Please, give the community KSP1's source code

[Lisias]

On 9/16/2023 at 3:59 PM, Nuke said:

its easier to write your own game from scratch that to replace huge parts of the engine. 

There're these guys on Proton demonstrating that it may be hard as hell, but still doable.

The alternative is to completely replace Squad - or just forget the whole thing and go play Starfield or No Man's Sky or some freaking PacMan game on some emulator**. There're bootleg copies of KSP¹ source on the wild anyway - I'm pretty sure someone will be able to do something about by Squad's back and make some bucks from it (as it's already happening by the way).

— — POST EDIT — — 

**I found this Spaceship EVO recently, really interesting. But still made on Unity, damnit. 

— — POST POST EDIT — — 

Things developed in an interesting (and, for me, completely unexpected) way.

There're currently two main theories around here about what's happening:

1. There's an ongoing hostile takeover attempt on Unity Tech, and the current drama are internal adversaries dehydrating the company to make it dirty cheap to be bought by an, at this time, unknown actor.
2. The plot above is nonsense, the Unity's BoD  really, really are a bunch of morons and let themselves be dragged down by a few spoiled brats.

Would you like to know more?

As things are, the option 1 was the less worst of the outcomes, because it implies that once whoever would be plotting this hostile takeover grabs the Company, they would want to recover the business and, so, would make things sane again - or near it.

The option 2 is terrible, because by inference it means that both the BoD as the CEO are being completely inept to handle a crisis provoked by their own ineptitude (this phrase is the rejected child of an oxymoron mated with an pleonasm)  and, so, things are really going to go South and people relying on the Unity3D are in deep crap - not only due the risk of being over-taxed by that install-fee-craziness, but because further stupidnesses of the BoD may ultimately lead to the dismantling of the whole business.

Like the incredibly stupid attempt to sugarcoat the pill by proposing waiving the install-fees to anyone ditching whatever the ad-system they are using to Unity's, what's essentially violating the antitrust law! Microsoft, besides already being an economical behemoth at that time, barely escaped from being split in two for far, far less.

I don't think Unity Technologies has the resources to win such a legal battle, what can end up with huge punitive damages that may lead Unity Technologies to bankruptcy - with no one willing to buy the bankruptcy estate due the fines.

Granted, this is the worst case scenario - but it may be not too far from what's going to happen…

TL;DR: again, Open Source appears to be the only safe bet on this whole ordeal. I doubt Unity3D would go OSI, what makes opening KSP¹'s source a more viable option. Granted, if Unity3D goes OSI, the pressure for KSP¹ doing the same will lesser (but not vanish at all).

Edited September 18, 2023 by Lisias
Adding that banner, as this is the first post of this page! :)

[Nazalassa]

12 hours ago, Nuke said:

its easier to write your own game from scratch that to replace huge parts of the engine. 

"This was the beginning of Project Quark."  --  Wikipedia, 2032

[Lisias]

Retribution time!

This is the real power of Open Source!

https://www.gamesradar.com/terraria-dev-unequivocally-condemns-unity-fee-changes-donates-over-dollar200000-to-other-game-engines/

-- -- post edit -- --

Retribution time**2 !

AppLovin is promoting the development of an automated tool (using LLM) to automate the most the migration of existing Unity3D code to Godot or Unreal.

https://gamefromscratch.com/applovin-launch-project-unifree/

My opinion is that the way to go is not exacly this one, but a bad tool today is better than an excellent tool after the project was shipped.

Let's see how things develop.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Lisias
Post edit

[AtomicTech]

3 hours ago, Lisias said:

Retribution time!

This is the real power of Open Source!

https://www.gamesradar.com/terraria-dev-unequivocally-condemns-unity-fee-changes-donates-over-dollar200000-to-other-game-engines/

-- -- post edit -- --

Retribution time**2 !

