Never recompile anything without asking (aparently this is now a discussion about what I did wrong).

[R-T-B]

Don't do what I did.

Ask modders if they are done with their project.  Ask if it's ok if you can fork.

Don't trust the licenses, they mean little around here regarding feelings.

I am now the most hated frog in kerbal town.

That's all.

Edited October 21, 2019 by R-T-B
The unwritten rule is now written.

[Rinner]

Thank you :)

[R-T-B]

1 minute ago, Rinner said:

Thank you

Lots of testing to do still on a few of these...  but I appreciate any bug reports!  At least they build.

[Dafni]

Now why would you go and update somebody else's mod?

I get it when you do it for yourself, but sharing them at the same place where the original mod authors post their work as well?

I dont know, seems a bit odd to me. But I am no modder myself, so what do I know?

I am sure some folks will appreciate your swift updates etc, but personally I'll wait for the original authors to release their own updates. No offence.

 

Peace

 

Daf

[Lisias]

6 minutes ago, Dafni said:

Now why would you go and update somebody else's mod?

Because the license allows, people are in need of the update, the original author can be busy due real life.

And when the originals author is able to come back and update the Add'On, he/she will have some heavy lifting already done, and will need to spend less time on it 

Welcome to the Open Source way. We are here to serve the Users. #tronFeelings

[Starwaster]

57 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Because the license allows, people are in need of the update, the original author can be busy due real life.

And when the originals author is able to come back and update the Add'On, he/she will have some heavy lifting already done, and will need to spend less time on it 

Welcome to the Open Source way. We are here to serve the Users. #tronFeelings

That's great, as long as people come to @R-T-B for support on these releases and never to the original author.

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, Starwaster said:

That's great, as long as people come to @R-T-B for support on these releases and never to the original author.

I completely agree. Maintaining our own code is already hard enough.

On the other hand, if people are trying alternative forks instead of the original, perhaps this is a hint that something needs to change?

 

@R-T-B, what follows is what I do, not what you should do (there're no central authority on  the matter around here, so we kinda need to figure out rules of co-existance):

• You need to mark on the github page that it`s a personal fork, and not endorsed by the upstream. Keep the copyright and authorship claims (you can add your own on things you change yourself).
  • This is really the only legal requirement (assuming, of course, the license allows the fork at first place)
• I like to announce the Add'On status on the log too, to help sort out the chain of responsibility:
  • I'm slowly adding a Startup.cs file on all my projects, like this:

    • using UnityEngine;
      
      namespace YOUR_ADDON_NAMESPACE
      {
          [KSPAddon(KSPAddon.Startup.Instantly, true)]
          internal class Startup : MonoBehaviour
      	{
              private void Start()
              {
                  Debug.Log("[YourAddonNam] Version x.y.z.b PERSONAL_FORK"); // Change PERSONAL_FORK with your name or something that people will link to you
              }
      	}
      }

       

  • This is an excerpt from my log files to see what I mean:

    • [LOG 07:48:21.352] MainCanvas MASK: 3458764513820540928
      [LOG 07:48:21.420] PhysicsGlobals: Loading database
      [LOG 07:48:21.442] [KSPe] Version 2.1.0.17 /L
      [LOG 07:48:21.488] [ModuleManager] Version 4.1.0.1 /L Experimental
      [LOG 07:48:21.489] [KSPe for TweakScale] Version 2.1.0.17 /L
      [LOG 07:48:21.622] [TweakScale] Log is set to level TRACE.
      [LOG 07:48:21.623] [TweakScale] Version 2.5.0.7 /L BETA DEBUG
      [LOG 07:48:21.913] Opt-out preferences successfully retrieved, applied and saved:

• Don't do SpaceDock or CKAN unless you are really committed into maintaining the thing, and had secured the rights for the name of the Add'On you decided to keep.
• Really, avoid at all costs impersonating (intently or by mistake) the original author
  • Change all links and text to pinpoint you, your repository and your pages

 

Edited October 19, 2019 by Lisias
small legalese I forgot

[sarbian]

30 minutes ago, Lisias said:

On the other hand, if people are trying alternative forks instead of the original, perhaps this is a hint that something needs to change?

