Discussion regarding unathorised forks of mods and their distribution

[AbhChallenger]

I for one hope that Squad hurries up and steps in BEFORE modders decide to take such actions to preserve their wishes. The simple solution is to ban topics and discussion about these compiles from official squad forums, curse, and the reddit.

[Boomerang]

The one example we actually have, Chris, tightened his license and stayed. That IMO is exactly the right thing to do. The license is where the author's intention is supposed to be specified. If that isn't the case, it's 100% the author's responsibility to fix it. And I'm talking ethics, not legalities.

If there's a bug in a mod's code (within its intended scope), it's the author's fault, not the end-user. Well the license is a required part of a KSP mod. If there's a bug in your license, it's your responsibility to change it. It isn't my responsibility to scan everything you've written across a 1000-page KSP forum thread and decide whether what I do will make you happy or sad.

From my perspective, it seems you're saying the licenses are just red tape that doesn't count. In my 30-year professional IT career, the only people I ever ran into who made that argument were the software pirates. No, I'm not implying you're a pirate; only that yours is not a mainstream opinion.

The place we go to find answers to common questions is called the FAQ. The place we go to find out how we're allowed to reuse someone else's code is called the license. If this type of reuse troubles him (and like I said, because the names weren't changed it would kinda trouble me), Ferram can add one sentence to his license like Chris did and the whole issue goes away.

And you're still ignoring the whole issue of what's polite, and to steal a phrase from RoverDude's analogy, neighborly.

I haven't seen anyone saying that ferram's license disallows what OP's doing.

The point that so many of us are trying to make is that if everything's just going to boil down to what anyone's legally allowed to do so, without concern for the wishes or consequences to anyone else, we're going to become a much more closed off, bitter community than we are now.

Hence all the claims about what's right vs. what's legal. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. RoverDude went through what's going to happen if we stop being polite with each other and just do what we're allowed to do. Licenses are going to close up and everyone loses from that, though the users will far more than the authors.

[ferram4]

This is exactly what I suspected the real situation concerning self removal of the winx64 KSP block was. I made my previous suggestion operating under the assumption that those who claimed that doing so was relatively trivial were not coming at the problem with an already advance understanding of coding and coding methods.

The tutorial that Senshi posted in his release thread is all that is needed to implement that; I've seen quick-fix dinner recipes that are more complicated than that. Now, granted, it is Making a KSP Plugin 101, but that is what you're doing in that case, and it's really quite simple all things considered.

From my perspective, it seems you're saying the licenses are just red tape that doesn't count. In my 30-year professional IT career, the only people I ever ran into who made that argument were the software pirates. No, I'm not implying you're a pirate; only that yours is not a mainstream opinion.

Hunh? Licenses aren't just red tape, they're the line that we draw that allows us to call in the moderators to throw you out. The thing is that there are attitudes that exist beyond licenses; FAR has been GPL for a long, long time, but my attitudes towards supporting users have changed a lot due to the actions of users and people intending to fork it.

The place we go to find answers to common questions is called the FAQ. The place we go to find out how we're allowed to reuse someone else's code is called the license. If this type of reuse troubles him (and like I said, because the names weren't changed it would kinda trouble me), Ferram can add one sentence to his license like Chris did and the whole issue goes away.

Not really; GPL is forever when multiple people have contributed. I'd also like the mod to be able to survive if I happen to leave for whatever reason, or if someone comes up with a really good way to improve it and wants to take a crack at it without worrying about it being for naught.

I for one hope that Squad hurries up and steps in BEFORE modders decide to take such actions to preserve their wishes. The simple solution is to ban topics and discussion about these compiles from official squad forums, curse, and the reddit.

NO. We have licenses for a reason, and we follow those licenses. I think Senshi's attitudes are misguided, will make things harder for me, and will likely cause me to rethink my support scheme, just as the CC-disabler did, but they all follow the license, and so must be allowed. We should not elevate a modder's whims and feelings of a particular moment to the level of a license (which is ultimately what your proposal advocates for), lest we make every license, CC-by-SA, GPL, BSD, MIT, etc. into ARR by the fact of how the rules are set up.

It is possible to think an idea is terrible and still allow it to happen if the person involved is stubborn enough to disregard opinions and stick only to the legal. The results aren't pretty, but it's better than turning all the licenses meaningless and putting everyone at the mercy of a modder's mood of the day.

[Wanderfound]

CITATION NEEDED.

