cheaper way out of the mess.

 

2 hours ago, steve_v said:

Indeed, thus "risk" not "are". It's still draconian, unreasonable, and apt to stifle development.

Agreed. But it's what they can do to protect themselves from Ridiculous and Insane Legislation™ the best (or less worst) they can.

 

2 hours ago, steve_v said:

The "process" that "includes an updated licence" and  "sets up a public repository of your forked code", in the post snark linked bears no resemblance to either the official addon posting rules or the licence of the mod in question. In fact it appears to be little more than someone's personal and imposing interpretation, designed to discourage such activity.

Not exactly. One thing that every license explicitly forbids is impersonating.

By recompiling the DLL and posting only the link to the DLL recompiled, there's not evidence that you had recompiled the thing other than the post on the forum. Had you changed the copyright claims on the AssemblyInfo.cs? No? So how one will tell your recompiled from the original author's one? If there's no way to tell the difference, you can be accused of impersonating the original author.

Do you want to take this risk? Forum doesn't.

If you ask me about my personals feelings about the need of doing that, I would promptly stay silent in order to avoid infringing the Rules 2.2 itens A, C, D, E and above all, G.

But yet, I can't blame them for doing that (besides cursing silently... hehehe).

 

2 hours ago, steve_v said:

As I read it, all I actually needed to do according to the addon posting rules was include the licence file in the archive, and perhaps change "don't bug nightingale about it" to "all credit nightingale".

Nope. You need to state what was changed ("I targetted 4.5, and linked against 1.8 DLLs - no source code was changed") too. And, ideally, changing the AssemblyInfo.cs so the DLL itself is marked somehow as being from yours, and not from the original author.

 

2 hours ago, steve_v said:

I'll use equipment I own thanks, that way I can set up any hosting I like for free, without using any quota at all, and without dealing with filth like Microsoft, Dropbox or Google. But I also digress.

And so, Forum needs to trust you in order to accept your link in the hope there's nothing malicious on your file. 

You see, Forum needs to have in you the same trust you need to have on Microsoft, Dropbox and Google.  

 

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by Lisias
Some entertaining grammars made less entertaining.

[steve_v]

1 hour ago, Deddly said:

in this community, a recompile counts as republishing the mod. You say that the license allows it, so that's fine, but we generally only allow mods to be published/republished in a separate thread.

Everywhere sane, republishing is either piracy or mirroring for the good of all, depending on the licence.

Apparently, in this twisted reality, republishing in a separate thread is seen as a hostile takeover attempt, and posting a quick fix in the existing ones is grounds for having posts deleted.
How exactly are we supposed to go about this kind of thing then? You're not exactly leaving many options, as far as I can see it's a choice between annoying the modders and annoying the mods... I'll leave it to your imagination as to which one gets my gratitude and respect in this situation.

 

1 hour ago, Deddly said:

that might seem very strange from the standpoint of the open source community

Strange is an understatement, I'm going with demented. Recompiling a piece of code does not change it's intent, function, licence or ownership. This is true by convention, common-sense, and everywhere open-source software is found bar here.
People come and go, they have holidays, sometimes a full-blown fork is unwarranted or met with hostility, and sometimes all that is needed is a quick rebuild. This is why we can't keep our nice things.
 

1 hour ago, Deddly said:

It's the best compromise we can manage in an attempt to balance free development, end-user experience, respecting mod creators and maintainers, and peace on the forum.

I see. By which you mean making your job easier at the expense of those without the knowledge to rebuild plugins themselves, and making things gratuitously tiresome for those who want to throw them a bone? This is why the less computer-savvy members of this community can't have nice things.

You'll note that the mod in question is CC licenced, it hasn't been updated since March 2018, and end-users were asking after it. I'm still not seeing how helping them out retarded free development, degraded end-user experience (ate your cat, anyone?), stepped on any author's toes, or created any strife on the forum...
The only strife I see here was instead caused by the reaction of a certain powerful few to my donation of free-time.

I think I'll spend my effort hacking on open source code in communities that respect the spirit as well as the letter of open software licences from now on, this place does nothing but harsh my buzz and spit in my face.
This place is why trying to mix proprietary software bureaucracy with open-source hobby hacker culture is a horrifying idea.

