CKAN/Steam Workshop

[ZooNamedGames]

20 minutes ago, DMagic said:

@ZooNamedGames Reloading the database does not reload mods, it just reloads config files, parts and textures (well, it does sort of reload assemblies, but the actual .dll file is in use, and can't be altered).

Well it has worked for whatever mods I have put in... maybe I just never noticed the details.

Either way, it does work for select aspects.

[Red Iron Crown]

1 minute ago, JPLRepo said:

and therein lies the problem. I do not want to, and in some cases, cannot change licenses to be restrictive (even though i want to ), for this exact reason.

I agree that this is a serious problem with CKAN, and I really wish that they would revisit their policy regarding it.

[Alshain]

The thing is if it is a permissive license you are already granting them that permission by selecting a permissive license.  I don't like it, I think it's a bit shady, but it is allowed.  CKAN certainly doesn't appear to be breaking any rules, I'm sure if it was then SQUAD would have blacklisted it from the forums by now.  But the whole idea of going behind the developer of an active project, while not illegal or impermissible, it's still incredibly rude, even more so if they make their feelings against it known as some have, and then still decided to continue the practice.

Edited June 7, 2016 by Alshain

[Aperture Science Employee]

10 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Mostly because there is a significant portion of the KSP userbase that isn't using Steam. Workshop works best for Steam exclusives.

Garry's Mod is not a Steam exclusive, has an expansive modding community and it works well. Could the steam workshop be integrated into the game, all you need is a Steam account?

[Alshain]

Yeah the idea that Steam Workshop can't be used because not everybody uses the Steam version is just wrong.  It's just a distribution platform.  It's up to the mod developer to use it, and it's unlikely many mod developers would choose to use it as their only distribution platform any more than people must use Curse or must use Spacedock exclusively.

[Red Iron Crown]

30 minutes ago, Alshain said:

The thing is if it is a permissive license you are already granting them that permission by selecting a permissive license.  I don't like it, I think it's a bit shady, but it is allowed.  CKAN certainly doesn't appear to be breaking any rules, I'm sure if it was then SQUAD would have blacklisted it from the forums by now.  But the whole idea of going behind the developer of an active project, while not illegal or impermissible, it's still incredibly rude, even more so if they make their feelings against it known as some have, and then still decided to continue the practice.

Couldn't agree more. Just because something is compliant with the letter of the license doesn't mean it isn't discourteous, and every bit of discourtesy toward modders has the effect of discouraging modding.

Further, the terms of the license aren't really important in this case as CKAN doesn't redistribute (mods are downloaded from their original hosts, it's equivalent to a complex wget script). The delisting of restrictive mods is purely a courtesy, a courtesy not extended to permissively licensed mods. IMO this courtesy should be extended to all authors.

23 minutes ago, Alshain said:

Yeah the idea that Steam Workshop can't be used because not everybody uses the Steam version is just wrong.  It's just a distribution platform.  It's up to the mod developer to use it, and it's unlikely many mod developers would choose to use it as their only distribution platform any more than people must use Curse or must use Spacedock exclusively.

Unfortunately many people don't honor the modder's wishes when it comes to distribution. Go to just about any mod thread and you'll find requests for CKAN listing even if the author has clearly stated they don't support CKAN, or requests to rehost on Spacedock if they use Curse. Adding Workshop to the mix would only add requests to host there to the mix.

Ideally every mod would be hosted somewhere where it is accessible to all players, the hosts currently used meet these criteria (though some users choose not to use certain hosts for political reasons). Workshop would be different, a mod exclusively hosted there would not be available to many users (and perhaps there would be authors who don't want to deal with manual misinstalls, CKAN, or Curse drama so they would host there alone).

[JPLRepo]

1 minute ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Couldn't agree more. Just because something is compliant with the letter of the license doesn't mean it isn't discourteous, and every bit of discourtesy toward modders has the effect of discouraging modding.

Further, the terms of the license aren't really important in this case as CKAN doesn't redistribute (mods are downloaded from their original hosts, it's equivalent to a complex wget script). The delisting of restrictive mods is purely a courtesy, a courtesy not extended to permissively licensed mods. IMO this courtesy should be extended to all authors.