The most obvious and immediate conclusion of the study of any legal system anywhere in space and time, recognised as such by basically the entire legal fraternity and explicitly taught as such in law schools.

No, that's not a formal citation. But...seriously? The implication of your argument is that there has never been any such thing as an unjust law, nor any such thing as a wrongful action that was not illegal. That is not a reasonably defensible position.

[mcirish3]

The tutorial that Senshi posted in his release thread is all that is needed to implement that; I've seen quick-fix dinner recipes that are more complicated than that. Now, granted, it is Making a KSP Plugin 101, but that is what you're doing in that case, and it's really quite simple all things considered.

Wait what???? I thought I read his post carefully. If I missed that my bad... If it is new thanks for the info Ferram4.

[steve_v]

I see quick 'recipe' at post #38, release thread.

Not real obvious if you don't read the whole thread, but it's there.

[RoverDude]

The one example we actually have, Chris, tightened his license and stayed. That IMO is exactly the right thing to do. The license is where the author's intention is supposed to be specified. If that isn't the case, it's 100% the author's responsibility to fix it. And I'm talking ethics, not legalities..

Actually, more exampled than you realize. I'm aware of other modders who are either taking a break or drawing down because of this nonsense. Not going to argue legalities - they are what they are. I'm raising the issue of common courtesy, which is not nearly as black and white.

If there's a bug in a mod's code (within its intended scope), it's the author's fault, not the end-user. Well the license is a required part of a KSP mod. If there's a bug in your license, it's your responsibility to change it. It isn't my responsibility to scan everything you've written across a 1000-page KSP forum thread and decide whether what I do will make you happy or sad.

And I would call that rude. If you are considering a fork of an active project, especially one that adds no material value that could be re-merged into trunk, you start with communication. To not do so is, again, technically legal, but a breach of the social contract. And if that becomes the norm, then you will find yourself with a lot fewer modders, or you will push us into an environment with defensive licensing. Again, users lose.

From my perspective, it seems you're saying the licenses are just red tape that doesn't count. In my 30-year professional IT career, the only people I ever ran into who made that argument were the software pirates. No, I'm not implying you're a pirate; only that yours is not a mainstream opinion.

I can pull the 30 year career bit out as well (a decent chunk of that at the C-level). Your comparison to pirates is naive and juvenile. I am not saying 'disregard licenses and do what you want' or 'steal stuff'. Licenses are important. They tell us the boundaries of what we CAN do. But they don't tell us what we SHOULD do. A software pirate simply does what they WANT to do regardless of what they legally CAN do. It's a bad analogy.

The place we go to find answers to common questions is called the FAQ. The place we go to find out how we're allowed to reuse someone else's code is called the license. If this type of reuse troubles him (and like I said, because the names weren't changed it would kinda trouble me), Ferram can add one sentence to his license like Chris did and the whole issue goes away.

See above. We're discussing two very different things. The first, the legal basis, we all get. There is not a single person here arguing that, so you are (continuing) to preach to a wall.

What is up for debate, however, is the moral aspect. Just because we CAN does not mean we SHOULD, and people should actually, you know, have communication and respect for wishes even if they are not explicitly written in stone. Just because I *CAN* run my chain saw at 6am on Sunday does not mean I SHOULD.

So the question really is what kind of community we want. You can't legally enforce courtesy or niceness. No license in the world covers that. Nor should it. So either we decide, as a group, that politeness is good, or we decided instead that everyone has to engage in defensive licensing (at least, till people give up and move on).

Again, this horse has been beaten to a pulp and turned into gluesticks ages ago, and the damage has been done. The only question is how much more damage the community will do to itself until it realizes it's going against it's own self interest.

Edited November 4, 2014 by RoverDude

[steve_v]

What is up for debate, however, is the moral aspect. Just because we CAN does not mean we SHOULD, and people should actually, you know, have communication and respect for wishes even if they are not explicitly written in stone. Just because I *CAN* run my chain saw at 6am on Sunday does not mean I SHOULD.

Wise words indeed, IMO the crux of the issue.

I for one loathe restrictive licensing - It often prevents well meaning folks from adding value or results in reinventing the same wheel over and over. Duplication of effort is not fun.

An open license allows people to *work together* to make code better. Using it as an excuse for unpleasant behaviour helps nobody and indicates that you have completely missed the point.

How about just having a little patience? When the WinX64 build is stable enough to be supported, these checks will likely go away.

If you really must have it right now, take it as an opportunity to learn something about how the code works and remove the check yourself, for your own use.

Be thankfull that the license allows you to do this.

