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

[Snark]

8 minutes ago, B15hop said:

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

It's usually pretty obvious at a glance, just by looking at a mod's thread. If the author hasn't posted anything in a year and the mod's been broken a long time and you see plaintive posts in the thread from forlorn users wishing for an update, then that's a clue that it may be abandoned. On the other hand, if you see a lively and recent discussion there, then it's likely a going concern.

And of course if there's any doubt, you could always just ask.

[B15hop]

1 minute ago, Snark said:

It's usually pretty obvious at a glance, just by looking at a mod's thread. If the author hasn't posted anything in a year and the mod's been broken a long time and you see plaintive posts in the thread from forlorn users wishing for an update, then that's a clue that it may be abandoned. On the other hand, if you see a lively and recent discussion there, then it's likely a going concern.

And of course if there's any doubt, you could always just ask.

OK, I was hoping there was like a highlighted button that says (Active) or (Discontinued). I hope for too much..lol

Thank you for the clarification.

[Snark]

Some additional posts that are talking about "mod licensing / forking / modder-user interactions" in general, rather than about this specific thread, have once again been moved over to the Mod licensing and "etiquette" thread.

• Philosophical discussions about the nature of modder / user interactions, forking, etc. go in the other thread.
• Discussions about what R-T-B is specifically doing with the specific mods here, are fine here in this thread.

Please try to keep things reasonably on-topic, folks?  Thank you.

[R-T-B]

4 hours ago, severedsolo said:

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

I will do so.  My appologies, your mod is a fave of mine.  I hope you don't mind if I merely mark the repo private because I have plans for it.  And you have rights to the name, if nothing else...  So I will honor whatever you wish. 

Done.

 

For the rest of you, did not mean to ruffle feathers.  If I clarified support should be redirected to me and dropped the cloned namespaces and such would that be helpful?  Was just trying to help.

 

Edited October 19, 2019 by R-T-B

[R-T-B]

3 hours ago, Galileo said:

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.

 

Could you perhaps name a few so I can look at it?  It works in my testing but I completely avoid the particle system.  I'm working on a translator for particles, and plan a pull request to all projects as well.

2 hours ago, severedsolo said:

The thing is, every single mod that was on the list is in active development.

Sort of...  some of them are quite a bit behind.  ShowFPS in particular is hurting FPS (the irony) without a proper recompile.

 

I actually fixed bugs in scatterer.  Bugged horizon code was flooding everything.

 

Edited October 19, 2019 by R-T-B

[Galileo]

29 minutes ago, R-T-B said:

Could you perhaps name a few so I can look at it?  It works in my testing but I completely avoid the particle system

Aside from particles, did you ensure the shaders work with planet packs? What about the shader switching in the main menu? There is more, but I'll stop there. Kopernicus is going to take more than a recompile and will take more thorough testing than just initial loading.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Galileo

[Snark]

4 minutes ago, R-T-B said:

For the rest of you, did not mean to ruffle feathers....  Was just trying to help.

I know you were just trying to be helpful, and I wouldn't dream of blaming you-- I hope others wouldn't, either.  You were trying to help the community, and I applaud you for that. 

Bear in mind that if emotions seem to run a bit high, here, they're not really directed at you.  What's going on here is that, through no fault of your own, you've innocently stumbled into a bit of a hot-button topic that's caused considerable contention and grief in the past.  So when you make your post, you're kinda "inheriting" all the pent-up frustration that people have.  On the one hand, that's understandable, but on the other, I'm sorry you're kinda bearing the brunt, here.

It's not your fault that the innocent-looking can you were opening just happened to have a whole lotta worms in it. 

 

7 minutes ago, R-T-B said:

If I clarified support should be redirected to me and dropped the cloned namespaces and such would that be helpful?

That's a kind thought, and props to you for suggesting it.    In an ideal world, that's all it would take.

Unfortunately, though, experience has shown that in actuality, no, that wouldn't be even slightly helpful.  The problem is that once something is released into the wilds of the Internet, it tends to get copied around and passed from hand to hand, and any accompanying "admonishments about proper use" will get lost.

A few dozen people might download directly from your page, here.  Maybe one or two of them might actually read instructions you provide, though 99%+ almost certainly won't, because nobody ever does.  The typical user (myself included) who wants to download a mod, just goes and looks at a page and all they see is "blah blah blah download link blah blah blah".  All the "blahs" just get ignored.