AppLovin is promoting the development of an automated tool (using LLM) to automate the most the migration of existing Unity3D code to Godot or Unreal.

https://gamefromscratch.com/applovin-launch-project-unifree/

My opinion is that the way to go is not exacly this one, but a nad tool today is better than an excellent tool after the project was shipped.

Let's see how things develop.

THE POWER OF OPEN SOURCE BAYBEE!!!!

[WhatALovelyNick]

12 hours ago, Lisias said:

Retribution time!

This is the real power of Open Source!

https://www.gamesradar.com/terraria-dev-unequivocally-condemns-unity-fee-changes-donates-over-dollar200000-to-other-game-engines/

-- -- post edit -- --

Retribution time**2 !

AppLovin is promoting the development of an automated tool (using LLM) to automate the most the migration of existing Unity3D code to Godot or Unreal.

https://gamefromscratch.com/applovin-launch-project-unifree/

My opinion is that the way to go is not exacly this one, but a nad tool today is better than an excellent tool after the project was shipped.

Let's see how things develop.

The Source must flow.

This is the way! 

[Nazalassa]

Edited September 20, 2023 by Nazalassa

[kspbutitscursed]

#wen flow

[Lisias]

On 9/20/2023 at 10:39 PM, kspbutitscursed said:

#wen flow

Good question! We need to keep our expectations on check, things are not going to happen next week even on the best of the possible outcomes.

Open Source or not, it's all about money. People code games for money, and the very few that don't, have to work somewhere else to pay the bills - Open Source doesn't abolish Capitalism, it's the other way around.

This Unity's huge feet shooting fest played havoc on everything we knew about the landscape, we need to reevaluate.

Between the many possible scenarios, I can think on the most two extreme ones (reality usually choose something in the middle ground):

• The worst best outcome is Unity Technologies exercise an huge and unexpected mea culpa, fire everyone that contributed directly or indirectly (even by doing nothing) to this tragedy - or something else that, by some miracle, restores magically the (not that big, to tell you the true) trust from their costumers
  1. Unlikely by numerous reasons, one of them being the idiots that pulled this crap from their latrine uh heads don't want to lose their jobs and don't care about the consequences.
• The best worst outcome is the CEO and BoD deciding to grind until the very end, hugely screwing up not only new games but the huge existent library already on the wild.
  1. Unlikely because they are not suicidal neither, they will budge a bit - how much, and what they will do then is the big question
     1. Unity Techonologies are bleeding money a lot, they need to do something or U.T. will capsize for sure - perhaps sooner than later.

The worst best outcome is the best outcome for the publishers, but the worst for the Open Source evangelists because, well, Open Source is about finding a need and filling that need.

Spoiler

In the near fantasist but still possible outcome, Unity will withdraw and revert all the wrongdoings and recover the trust of the customers (at the same time solving their tragic incoming problem). This managing to happen, the need for the Community to gather together on Open Source solutions for their problems will, well, diminish hugely. The fewer people in need of something, more difficult (and prolonged) are to promote a Open Source solution for them.

The best worst outcome is Unity going down for good, perhaps bankrupt or incorporated as a subdivision of someone else uninterested on committing into desktop gaming (as AppLovin - or even Apple, that will aim to promote their own line of computers and mobiles, screwing us again). It's the worst possible scenario for the developers and publishers, but it's also the best possible outcome for Open Source evangelists because everybody will be forced to work together on a solution not only for the new games still in development, but to the older ones already on te market that will be risking forced obsolescence (as it happened with the thousands and thousands os Applets made in Java over NPAPI, or that cute little SWF things (Adobe Flash)). This is where things would happen sensibly faster, because the need would be imminent, it not urgent.

Realistically, however, U.T. will try a less blatant bait and switch tactic by waiving the atrocious install-fee and replacing it with something else that will screw their locked in customers a little less, but will still screw them a bit - these guys need to raise their incoming somehow, and it's more than clear than growing their customer base will be hardly an option (it probably already wasn't anyway, they tried this crap for a reason).