 

52 minutes ago, Lisias said:

And so, Forum need to trust you in order to accept your link in the hope there's nothing malicious on your file.

They seem to have a lot of blind and unwarranted trust in random github repos and whatever else google throws their way, I don't see how a private cloud instance is any different.
 

52 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Forum need have in you the same trust you have on Microsoft, Dropbox and Google.

I'd much sooner trust an individual than a corporation. Most individuals are basically decent.

Edited February 3, 2020 by steve_v
The case of the mysteriously absent "m"...

[micha]

I'm not sure exactly how your recompile was posted, @steve_v, as I'm late to this conversation (and apologies for my unwarranted butting in).

As far as this community is concerned, there are pretty clear guidelines on how to post addons.  The easiest way (in my experience) of posting a recompile is not to link directly to the binary, but rather to a repository / web page containing the download as a release (yes, this pattern is based on people using GitHub although not all mod developers do so) which includes all pertinent information (license, source code, readme, links to originals, etc) as required by the rules and the license.

Easiest of all is via a fork on GitHub for reasons already mentioned above, primarily because that is the most common usage patter in this community and hence the easiest to verify. I've done so numerous times in the past with minimal hassle. Both re-releasing a mod (officially taking over maintenance with the original author's permission) as well as a temporary "unofficial" (ie, without the original authors' permission) release while the original author was on hiatus (as per this situation).

I'm not sure what your private hosting looks like as the link was removed but I'm guessing you were linking straight to the DLL which, in this community, is not allowed. 

Whether or not that is "sane" in the context of overall FOSS is its own discussion; ultimately this is a commercial game so there are additional requirements when contributing to, hopefully, cover everybody in the case of a legal dispute.

Ultimately it would be a shame if you decide it's too much hassle to adhere to the additional requirements in order to contribute. As you said, there's plenty of non-technical players here who would love an interim "unofficial" release and would greatly benefit from your contribution until either someone takes over the mod or the author returns.

[Lisias]

38 minutes ago, steve_v said:

They seem to have a lot of blind and unwarranted trust in random github repos and whatever else google throws their way, I don't see how a private cloud instance is any different.

That random github repos are, statistically, way more cloned by individuals than private cloud instances. And so, they have more people in a position to testify for them.

You see, there's no digital proof for anything. All we have are evidences and testimonials.

 

38 minutes ago, steve_v said:

I'd much sooner trust an individual than a corporation. Most individuals are basically decent.

Me too. Being the reason I trust people that clone public repos from a large corporation, and not the large corporation that stores a private cloud instance!

 

38 minutes ago, steve_v said:

This place is why trying to mix proprietary software bureaucracy with open-source hobby hacker culture is a horrifying idea.

You have a point, but not exactly by this.  FOSS has its share of asinine legalese meant to protect themselves too.

Blame the game, not the gamers.

Edited February 3, 2020 by Lisias
Brute force post merging.

[Deddly]

1 hour ago, steve_v said:

Apparently, in this twisted reality, republishing in a separate thread is seen as a hostile takeover attempt, and posting a quick fix in the existing ones is grounds for having posts deleted.
How exactly are we supposed to go about this kind of thing then?

Republishing in a separate thread is usually the best way. People do that all the time. The original maintainer may well view that as a hostile takeover, but there are no rules against it (license permitting) - this is an example of the compromise that was necessary.

 

1 hour ago, steve_v said:

People come and go, they have holidays, sometimes a full-blown fork is unwarranted or met with hostility, and sometimes all that is needed is a quick rebuild. This is why we can't keep our nice things.

On the other hand, someone coming back and finding a recompile posted in their own thread is also a situation that can be met with hostility. At least by making your own thread, it keeps feedback/bug reports etc for the forked version away from the original thread. This is not ideal, but it causes fewer problems.

 

1 hour ago, steve_v said:

...making things gratuitously tiresome for those who want to throw them a bone? This is why the less computer-savvy members of this community can't have nice things.

It's either that or mod creators start getting so frustrated that they either give up entirely or change to a much more restrictive license, preventing any future development of their mod when they eventually stop working on it. That eventuality also leads to members of the community missing out in nice things.

 

1 hour ago, steve_v said:

You'll note that the mod in question is CC licenced, it hasn't been updated since March 2018, and end-users were asking after it. I'm still not seeing how helping them out retarded free development, degraded end-user experience (ate your cat, anyone?), stepped on any author's toes, or created any strife on the forum...