Is the required change "Author should make themselves available 5 minutes after a KSP release and drop all their other commitments to update their mods" ? 

[Lisias]

Moved to another thread. @R-T-B, I'm sorry for derailing your thread.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Lisias
derailed the thread. sorry,

[sarbian]

Classy and subtle.

[severedsolo]

Please take your fork of Monthly Budgets down. This is a  request not an order, because I know the license doesn't allow me to actually forbid it, but I don't want forks in the wild.

hint: if you don't, you might find future versions will have a more restrictive license

Edited October 19, 2019 by severedsolo

[Galileo]

A lot of changes are needed for kopernicus. If you break everyone's games, I will be pointing people to you. This is likely the most frowned upon thread I've seen in a while. License permitting or not. There are reasons some mods have not just recompiled.

[kerbiloid]

Personally I've downloaded not to use them instead the authentic ones, but as a backup if some maintainer decided to drop the update at all, so to not loose any option at all.

Edited October 19, 2019 by kerbiloid

[Thomas P.]

What is wrong with people that they can wait months for a KSP update with regular teasers, but not wait until modders put out a proper update when their life permits it? And then not even try to contribute upstream to get stuff fixed faster, but just put out builds of in-development code out there for quick fame?

See: I don't care if you fork Kopernicus and recompile it. I don't care if you put out code that is under development out there. I really don't care.

But users who install those binaries care. If you don't know the workings of the mod inside-out, you have no idea what might (still) need changes. And if you just push out a binary they will probably end up breaking their saves and then come to the Kopernicus thread (not to yours!), complaining that the saves are broken.

What I care about is you shipping dependencies that haven't been updated. The MFI included in Kopernicus might still work for testing, but from the very moment 1.8 released my plan was to not put out anything until sarbian at least had a chance to recompile it against the new KSP version. Shipping that old thing not only throws me under the bus, but sarbian too, potentially.

Then, if you have to change the build systems of the mods, at least do it on the right branch. What you did for Kopernicus was checking out one branch, then copying everything onto master, making the commit look like those were your updates to get the mod working under 1.8. Again: I don't care at all. The license allows you to do it. But other people might care and then go on my nerves asking me to check out that branch because it might help me get 1.8 to work.

Finally, let's be honest. If I wouldn't have changed the version number of Kopernicus to 900 you would have just shipped it as 1.8.0-1, messing with me even more because then I would have to memorize and compare the assembly checksums to even figure out what users are running once I release the real update.

[Galileo]

Let's make the mod devs mad so they don't release their mods... Great idea!

[Snark]

13 hours ago, R-T-B said:

I've recompiled a lot of mods for 1.8.

Hi @R-T-B,

We're sorry, but we've had to remove your links due to not following the add-on posting rules.  Please ensure that every posted mod specifies its license and includes a link to source code, before restoring your links.

 

In addition, please consider carefully before posting a mod in this fashion.  As long as the mod has a license that allows you to do what you're doing, then you're certainly within your rights to do so.  Just because you're allowed to do a thing, though, doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea.  Releasing a forked version of an active mod, without coordinating with the mod author, can cause significant ongoing problems afterwards for the mod author.

So unless you fully understand the implications of what you're doing, it's worth considering whether this is really what's best for the community.  For example, two potential negative effects:

• It may discourage modders from further modding.  Mod authors do this just for the fun of it, so anything that increases their hassle (and thereby reduces their fun) risks discouraging them from wanting to release more mods, and then everyone loses.
• It may drive them to pick more restrictive licenses.  A mod author who gets burned by having extra forks of their mods lying around may respond by picking a restrictive license that prevents that.  This is generally not good for the community, because if the author ever stops maintaining the mod, then the mod becomes completely dead and nobody can pick it up and continue it.
  • Example 1:  This is what I did with most of my own mods, after someone did what you're doing here.  (My tale of woe, for anyone who's interested.)  If you've ever wondered why BetterBurnTime and my other mods have super-restrictive licenses on them, this is why.
  • Example 2:  looks like you're already pushing at least one modder in that direction.