But those people who download your stuff may post it elsewhere, and then it gets copied around all over the place.  It could end up with thousands of people using it, most of whom may not realize that it's not the official author's version.  And when they want help, they won't even know that your thread exists, much less where to find it.  No, the way they'll try to get help will be what they always do, which is to just type the mod name into Google, which will helpfully direct them to the mod author's thread.

And then hilarity will ensue, because neither the mod author nor the well-meaning mod user will realize that they're not actually using an "official" version, which in turn could mean that a lot of time gets wasted until that salient fact eventually emerges.

And that difficulty would persist for a long time, even if you took down your thread-- because once the copies are out there, they're out there.

So, that's the thing that mod authors really worry about.  If "unauthorized" copies exist in the wild, then well-meaning but clueless users will go to the mod author for support, and there's no good way of stopping that from happening.

 

[R-T-B]

2 minutes ago, Galileo said:

Aside from particles, did you find nsure the shaders work with planet packs? What about the shader switching in the main menu? There is more, but I'll stop there. Kopernicus is going to take more than a recompile and will take more thorough testing than just initial loading.

I use Astronomers and whatever features it uses, work.

I did post warnings.  To be frank, if people blame me, they should.  That's what bug reports and pull requests are for.  More eyes on your code is not a bad thing and if they blaze through warnings and wreck a save, who can they really blame?

Still, if you would prefer your code pulled, I can do that.  Or just binaries.  Whatever.

[R-T-B]

4 minutes ago, Snark said:

A few dozen people might download directly from your page, here.  Maybe one or two of them might actually read instructions you provide, though 99%+ almost certainly won't, because nobody ever does.  The typical user (myself included) who wants to download a mod, just goes and looks at a page and all they see is "blah blah blah download link blah blah blah".  All the "blahs" just get ignored.

But those people who download your stuff may post it elsewhere, and then it gets copied around all over the place.  It could end up with thousands of people using it, most of whom may not realize that it's not the official author's version.  And when they want help, they won't even know that your thread exists, much less where to find it.  No, the way they'll try to get help will be what they always do, which is to just type the mod name into Google, which will helpfully direct them to the mod author's thread.

See, I thought of both those things in advance, and addressed them by tagging binary file zips with my name (-RTBEDITION) AND not specifically naming all my updates in my library thus forcing reading to know WHAT you are downloading.

[Stone Blue]

41 minutes ago, R-T-B said:

I actually fixed bugs in scatterer.  Bugged horizon code was flooding everything.

Thats the thing... rather than releasing your own fork, esp. in a new thread, IMHO, this is where an actual PR to original mods' repo might be best... vOv ..and a post explaining it in said mods' thread...

I dont think it would be a problem you making your own thread, listing and explaining all the fixes you've made, *after* you've done the above, and include links to your posts on those other mod threads, rather than llinking, here, directly to your forks... vOv

Edited October 19, 2019 by Stone Blue

[Galileo]

6 minutes ago, R-T-B said:

Still, if you would prefer your code pulled, I can do that.  Or just binaries.  Whatever.

I'm not sure why you are taking such offense? All we are saying is that this is not best practice, not an attack

Edited October 19, 2019 by Galileo

[R-T-B]

Just now, Stone Blue said:

Thats the thing... rather than releasing your own fork, esp. in a new thread, IMHO, this is where an actual PR to original mods' repo might be best... vOv ..and a post explaining it in said mods' thread...

This is planned.  You know how github pull requests work, correct?  A fork is needed to make one.

 

Still, I will admit a binary release and anouncement is not.  In an ideal world I had planned to get specific user feedback before submitting the code, to see if it works well, at all.  It's really just old commented code I reused.

[R-T-B]

9 minutes ago, Galileo said:

I'm not sure why you are taking such offense? All we are saying is that this is not best practice, not an attack

Not trying too.  Just a tad confused reading licenses wasn't enough, but no offense taken.  Maybe my wording betrayed me.

 

8 minutes ago, Snark said:

The fundamental issues is that most mod users never read the fine print.  They just don't.  And there's no way of getting them to do it reliably, either.  And by "fine print" I mean basically anything other than "I download, I install, I run it". 

I am thinking the best way to handle this then is to completely rename the subprojects, and advertise them as "compatible with x," except of course for the ones completely abandoned.

Would that work?

Edited October 19, 2019 by R-T-B

[Snark]

1 minute ago, R-T-B said:

See, I thought of both those things in advance, and addressed them by tagging binary file zips with my name (-RTBEDITION) AND not specifically naming all my updates in my library thus forcing reading to know WHAT you are downloading.

That's an excellent choice, and thank you for being foresightful and considerate.