The only strife I see here was instead caused by the reaction of a certain powerful few to my donation of free-time.

Maybe in this instance, there wouldn't have been a problem of that sort. Maybe there would have - it's often impossible to judge that on a case-by-case basis, isn't it? We're all on our free time here - you, other helpful people, mod creators, and the moderators. I'm not saying everything is perfect, but I think everyone is doing their best. So far, I've only focused on the social aspects of the rules, which matter little to some users but are valued by the majority, and, like it or not, those are important values to most of us here. But then there's the legal aspect, which is really the theme of this thread: Is it legal to upload/link to a mod, or part of one, that is a derivative of one licensed as requiring accreditation, for example? What about other licenses with different requirements? None of us are legal experts here, but the rules were designed by people more knowledgable than you or me about legal issues, and they are set to avoid any of these problems.

The basic principles when distributing code are:

1. Comply with the existing license
2. State what the license is
3. Include the license with the download
4. Provide the source code

It's less convenient than just uploading and giving a link, but at least we all know it's legal that way and experience shows that it does cause fewer problems between creators.

 

[steve_v]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

And then the linked repo changes name, or is deleted. And a copyright troll claims you are stealing this code. Good luck.

Trolls file against open source all the time, and they get thrown out all the time. I'm not particularly concerned, and I'm even less concerned in the context of a small and relatively obscure piece of code for a game.

 

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

The trust is on how many eyes are looking into the repository and cloning it.

And what exactly is stopping me from running my own mercurial server? I'm sure people could clone that to wherever they wanted, if they wanted.
People host all sorts of stuff on platforms that don't support cloning at all, and they're not getting copyright strikes every day either.
 

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

Large organisations, usually, have a greater lifespan than personal hosting.

My personal hosting has been up, running from my desk in my house, for almost exactly as long as github... Admittedly I only got me a valid SSL cert recently, but that's only because people are getting all paranoid about that sort of stuff these days.
 

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

It's way easier this way than your way.

From a defending copyright point of view. From a computing freedom point of view, not so much. Also worth note is that copyright law where I live is marginally less screwed up than it is in the US, which may well be a point in favour of local hosting.

I am extremely sceptical that I would ever need to defend myself from a copyright infringement for recompiling some open source code such as the one in question anyway. Big popular project? It's a consideration. KSP plugin? I think not.

 

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

You are getting it wrong. You are not protecting the downloader by doing it. You are protecting yourself.

Oh, I see. That'll be that corporate bureaucracy  vs old school hacker culture bit again. How I can use my skills to help others is usually of greater concern than some remote and unlikely threat to myself. That's just how I think.

 

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

So Forum can't allow such a link to be published, as they would be liable in the case the download it's illegal.

As with any other hosting that allows people to open accounts without a background check. The forum allows links to dropbox / onedrive etc. does it not? Those are not cloned by large numbers of people, there's no way of knowing who really owns the code there, and I know of several mods that host downloads on them. How is a storage space on someone else's server any different from one on my own in this regard?

 

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

Forum needs to trust you that the DLL is license compliant, and the way to do that is forcing you to publish the code you used so anyone can inspect it.

Sure. I have no problem whatsoever with making sources available. But so long as the source is provided, what difference does it make who signed up for the account that hosts it, or what machine the disks are on?
Even if I had linked directly to a forked repo, there's no evidence to prove that I didn't just use one of my many internet-identities to open a repo, clone the authors code, and put an unrelated binary with a convincing name up there. How would that go for trust in licence compliance?
Linking upstream source is a thing all over the place, I sure see links to upstream source in the forum thread in question.
 

2 hours ago, Lisias said:

By recompiling the DLL and posting only the link to the DLL recompiled, there's not evidence that you had recompiled the thing other than the post on the forum. Had you changed the copyright claims on the AssemblyInfo.cs? No? So how one will tell your recompiled from the original author's one? If there's no way to tell the difference, you can be accused of impersonating the original author.