 

The whole debate on whether it's "okay" or not to do this sort of fork is addressed in detail here:

...and also here:

To be clear:  Reasonable people can differ.  There are reasonable points to be made on both sides of the issue (i.e. "it's a jerk move to make an unauthorized fork" versus "mod authors specifically say it's okay with their licenses, so there's nothing wrong").

But whether one believes that it's "right" or not, there's also the question of is it actually helpful and do the positive results outweigh potential negative consequences.  So... please consider that when making your choice.  I'm sure you're just trying to be helpful, but would it really be so terrible to just wait for the modders to do this in their own time?

 

In any case:  as discussed above, please ensure that you're complying with the add-on posting rules before posting a link to a downloadable mod.  Thank you for your understanding.

[Guest]

Honestly, what's the point of having a permissive license if you don't actually want people to do what you explicitly said they can do?  That's what a license is. If you don't want unauthorized forks, say so in the license agreement. Isn't that the reason for all that fuss with licenses being required in first place?

If you're doing that so the mod can be taken over in case of the author's unexpected absence, guess what, you can also say it in the license agreement. In all the time I've been here, I saw one mod that actually did that, despite this being what, presumably, most authors actually want. Licenses are not restricted to CC, GPL, or any other boilerplates. In fact, a license is the place to state the author's wishes about how the mod should be used and redistributed. If everyone actually used the licenses for their intended purpose, we wouldn't have all this drama. 

[Lupi]

I'd like to remind everyone what happened the last time (that i remember) that folk started treating modders like garbo, ignoring their wishes, and putting themselves first.

CKAN used to be brats about indexing mods as long as they had a license that allowed it. They hid behind this "well technically it's legal to do this, and The Users Come First" attitude, never pausing to have even an ounce of respect for the creators of the content they were peddling.

A lot of mods went ARR. Like, a lot of them. Which, as i remember at the time, they also pointed out legally also might not have stopped them.

 

It took Sarbian getting the ear of one of CKAN's more sympathetic maintainers at the time, and getting them to de-list modulemanager, y'know, the backbone of so many mods, to make them listen. Because i forget but like doesn't CKAN only show mods it has the dependencies for? And modulemanager was (and is) a dependency for everything. it basically made CKAN  all but useless and forced them to actually look past themselves for a second.

I was a purestock player back then, and even I remember how bad it was for the community.

 

Wheaton's law, my dudes. Y'all waited several months for a game studio backed by a major publisher to put out 1.8, you can wait a little longer for the freelance individual to put out the addon you like. The alternative is that addon possibly ceasing to exist, and ceasing to exist in a way that means NOBODY can pick it up again.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Lupi

[Snark]

Yes, reasonable people can differ on the subject of mod licensing and "etiquette".

However, for general discussion of the issue itself (as opposed to specifically discussing what @R-T-B is doing here), there's already a thread for that:

Please take any further general discussions of the issue there, since it's getting off-topic for this thread.  Discussions specifically about R-T-B's post are fine here, of course.

[B15hop]

9 minutes ago, Galileo said:

Not everyone thinks like you and would instead go "crying" for help from the original dev, possibly resulting in the dev taking his ball and going home, forever.

Sound good? It has happened before and will happen again. Mark my words.

I can understand the issue with that but am I misunderstanding things? I thought the license agreement was pretty clear. Maybe the license should be adjusted to reflect these concerns. Or am I reading it wrong? I will always prefer the original modders code and will revert to it when it's available. But when a code goes unupdated for extended periods, the license allows other people to pick it up to help the community. I don't see that as bad in any way. Maybe I expect too much from people. I have spent years of my life modding and if I step away, I am happy to see someone pick up the torch. It means I made something people love.  You sound like your making a threat. Idc about threats. I'll play vanilla if I have to.. No need to get all ansy. 

PS: I donate.. Sound good?

Edited October 19, 2019 by B15hop

[severedsolo]

Just now, B15hop said:

But when a code goes unupdated for extended periods, the license allows other people to pick it up to help the community. I don't see that as bad in any way.