Unfortunately, people tend not to look at the fine details.  If the thing says the name of <famous mod>, even with decorations appended to it, then people will just google that and go where it leads them, very often.

The fundamental issues is that most mod users never read the fine print.  They just don't.  And there's no way of getting them to do it reliably, either.  And by "fine print" I mean basically anything other than "I download, I install, I run it". 

[severedsolo]

1 hour ago, R-T-B said:

I will do so.  My appologies, your mod is a fave of mine.  I hope you don't mind if I merely mark the repo private because I have plans for it

It's fine. I know I came across a little heavy handed - and certainly you weren't doing anything wrong (as in "against the rules") by forking it.

Just understand that, these things invariably cause more headaches for the original authors. Steve_v and Snark pretty much summed it up. It's not about you, it's about everyone else not paying attention.

As for keeping the repo private, do what you like with it if it's for your own personal use. I'll point out that the code is a complete mess though, which is one of the reasons it hasn't been updated, as I'm working on a complete re-write. Monthly Budgets was the mod I cut my teeth on, and boy does it show.

So in short: Sorry for giving you the brunt of 5 years of frustrations over things that aren't really your fault, I know you meant well, but these things just... don't go well.

 

[R-T-B]

4 hours ago, Thomas P. said:

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.

 

Not really.  I wasn't even aware you used that version.  Check my builds:  Universally all builds were bumped on .1 version.  This was arbitrary and not intended to "mess with you."

Also, all the included dll depencies were recompiled as well.  Just compare them as binary if you don't believe me.  I probably should post those sources, too, oops.

This was in line with my end goal, which was to rid myself of .net 3.5 dlls.

 

 

Edited October 19, 2019 by R-T-B

[panarchist]

2 hours ago, B15hop said:

OK, I was hoping there was like a highlighted button that says (Active) or (Discontinued). I hope for too much..lol

Thank you for the clarification.

The vast majority of KSP mods will have source on Github. Github is really good about having dates on everything, just make sure you check all the branches, not just Master. A lot of times, especially with complex mods like Kerbalism, MKS, or Pathfinder; or with mods that have dependencies or ARE dependencies for a lot of things, like ModuleManager or Kopernicus, there is significant work in another branch for weeks or months before a new release.

And of course, it all goes to heck when Squad/Private Division does a new release.

In any case, if the last updated date was in the last 30 days, it's obviously still under development, and if it was July 2018 and under a permissive license like CC BY-NC-SA 3.0, it's probably a candidate for adoption. The ones where it's really important to actually contact a mod author rather than making a good-faith attempt are those that are somewhere in-between: 3 months - 12 months ago.

[DoctorDavinci]

@R-T-BSo this sort of deal is exactly why I took down most of my mods last year since I was getting inundated with support requests for versions of my mods that others broke

Even one of my unreleased mods was grabbed, compiled and then handed out to whomever wanted to try it ... that would be OrX The Loot Box Controversy

This sort of thing is making me consider changing OrX Kontinuum to All Rights Reserved and coding in a lock in all my mods to guarantee that nobody can get them working in later versions unless they know how to unlock it in the code

I fully understand that you're just trying to help but in the end it is actions like this that causes many a modder to just say liquid on it and delete their repo's 

[R-T-B]

11 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

I fully understand that you're just trying to help but in the end it is actions like this that causes many a modder to just say liquid on it and delete their repo's 

I get that now and obviously that's something we all want to avoid. 

Still, I wasn't going to make buggy builds and abandon them.  They may start buggy, but my intention was to use them to FIX bugs and submit PR, raising mainline build quality for everyone as well as providing bleeding edge support for those risk-taker types.  People didn't seem to get that however.  And admitedly, I didn't make it clear and went about it completely wrong in this communities context.

It seems to me, there are three core issues here at stake:

One:  Code rights.  This really isn't an issue because honestly, if you chose an OSS license you knew what it entailed,  but I'd rather not liquid people off.

Two:  Naming Rights.  This is a real issue.  I just took people's names without contacting them and cloned namespaces.  I tagged binaries but that's not really enough.

Three:  Support burden:  This needs to be forced to me for support with my builds.  How to do that?

In respect that the current system does not fully address these issues, my repos are coming down.  My plan is, in the end, to fork each project under a new name and thus force support to me as it isn't even called the same thing.  The new mod will be advertised as a "bleeding edge, compatible version of x" and it will be explicitly stated this version is intended for bug collecting, supporting the devs via pull requests, and is possibly dangerous.  Support will only go to me for those builds, but I will communicate with the devs throuhgout.