You mean aside from a fairly cursory inspection of the binary revealing that it's been built against .net assemblies several versions newer than the one on the github repo? Or the way I specifically mentioned the original author in the forum post, which happens to have been the only extant link to the file in question?
The licence in question is quite clear in that one may provide attribution and indication of modification in "any reasonable manner based on the medium, means, and context" Context : Good faith, without any claim of rights. Medium: posted on forum. Means: text in said forum post. Sounds pretty reasonable to me. The post in which my link was embedded stated the identity of the original author, made it clear that I am not he, and defined the modification I had performed.
 

2 hours ago, Lisias said:

You need to state what was changed ("I targetted 4.5, and linked against 1.8 DLLs - no source code was changed") too.

Perhaps, though I would still argue that this is both implied given the context and reasonable obvious from examining the binary.

 

1 hour ago, micha said:

As far as this community is concerned, there are pretty clear guidelines on how to post addons.

As far as I am concerned, compiling some freely available open-licenced code is neither an original nor a derivative work, it's a public service. I didn't post an addon, I ran someone else's addon through a standard compiler to save another user a few minutes of their time. If squad wants to twist definitions and equate it to burning kittens, that's their loss.

 

1 hour ago, micha said:

I'm not sure what your private hosting looks like as the link was removed but I'm guessing you were linking straight to the DLL which, in this community, is not allowed.

If I were to make code changes I would provide those changes, as the licence requires. I made no code changes, ergo there is nothing to provide, as links to source and licence are already readily available at the top of the same forum thread in which I provided the binary.
Duplicating identical source-code repos is a waste of my time and bandwidth. If wasting time and bandwith are rules around here, I want none of it.

 

1 hour ago, micha said:

Whether or not that is "sane" in the context of overall FOSS is its own discussion; ultimately this is a commercial game so there are additional requirements when contributing to, hopefully, cover everybody in the case of a legal dispute.

In the context of overall FOSS, I can think of an awful large number of backport repositories that provide recompiled binaries without duplicating the source repos. Strangely, I've never heard of any of them encountering legal trouble.
If we're so hell-bent on covering everybody in the case of legal dispute, perhaps we should reopen that "GPL code dependent on and linked against non-GPL code" can of worms? Seems to me there's a lot more Squad than everybody else in that protection plan.
 

1 hour ago, micha said:

Ultimately it would be a shame if you decide it's too much hassle to adhere to the additional requirements in order to contribute.

In the context of a simple recompile, they are exceedingly onerous. The requirements beyond those in the relevant software licences provide no tangible benefit to me or the people I try to help with such things, and involve more time and effort than a recompile itself.
I'll gladly donate my time to helping other individuals, but I'll not waste it wantonly to satisfy some corporations byzantine leagaleese. I'm simply not going there.

 

 

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

You see, there's no digital proof for anything. All we have are evidences and testimonials.

Sure, and anecdotes are not evidence. For something like this, I'm not particularly interested in having a bunch of witnesses to say "oh yeah, I've see [anonymous internet handle] around a bunch on github, he's probably legit".

 

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

I trust people that clone public repos from a large corporation, and not the large corporation that stores a private cloud instance!

I trust myself more than either, so I store my private "cloud" instance on disks I control, with software I vetted and configured. I don't have or need accounts on github, dropbox, or any of the plethora of hosters hawking storage I don't trust on machines I can't find.

[Lisias]

36 minutes ago, steve_v said:

Trolls file against open source all the time, and they get thrown out all the time. I'm not particularly concerned, and I'm even less concerned in the context of a small and relatively obscure piece of code for a game.

It's the other way around. The smaller the community, better the troll~s chances to get something. Bigger FOSS projects have too  much people involved, trolls are overwhelmed by the backslash.

Small projects (FOSS or not) don't have so much people caring for it, so chances are that the troll will push his stunt unchecked. On proprietary software it's yet more probable, as usually the guy that is paying for the party wants things settled up fast and quietly - and this gives an edge to copyright trollers.

 

36 minutes ago, steve_v said:

And what exactly is stopping me from running my own mercurial server? I'm sure people could clone that to wherever they wanted, if they wanted.

Nothing. But so, way less people will clone the stuff. And, so, way less people would testify for you.

 

36 minutes ago, steve_v said:

People host all sorts of stuff on platforms that don't support cloning at all, and they're not getting copyright strikes every day either

But some of them do. If you are willing to take your chances, it's up to you. Please don't criticize people that choose not to do so.