But that's not what has happened here.

You are absolutely right, we tend to default to open licenses for that very reason. The thing is, every single mod that was on the list is in active development.

[Galileo]

14 minutes ago, B15hop said:

But when a code goes unupdated for extended periods, the license allows other people to pick it up to help the community

Every mod here is in active development.

14 minutes ago, B15hop said:

You sound like your making a threat. Idc about threats. I'll play vanilla if I have to.. No need to get all ansy. 

If your read that and think a threat, that's way out of context... That's easy to do with text. Our minds expect a certain type of response, and yours expected a hostile response. So that's how you read it.

14 minutes ago, B15hop said:

I donate.. Sound good?

That's great, but what does that mean to you? 

Does it entitle people to the fastest updates, regardless of the source? That's what I think when I read that.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Galileo

[B15hop]

24 minutes ago, Galileo said:

Every mod here is in active development.

If your read that and think a threat, that's way out of context... 

Then my apologies. I sincerely appreciate the time and effort peope put into this stuff. I have first hand knowledge of how deep it can get. I have spent years doing it myself. 

Ever play silent hunter 4? Took every surface ship in the game and made it playable, even the AA guns, depth charges, radar, sonar.. Retextured, redid the water textures, codes, recomplied everything. Gave unique ID's, did hitboxes, animations, sounds, you name it.. So don't think I'm coming from the perspective of someone who doesn't get it please.. 

I will admit that I'm new to modding KSP, so maybe I don't know about the subtlety of your rules here. If that is the case then again my bad.  I just don't understand how scatterer can be active if it's been 7 months since it's last update. 

How can you tell if a mod is in active development? I have to admit ignroance to this staus. 

I thought you were being aggressive as I was typing this and saw a bunch of exlamation marks popping out of you..lol.. No hard feelings k. 

What I meant by "I donate" is that I appreciate it when I find something good that I stick with and I give back. I don't just take. Not that I'm entitled to it.. Just that I simply appreciate it.

I literally just started using mods in KSP like this week. So again my apologies if I am misinterpreting something. Best to you.

Edited October 19, 2019 by B15hop

[kerbiloid]

We could see a pack of ship and ground vehicle mods in active development less than a year ago.
Then oops - and where are they now?

The same with a pack of lesser utilities two years ago (struts, etc.).
One person said to another one person something treated as unpleasant, and all mods disappeared at once.

Backups, only backups at any possibility.
If the development continues - that's great. If not - at least an apocrythic mod version.

Edited October 19, 2019 by kerbiloid

[steve_v]

13 hours ago, R-T-B said:

I've recompiled a lot of mods for 1.8.  Some of them weren't even broken, but I figured building against the latest binaries wouldn't hurt.

As someone who has spent quite some time fighting with Gentoo's shambles of a dotnet repository and still hasn't a working mono dev environment, I thank you for your efforts.
While you may have started up an old argument again, credit where it is due, you did save me a bunch of effort and assuage my impatience.

Not being a mod author myself, I can't comment on how much hassle interim recompiles and forks like these will actually cause, but I would ask that you respect the wishes of the original authors. There's some history behind those requests.

IMO the problem is not you, it's not your forks, and it's certainly not the original authors.
The problem is that non-techie users are going to punch "kerbal [modname]" into google and land on the original authors support thread as soon as they run into any problems. The majority are not going to check whether they are running a forked version first. Hell, many don't even bother checking whether they are running an up to date version, let alone where it came from.

I don't see a realistic way around this besides going whole-hog, changing the name, and picking up all future support for your fork. Probably not what you had in mind, and likely considered a "hostile fork" by some when the mod in question is still being actively developed.
Lisias's suggestions regarding appending local version strings are good ones, but I fear there are still too many users who won't bother reading any of it.

Upsetting modders is never a good idea, no matter how justified one may be in exercising the liberties granted by the licence they chose... Or how much "don't fork my stuff or I will change my licence" goes against the spirit of FOSS.

Good intentions paving roads to unpleasant locales and all that.