Going against someones express wishes after they have put in a whole heap of work for free is just plain rude.

Edited November 4, 2014 by steve_v

[rbray89]

I have to agree with RoverDude.

As a modder, I chose the MIT license as I myself have needed in the past to use code commercially, and would welcome any other commercial product (and open source) to use my code to benefit their own projects. Anyone who makes a living developing code can attest to how frustrating encountering the GNU or GPL license can be.

That being said, in the context of the KSP community, I'd be pretty miffed if someone came along, forked my repo, and started taking it in a direction that I hadn't intended, or tries to use it to "compete" with my original work.

I'd say that we should all strive to abide by common sense (and courtesy) to recognize that modders have a vision in mind with their creative work and to try to honor their wishes when it comes to KSP.

[Beowolf]

The most obvious and immediate conclusion of the study of any legal system anywhere in space and time, recognised as such by basically the entire legal fraternity and explicitly taught as such in law schools.

No, that's not a formal citation. But...seriously? The implication of your argument is that there has never been any such thing as an unjust law, nor any such thing as a wrongful action that was not illegal. That is not a reasonably defensible position.

Don't they also teach in law school that demanding your opponent defend his position isn't the same as advocating the opposite?

[mcirish3]

I see quick 'recipe' at post #38, release thread.

Not real obvious if you don't read the whole thread, but it's there.

Hmm yep, totally missed that. (face to palm) Doesn't really negate anything I have said but I will have to give it a try since I think I can follow those instructions. If I don't think it is hard( after trying) then there may be some hope that it will work as a solution. I think some refinement and some screen shots might add something to it if it was made into a sticky, and all that... I may even give it a go in a separate thread if I can find the time. ( I have four children under 5, they tend to make you feel like you have ADD and ADHD at all times

[Wanderfound]

Don't they also teach in law school that demanding your opponent defend his position isn't the same as advocating the opposite?

The defense required depends on the position being challenged. A lawyer demanding proof that water is wet will be rightfully laughed down.

[mcirish3]

I have to agree with RoverDude.

As a modder, I chose the MIT license as I myself have needed in the past to use code commercially, and would welcome any other commercial product (and open source) to use my code to benefit their own projects. Anyone who makes a living developing code can attest to how frustrating encountering the GNU or GPL license can be.

That being said, in the context of the KSP community, I'd be pretty miffed if someone came along, forked my repo, and started taking it in a direction that I hadn't intended, or tries to use it to "compete" with my original work.

I'd say that we should all strive to abide by common sense (and courtesy) to recognize that modders have a vision in mind with their creative work and to try to honor their wishes when it comes to KSP.

I agree with the sentiment expressed by both you and RoverDude. (not to mention, I am huge fan of you mods). But then the question remains at the heart of this; Is what Senshi did a violation of this common courtesy? I of course argue no it is not. Since he attempted to be polite and continues to be polite, and even to draw some of the umplelsenatness away from main mega threads for the mods involved. Secondly the lock out by the mod makers is not exactly a purpose of the mod, but rather a denial of service, for a particular platform. Senshi is simply removing that denial of service in a way, that, to me at least, should keep the headache from coming back to the mod maker. If that works, I am not really sure why there should be an objection to that. Is his fork in competition to the original? Again, no, since the only people being served are those expressly excluded by the original. ( and most of them did nothing to deserve exclusion).

I suggested an alternative, which obviously Senshi had provided before I suggested it, (again face palm), which I only support as an alternative because I hope that perhaps it will bring everyone's temperature down a couple notches, not because I think what Senshi did was in any way inappropriate.

[Beowolf]

If you are considering a fork of an active project, especially one that adds no material value that could be re-merged into trunk, you start with communication. To not do so is, again, technically legal, but a breach of the social contract. And if that becomes the norm, then you will find yourself with a lot fewer modders, or you will push us into an environment with defensive licensing. Again, users lose.

I can pull the 30 year career bit out as well (a decent chunk of that at the C-level). Your comparison to pirates is naive and juvenile. I am not saying 'disregard licenses and do what you want' or 'steal stuff'. Licenses are important. They tell us the boundaries of what we CAN do. But they don't tell us what we SHOULD do. A software pirate simply does what they WANT to do regardless of what they legally CAN do. It's a bad analogy.