Specifically:  The mod won't even be claimed/renamed/made without explicit original author support.

The exception to this is ShowFPS, because it's stale and abandoned as best I can tell.  Plus it's bugfree and simple.

I will be contacting each of the relevant authors (where possible) in the next few days to get permissions.  If they are denied or not preferred, it will not be done.  That should fix this.

Working on it now.  New threads will be made for each subproject.

PS:  As you may have guessed, you aren't going to get rid of me easily!  It's ok, that's good for support.  If I ever run away, you can find me relatively easily.  I'm a retired IT journalist.  I worked for techpowerup.com, and still hold an account there.  Go read some of my past articles if you're feeling frisky!

Edited October 19, 2019 by R-T-B

[Lisias]

1 minute ago, R-T-B said:

Still, I wasn't going to make buggy builds

Yes, you are.

Everybody borks, dude. The only way to prevent that is by doing nothing.

And, sometimes, Real Life talks louder and then you are forced to leave a buggy release on the wild for some time until you manage to grab the time to fix the thing. And by that point, some anxious users could had played havoc when you were not looking.

i fully understand the reasons exposed above. We need to reach a compromise, and I think we can do so.

 

[*MajorTom*]

8 minutes ago, R-T-B said:

 

Working on it now.  New threads will be made for each subproject.

 

Well, for example blackrack was here last time on September 25th. Today is October 19th, so the scatterer can be expected to be "almost never" (in a reasonable perspective for ME and MY vacation), and therefore a number of visual mods that depend. As a user, I see two exits: 1. score on 1.8 and return to 1.7.3, 2. use what is in any way.
Total: R-T-V, will you be so kind as to throw a link to your version of the scatterer in a personal message? PLEEEASE!

[R-T-B]

10 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Yes, you are.

Change to "eternally buggy" builds and you'll have my meaning.   I mean the whole point of the first builds was to find what broke.  If there weren't bugs I'd be... bored.

10 minutes ago, *MajorTom* said:

Well, for example blackrack was here last time on September 25th. Today is October 19th, so the scatterer can be expected to be "almost never" (in a reasonable perspective for ME and MY vacation), and therefore a number of visual mods that depend. As a user, I see two exits: 1. score on 1.8 and return to 1.7.3, 2. use what is in any way.
Total: R-T-V, will you be so kind as to throw a link to your version of the scatterer in a personal message? PLEEEASE!

Scatterer will remain up and supported until...  objections.  It will get a rename and scrub during which it will be briefly down however.

I'll be posting new projects here really soon, including scatterer.  It will be one of the first, like minutes.

@Snark, this sound good to you?  I'll be doing it soon if you don't chastise me, so don't say you weren't warned...

Edited October 19, 2019 by R-T-B

[linuxgurugamer]

35 minutes ago, R-T-B said:

The exception to this is ShowFPS, because it's stale and abandoned as best I can tell.  Plus it's bugfree and simple.

Not stale nor abandoned.  It will be part of my mod updates.

I would appreciate PRs for any issues that you may have found.

I have nearly 200 mods to update.  I’ve  started on the infrastructure changes I’ll need to do this, but don’t expect to start any releases until next week sometime.

Edited October 19, 2019 by linuxgurugamer

[R-T-B]

4 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Not stale nor abandoned.  It will be part of my mod updates.

I would appreciate PRs for any issues that you may have found.

I have nearly 200 mods to update.  I’ve  started on the infrastructure changes I’ll need to do this, but don’t expect to start any releases until next week sometime.

No issues other than a minor (maybe just me, AMD cards are weird) FPS penalty in OpenGL with the latest build that a simple recompile seemingly resolved.  That one just straight built.  I'll rename it then.  Is it ok if I keep a seperate renamed build, crediting you, for straight recompile testing of bugs ala the above?  PR would be made if issues are found.  Thanks.

Edited October 19, 2019 by R-T-B

[linuxgurugamer]

7 minutes ago, R-T-B said:

No issues other than a minor (maybe just me, AMD cards are weird) FPS penalty in OpenGL with the latest build.  That one just straight built.  I'll rename it then.  Is it ok if I keep a seperate renamed build, crediting you, for straight recompile testing of bugs ala the above?  PR would be made if issues are found.  Thanks.

As long as you take it down once I release the update, go ahead.  For the ShowFPS mod, i give  you permission to release it as an unofficial release using the same name, in the mod thread.  It’s such a simple mod, I’ll accept the small risk of requests for help on the thread, I would appreciate you keeping an eye on the thread and responding to those.

Edited October 19, 2019 by linuxgurugamer