 

36 minutes ago, steve_v said:

How is a storage space on someone else's server any different from one on my own in this regard?

Chain of Responsibility. There's no one overlooking your servers but yourself. Weak defense on a litigation.

 

36 minutes ago, steve_v said:

I trust myself more than either, so I store my private "cloud" instance on disks I control, with software I vetted and configured. I don't have or need accounts on github, dropbox, or any of the plethora of hosters hawking storage I don't trust on machines I can't find.

It's not about you. Of course you trust yourself. The key point is: why anyone else would do it?

Believe it or not, github has way more to lose than you by failing to comply with a copyright law. This make them more trustworthy on some situations than you.

Three different forks, each one stating the same license file, and I'm covered.

A single link to a fork of yours, on your server, not that much.

 

36 minutes ago, steve_v said:

The licence in question is quite clear in that one may provide attribution and indication of modification in "any reasonable manner based on the medium, means, and context" Context : Good faith, without any claim of rights. Medium: posted on forum. Means: text in said forum post. Sounds pretty reasonable to me. The post in which my link was embedded stated the identity of the original author, made it clear that I am not he, and defined the modification I had performed.

What's reasonable to an American may put an Australian in jail. It's not about you, it's about everybody else - there're no Good Faith (or even Fair Use) about Copyrights on some countries, and yet their citizens are users of this Forum.

We fail to do things right for them, we (theoretically) jeopardize their lives.

I agree there're not much of chance for this to happen - but not much is not none, and the bad press could be bad enough to justify simply ruling out the possibility by "playing safe" on the matter.

What we are telling you is that there's a need for the stunt - and we are explaining the reasons, and the failing to understand it doesn't nullifies such a need.

Keep in mind that we are not asking you to like this stunt (I hate it, by the way), nor criticizing you by not being willing to contribute under such conditions.

Edited February 3, 2020 by Lisias
Brute force post merging.

[steve_v]

@Lisias, @Deddly We clearly aren't going to agree, and it's after midnight here so I'm not going to write another novel, as tempting as it is.
Before the inevitable "agree to disagree" bit, as I call it a night, I'll leave you with something:

This is not an isolated incident, and that's part of why it irritates me so much. The last time I tried to contribute on this forum I was blasted by another member of staff for posting a .diff, for his perusal, before he even looked to see what it was.
He didn't open it, didn't even check the file extension, just went direct to "there's so much wrong with that thing I didn't look at, you don't know what you're doing, go away". That wasn't the first time, and it probably won't be the last.
Anywhere else, I wouldn't even think twice about posting a patch file or a test build, and nobody would bat an eyelid. Here it's just not worth the angst.

This place is so bizarre, so touchy, and so tangled in aggrandizing self-interest and but-covering legalese that I wonder if a collaborative spirit can even exist. Keep your possessive attitude, your paranoia and your strange rules. I'm out. I'm not helping anyone again, not here.

So, let's agree to disagree. I'll stay for the bugs, but others can fix them. I'm done.

[Lisias]

12 minutes ago, steve_v said:

This is not an isolated incident, and that's part of why it irritates me so much. The last time I tried to contribute on this forum I was blasted by another member of staff for posting a .diff, for his perusal, before he even looked to see what it was.
He didn't open it, didn't even check the file extension, just went direct to "there's so much wrong with that thing I didn't look at, you don't know what you're doing, go away". That wasn't the first time, and it probably won't be the last.

IMHO, this is another issue. And yeah, I agree with you on this.

People are using private Discord servers for a reason.

[Lisias]

Moved from that thread again.  I'll not create a new thread just for this post, and since the guy was asking about what happened, moving the conversation to where it happened made sense to me.

28 minutes ago, Mortimer Kerman said:

Uhhhh... What happend?

We started to discuss something completely unrelated to the thread, besides being triggered by the something on the thread.

So instead of keeping derailing it until someone report the posts and so the moderatos have to move it themselves, I choose to cut some corners and do it myself. At least I realised the problem after my first post on the mess.

[steve_v]

16 hours ago, Lisias said:

IMHO, this is another issue.

Perhaps, but when the reply to my "If you tell me what is wrong I might be able to fix it" in that instance was "where's your licence and source code", I feel it's rather closely related... Source code for a for a unified diff? Really? All those diffs over on the Debian bug tracker would like to have a word...