1) I went off to start counting vital Linux projects which, by your rules, started as breaches of this social contract, but it quickly got ridiculous. It was eleven of the first dozen I checked. Linux wouldn't exist; It's that simple. The original Berkeley port was challenged in court, so clearly did not have the approval of rights-holder AT&T. AT&T, and later Novell, have made it clear in court cases they disapprove of the very notion of a free Unix, yet millions of us are going against their expressed wishes, right now. It had already been established legally that one cannot copyright an API, or they'd have gone after Torvalds just like Ashton-Tate earlier went after Fox Software.

2) "Licenses are important. They tell us the boundaries of what we CAN do. But they don't tell us what we SHOULD do." This is really what I was wanting a citation on earlier. Not baiting you; I honestly don't understand why. Nobody's forcing our modders to use a standard license. Every modder gets to create a unique license that exactly suits their needs. Now if there was a forced choice, like you have to pick GPL3, MIT or BSD, you'd have a point. But that's not our situation.

And that's also why the "noise ordinance" comparisons are invalid. Everyone in the neighborhood has to follow the same noise ordinance, so they're a compromise. But the only person who can put compromises in a KSP mod license is the AUTHOR.

Licenses are just code, written in legalese instead of C. You claim to be a coder. Is it so hard to document how you want your code to be reused in the license, right there where everyone knows to look for it? They don't even have to be legally binding. I'm pretty sure our moderators would be fine with, "If you publicly fork my code, please change the names of parts, files and API calls, and put your own name in as the support contact." Even if it isn't really legally enforceable due to the boilerplate you pulled from GPL or whatever.

Edited November 4, 2014 by Beowolf

[RoverDude]

@Beowulf, we can simply agree to disagree as we're arguing two very different things.

In any case, the community will get precisely what it deserves, one way or the other. And it will likely be neither what they expect, nor what they wanted. But the proverbial toothpaste is out of the tube now, so we just get to see what kind of a mess the kids make of it.

One final bit of food for thought:

"Licenses are important. They tell us the boundaries of what we CAN do. But they don't tell us what we SHOULD do." This is really what I was wanting a citation on earlier.

RE Citation: This is something most of us (ideally) learned from our parents, or learned the first few days in kindergarten. Just because you CAN keep all of the magenta crayons to yourself does not mean you SHOULD. Again, nobody is debating what is or is not legal. We're simply debating what is or is not polite. And at the end of the day, you can't enforce that - hence, there's no value in the two of us discussing it, because we have different ideas of what is polite in this context.

(Also for @beowulf) - I do not 'Claim' to be a coder - I am, and with a very long career and a respectable chunk of that in the boardroom as an executive (both CIO and CTO). And a good part of my job when working with partners, vendors, etc. was having a very clear picture of what was legal vs what was ethical vs what was just good manners. Probably a lot more than dealing with semicolons and curly braces.

Edited November 4, 2014 by RoverDude

[xEvilReeperx]

In any case, the community will get precisely what it deserves, one way or the other. And it will likely be neither what they expect, nor what they wanted.

All right, I've been able to stay out of recent threads but now I've had enough. The people who are threatening users need to stop. This started as a nice healthy discussion but like several other recent threads we're beginning to see people of a certain viewpoint issue threats to people of the other viewpoint, while at the same time mentioning things like "toxic community", "what it deserves", "social contract" and other ironic statements.

Just because you CAN keep all of the magenta crayons to yourself does not mean you SHOULD. Again, nobody is debating what is or is not legal. We're simply debating what is or is not polite.

If you tell everyone they can borrow your crayons but then you slap the hand of the first kid who tries, it's not him that's being impolite. Your example is precisely why this entire argument is so ridiculous to me. You need to change your crayon license to "please ask me if you can borrow my crayons" instead and then there's no problem, you see? It's not logical to be upset about it otherwise

[RoverDude]

How are we threatening users (well, let's cut to the chase, how am 'I' threatening users?)

Sorry, last I checked we have folks offering a free service, so you really should not be surprised when that generosity is taken advantage of, that people are going to walk. If the community decides that we cannot police ourselves and maintain the same level of cooperation and general decency like what I saw when I first started modding, then modders are going to depart, or lock their licenses down. That's not a threat, that's simply a cold hard fact. If people are nice, they get nice things. If people are not so nice, they don't, and we do nice things for a different community.

Now let's talk crayons.

This is less a case of slapping someone's hand because they want to borrow our crayon, and more a case of us, as the provider of crayons, getting annoyed because little Veruca decided to break the crayon in half. I didn't think I had to tell people, when borrowing my crayons, that they should not melt them or break them in half (because now I have people complaining that I distribute broken crayons and that's not fair). So in the end it is easier to just not let people borrow the crayons. It's sad, but it's the truth.