Unfortunately many people don't honor the modder's wishes when it comes to distribution. Go to just about any mod thread and you'll find requests for CKAN listing even if the author has clearly stated they don't support CKAN, or requests to rehost on Spacedock if they use Curse. Adding Workshop to the mix would only add requests to host there to the mix.

Ideally every mod would be hosted somewhere where it is accessible to all players, the hosts currently used meet these criteria (though some users choose not to use certain hosts for political reasons). Workshop would be different, a mod exclusively hosted there would not be available to many users (and perhaps there would be authors who don't want to deal with manual misinstalls, CKAN, or Curse drama so they would host there alone).

Agree. Not only that, but I've picked up on some very distasteful re-distribution sites that have been picking up modders work, re-hosting and re-distributing them, unchanged, without asking or without permission and attempting to profit from modders free work by hosting and distributing them on click farms. Another reason I have been considering how to modify my unrestricted licenses to somehow restrict exactly this. - This may be a little off topic. So I'll stop there.

[Red Iron Crown]

44 minutes ago, Aperture Science Employee said:

Garry's Mod is not a Steam exclusive, has an expansive modding community and it works well. Could the steam workshop be integrated into the game, all you need is a Steam account?

Afaik Steam Workshop doesn't integrate into outside software, and many people avoid Steam for a variety of reasons (i.e. they neither have nor want a Steam account).

[ferram4]

4 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Further, the terms of the license aren't really important in this case as CKAN doesn't redistribute (mods are downloaded from their original hosts, it's equivalent to a complex wget script). The delisting of restrictive mods is purely a courtesy, a courtesy not extended to permissively licensed mods. IMO this courtesy should be extended to all authors.

Actually, I pushed them on this when the policy came out, and the basic gist is that it's a "courtesy" that is extended because full ARR makes it trivial for an author to add a clause forbidding installation through CKAN and then they're on Napster-style facilitation of copyright infringement ground.  So ARR actually has power of CKAN, which is something that should probably be acknowledged somewhere.

I don't expect things to change on the policy though.  That policy was officially adopted about a month after they completely and totally screwed FAR installs via CKAN and gave me an actual reason to consider de-listing and dropping CKAN support.  If they change their policy, FAR gets de-listed.  If FAR gets de-listed, Realism Overhaul can't be installed via CKAN.  And installing Realism Overhaul is basically the reason that CKAN exists in the first place; if that can't be installed by CKAN because a mod has been de-listed due to CKAN continually screwing up, that's a massive hit to their PR and general argument for existing in the first place.  They can't allow that to happen.

[GarrisonChisholm]

Feel free to ignore me if this is intrusive or irrelevant, however;

I love mods, but I am MODESTLY technological at best.  If my machine gets set up and running, I don't want to touch it at all for any reason out of an irrational fear that some tiny perturbation on my part would upset the mystical balance that is my PC's brain.  I know loading mods manually is simply a matter of DL, UnZip, and popping it in the right folder, but without CKan there's no way I would have considered adding more than Chatterer.

As unappealing as it may be to the technically savvy, CKan is indispensable (in my near valueless opinion).  I see it as an utter god-send.

[Alshain]

16 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Unfortunately many people don't honor the modder's wishes when it comes to distribution. Go to just about any mod thread and you'll find requests for CKAN listing even if the author has clearly stated they don't support CKAN, or requests to rehost on Spacedock if they use Curse. Adding Workshop to the mix would only add requests to host there to the mix.

Ideally every mod would be hosted somewhere where it is accessible to all players, the hosts currently used meet these criteria (though some users choose not to use certain hosts for political reasons). Workshop would be different, a mod exclusively hosted there would not be available to many users (and perhaps there would be authors who don't want to deal with manual misinstalls, CKAN, or Curse drama so they would host there alone).

While that may be true, that simply isn't a reason to ignore a community.  It's not like it affects non-steam users in any seriously negative way.  As for posts on the forums, that happens, you can come up with 1000 human behaviors we don't like but if the attempt was to avoid them all, then the easiest way to do that is no develop KSP lol.  Someone a month ago was arguing against multiplayer because people would grief, that's really a very similar argument to this one.  Human behavior is human behavior and we can try to find ways to curb it, but we shouldn't let it hinder improvement.

Edited June 7, 2016 by Alshain