The ultra-conservative interpretations of derivative work and the knee-jerk paranoia over copyright, to the point of piling additional rules on top of perfectly good licences or in some cases claiming violation before even ascertaining what the material in question is, that is exactly what this is about.

 

16 hours ago, Lisias said:

People are using private Discord servers for a reason.

If you're driving development and discussion to another platform, there's something horribly wrong with the way your community is run.

Edited February 4, 2020 by steve_v

[Lisias]

5 hours ago, steve_v said:

The ultra-conservative interpretations of derivative work 

This appears to be a somewhat drastic reaction in order to cope with some asinine copyright laws from some countries.  Perhaps an overreaction, but it's not too far from what I would do myself.

What does not means that this cannot be used, also, on what you are complaining. The weapon that protects is the same that kills, it's the hand that hold it that defines the role.

 

5 hours ago, steve_v said:

 the knee-jerk paranoia over copyright, to the point of piling additional rules on top of perfectly good licences or in some cases claiming violation before even ascertaining what the material in question is, that is exactly what this is about.

Follow the money. it's always about the money.

Edited February 4, 2020 by Lisias
Kraken damned Autocompletes

[steve_v]

14 minutes ago, Snark said:

There are good reasons for the add-on posting rules (practical as well as legal). We realize that those reasons may not be obvious to someone who's neither a mod author nor a forum maintainer, and that's perfectly understandable. If you're having difficulty understanding the reasons and would like to learn more and/or suggest ways to improve, then you're welcome to ask and discuss as much as you like, over in the Add-on Discussions forum.

I have no difficulty whatsoever understanding the reasons as you state them. What I do have difficulty with is agreeing with them... That and refraining from replying to such a condescending tone in a snarky and/or combative one.

You're right, I don't author mods here, I won't release any of the little bits and pieces I wrote for my own use (though I was contemplating getting around to that before this discussion happened), and I'd never want to moderate because inflicting rules and regulations on others is anathema to me.
If you're having difficulty understanding the reasons and would like to learn more, you're welcome to read this thread from the beginning. Despite people moving posts around, it's probably still in something close to chronological order.

 

[Lisias]

On 2/3/2020 at 5:28 AM, steve_v said:

Apparently, in this twisted reality, republishing in a separate thread is seen as a hostile takeover attempt, and posting a quick fix in the existing ones is grounds for having posts deleted.
How exactly are we supposed to go about this kind of thing then? You're not exactly leaving many options, as far as I can see it's a choice between annoying the modders and annoying the mods... I'll leave it to your imagination as to which one gets my gratitude and respect in this situation.

@steve_v has an excellent point here. And he is not the first one to talk about it.

And, again, it's not a surprise software developers are choosing to gather on private Discord servers or anywhere else but here to get the problems solved.

 

23 hours ago, steve_v said:

This place is so bizarre, so touchy, and so tangled in aggrandizing self-interest and but-covering legalese that I wonder if a collaborative spirit can even exist. Keep your possessive attitude, your paranoia and your strange rules. I'm out. I'm not helping anyone again, not here.

(emphasis is mine)

Quod Erat Demonstrandum. Collaboration is happening on private messages and personal emails nowadays.

 

On 2/3/2020 at 5:28 AM, steve_v said:

Recompiling a piece of code does not change it's intent, function, licence or ownership. This is true by convention, common-sense, and everywhere open-source software is found bar here.

I took some time, but now I get it. On FOSS, the binary is irrelevant, it's just a bunch of bytecodes you are forced to generate using a tool (compiler) in order to the get the code (the only thing that really matters) running on the metal.

However, on non FOSS licenses [and I think it's the reason that on the beginning (at least as I was told), it was demanded that code should be published here using a FOSS approved license] binaries are copyrighted material. Everything that is not source code are also copyrighted, and this includes the DLL. So recompiling the DLL is a derivative work (from the legal point of view!), something yet more relevant on CC licenses that blatantly doesn't demands the sharing of the Source code - and even Creative Commons advises against such a practice, by the way.

The guy that waved the rule to license the source code on a FOSS approved license to something be published here made a really, really bad move.