Was that a threat?

[ratchet freak]

How are we threatening users (well, let's cut to the chase, how am 'I' threatening users?)

Sorry, last I checked we have folks offering a free service, so you really should not be surprised when that generosity is taken advantage of, that people are going to walk. If the community decides that we cannot police ourselves and maintain the same level of cooperation and general decency like what I saw when I first started modding, then modders are going to depart, or lock their licenses down. That's not a threat, that's simply a cold hard fact. If people are nice, they get nice things. If people are not so nice, they don't, and we do nice things for a different community.

Now let's talk crayons.

This is less a case of slapping someone's hand because they want to borrow our crayon, and more a case of us, as the provider of crayons, getting annoyed because little Veruca decided to break the crayon in half. I didn't think I had to tell people, when borrowing my crayons, that they should not melt them or break them in half (because now I have people complaining that I distribute broken crayons and that's not fair). So in the end it is easier to just not let people borrow the crayons. It's sad, but it's the truth.

Was that a threat?

Except that with a GPL licence you are giving crayons away under the understanding that the can do (nearly) anything they want with it and then you complain when someone is giving away your crayons that he snapped in half because he didn't like the the way the full-length crayon fit in his hands. Under GNU GPL v3 (under which FAR and NEAR are released) this is perfectly allowable.

[RoverDude]

@ratchet freak - No argument. Nobody here is arguing how the license works

So the solution is to restrict the license. And since we can't anticipate all things, ARR is really best.

(Edit) Now carry that forward. Mod authors go ARR. Their wishes are preserved, and we have enforced how other modders can interact with the free stuff being provided. A modder gets bored, and moves on. Now you have a dead project that can only be re-done via a clean room implementation (see Planet Factory, Tree Loader, etc.)

If this is what this community wants, rock on.

[mcirish3]

Ah come on guys... why are you still debating whether what was done is illegal, both sides of the argument agree that it is. RoverDude is right, to say that is not really the issue. Further debate on the legality of what was done only serves to obfuscate the real issue and make everyone's temper flare.

[Guest]

@ratchet freak - No argument. Nobody here is arguing how the license works

So the solution is to restrict the license. And since we can't anticipate all things, ARR is really best.

(Edit) Now carry that forward. Mod authors go ARR. Their wishes are preserved, and we have enforced how other modders can interact with the free stuff being provided. A modder gets bored, and moves on. Now you have a dead project that can only be re-done via a clean room implementation (see Planet Factory, Tree Loader, etc.)

If this is what this community wants, rock on.

Both KSP and the forums have changed. This is not the same place as when you started, or I started, or when KSP was released. Both have grown, alot. And with that growth comes problems that one really shouldn't be surprised about. You're either going to have to protect you stuff from the "worst of the worst" or protect yourself from having your "feelings" hurt when someone "breaks your crayons". Which is a bad analogy by the way. It's more like giving your new crayons to someone who then uses them in a coloring book that has incomplete drawings in it, then getting blamed for the bad coloring book.

I'm also tired of the generalizations about the community. Yeah, sure, there are alot of complaints happening in the forum threads that are coming from users who may be ignorant of how you feel about things. But, that's because there are ALOT{way more than when I started} of users and that is not a reflection of the community as a whole. If you want respect as a professional, then act like one and suck it up. Be polite even to the ignorant and lazy ones, even when it's painful. That's the only way freedom of licensing can survive. Otherwise, slap the restrictions on there and move on. That's also what freedom is. Freedom for you to choose.

[sarbian]

And we reached the #NotAllUsers point.

[Guest]

Which is a valid point.

[sarbian]

Not it is not. It's obvious that not everyone has the same point of view since we are in a thread with at least two side.

The simple fact that you reply like that make it a self fulfilling prophecy.

[TNM]

@Roverdude

If a modder thinks he needs AAR, he can go for that, and BTW, why is that something "bad" now? What you are basically saying is that you want a modder that thinks he needs AAR use any open licence but then EXPECT ppl to behave like an AAR-licence is in place. Is that how it should work? Is that what all your "being polite" argument is about?

Did you ever think that maybe a modder who uses AAR licence doesn't want ppl to use his mod AFTER he leaves? He could have changed his licence, but he obviously didn't care enough to do so. Why is that the communities fault now?

P.S. did 2 modders really cross the line with a "black list" in this thread? We are going places i see...

Edited November 4, 2014 by TNM