 

[steve_v]

48 minutes ago, Lisias said:

On FOSS, the binary is irrelevant, it's just a bunch of bytecodes you are forced to generate using a tool (compiler) in order to the get the code (the only thing that really matters) running on the metal.

Indeed. The source code is the IP, a binary is just a side-effect, something produced by mechanical means with no creative input. Since source is distributed freely and anyone can create a binary from it whenever they please, nobody cares. It would be like copyrighting the ink rather than the story.
Everywhere else I collaborate everything being FOSS is a given, so arguments like this never arise. And so...

48 minutes ago, Lisias said:

However, on non FOSS licenses [and I think it's the reason that on the beginning (at least as I was told), it was demanded that code should be published here using a FOSS approved license] binaries are copyrighted material.

I took some time, but now I get it. I still don't like it though, that code doesn't run at all on my brain.
 

48 minutes ago, Lisias said:

even Creative Commons advises against such a practice, by the way.

Frankly, the more times I read it, the more I think it's just a terrible choice of licence for software. Aside from being incredibly vague in general, it talks only about "the work", which in FOSS copyleft terms is understood to be the source code, but in non-FOSS could mean anything at all - and there's not a less-vague clarification of this point anywhere I can find.

 

48 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Collaboration is happening on private messages and personal emails nowadays.

Or Mailing lists and IRC, as it has since the dawn of time.
 

48 minutes ago, Lisias said:

The guy that waved the rule to license the source code on a FOSS approved license to something be published here made a really, really bad move.

Absolutely agreed. I thought it was a silly thing to do at the time, but I had no idea at all as to the the depth of that error or it's ramifications.

 

Edited February 4, 2020 by steve_v

[Lisias]

11 minutes ago, steve_v said:

I took some time, but now I get it. I still don't like it though, that code doesn't run at all on my brain.

I hate it in a way that forum rules prevent me to express myself.

But I still love this freaking game - so I'm still willing to withhold some level of abuse in order to help keeping this thing healthy.

But, granted, I don't need to be here on Forum in order to to that. It's only, yet, the best way to share my work, but I don't need this to carry it on.

[steve_v]

33 minutes ago, Lisias said:

I hate it in a way that forum rules prevent me to express myself.

That is another thing I don't like about this forum TBH. IRL I swear like a pirate. I tone it down to levels I would normally reserve for nuns and small children, yet the filters still mange my meaning regularly. But I digress.
 

33 minutes ago, Lisias said:

But I still love this freaking game - so I'm still willing to withhold some level of abuse in order to help keeping this thing healthy.

My thoughts on this FUBAR licencing and publication situation and my thoughts on the rules imposed on my printing of those thoughts are both unprintable... Spontaneous combustion of publication medium levels of unprintable.
I guess I'll withhold them too, lest the database server takes up smoking.

Edited February 4, 2020 by steve_v

[Lisias]

7 hours ago, steve_v said:

That is another thing I don't like about this forum TBH. IRL I swear like a pirate. I tone it down to levels I would normally reserve for nuns and small children, yet the filters still mange my meaning regularly. But I digress.

Well, there're kids and perhaps nuns around here. Can't blame Forum about this, otherwise they would need to classify this thing as PG-13 or harsher. 

(Kraken knows they would need to classify this as XXX if they allow me to unleash my verbosity unchecked - my childhood happened on a very... interestingly impudent times... as it appears. Heavy Metal, MAD and Groo was commonly found on kid's hands on where I had grown!

[WinkAllKerb'']

*in out* a + b = (a b)

[steve_v]

7 hours ago, Lisias said:

Can't blame Forum about this, otherwise they would need to classify this thing as PG-13 or harsher.

My everyday language should probably be AO at the very least. There are still a good many word the filters don't like that I'd put squarely in the All Ages category though, which is my point... Relatively inoffensive synonyms for buttocks which are used as common parlance in many parts of the English speaking world, for example.
It's another facet of the conservative to the point of paranoia cheeks-covering that goes on here, and that's why I mention it. Would that last sentence really have been any more or less suitable for children if it contained a word rhyming with "grass" rather than the inane substitution?

 

7 hours ago, Lisias said:

Heavy Metal, MAD and Groo

Those were part of my childhood also. Amazingly (with liberal helping of sarcasm), they neither turned me into a psychopath nor got anyone sued.

Edited February 5, 2020 by steve_v