So, our pledge for KSP¹ Source being opened (even if with restrictions) will not have the (strong) argument of the need to survive Unity's atrocities on the short term, and we are back to "only" engaging on fixing the numerous (and growing - I think I found another borked use case on Rerooting crafts) annoyances and bugs on the game.

We would still have a good argument (KSP¹ is still buggy as hell, it's a matter of when you be bitten, not if - and how hard), but frankly our case will be way stronger if Unity ends up committing Harakiri - because procrastination will not be an option anymore.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Lisias
Grammars… {sigh) - good thing I'm a programmer, not a novelist!!

[Nazalassa]

9 hours ago, Lisias said:

Good question! We need to keep our expectations on check, things are not going to happen next week even on the best of the possible outcomes.

Open Source or not, it's all about money. People code games for money, and the very few that don't, have to work somewhere else to pay the bills - Open Source doesn't abolish Capitalism, it's the other way around.

This Unity's huge feet shooting fest played havoc on everything we knew about the landscape, we need to reevaluate.

Between the may possible scenarios, I can think on the most two extreme ones (reality usually choose something in the middle ground):

• The worst best outcome is Unity Technologies exercise an huge and unexpected mea culpa, fire everyone that contributed directly or indirectly (even by doing nothing) to this tragedy - or something else that, by some miracle, restores magically the (not that big, to tell you the true) trust from their costumers
  1. Unlikely by numerous reasons, one of them being the idiots that pulled this crap from their latrine uh heads don't want to lose their jobs and don't care about the consequences.
• The best worst outcome is the CEO and BoD deciding to grind until the very end, hugely screwing up not only new games but the huge existent library already on the wild.
  1. Unlikely because they are not suicidal neither, they will budge a bit - how much, and what they will do then is the big question
     1. Unity Techonologies are bleeding money a lot, they need to do something or U.T. will capsize for sure - perhaps sooner than later.

The worst best outcome is the best outcome for the publishers, but the worst for the Open Source evangelists because, well, Open Source is about finding a need and filling that need.

  Hide contents

In the near fantasist but still possible outcome, Unity will withdraw and revert all the wrongdoings and recover the trust of the customers (at the same time solving their tragic incoming problem). This managing to happen, the need for the Community to gather together on Open Source solutions for their problems will, well, diminish hugely. The fewer people in need of something, more difficult (and prolonged) are to promote a Open Source solution for them.

The best worst outcome is Unity going down for good, perhaps bankrupt or incorporated as a subdivision of someone else uninterested on committing into desktop gaming (as AppLovin - or even Apple, that will aim to promote their own line of computers and mobiles, screwing us again). It's the worst possible scenario for the developers and publishers, but it's also the best possible outcome for Open Source evangelists because everybody will be forced to work together on a solution not only for the new games still in development, but to the older ones already on te market that will be risking forced obsolescence (as it happened with the thousands and thousands os Applets made in Java over NPAPI, or that cute little SWF things (Adobe Flash)). This is where things would happen sensibly faster, because the need would be imminent, it not urgent.

Realistically, however, U.T. will try a less blatant bait and switch tactic by waiving the atrocious install-fee and replacing it with something else that will screw their locked in customers a little less, but will still screw them a bit - these guys need to raise their incoming somehow, and it's more than clear than growing their customer base will be hardly an option (it probably already wasn't anyway, they tried this crap for a reason).

So, our pledge for KSP¹ Source being opened (even if with restrictions) will not have the (strong) argument of the need to survive Unity's atrocities on the short term, and we are back to "only" engaging on fixing the numerous (and growing - I think I found another borked use case on Rerooting crafts) annoyances and bugs on the game.

We would still have a good argument (KSP¹ is still buggy as hell, it's a matter of when you be bitten, not if - and how hard), but frankly our case will be way stronger if Unity ends up committing Harakiri - because procrastination will not be an option anymore.

WHat can I say...

"You have found... Argument of +2 Source Opening!"

[AtomicTech]

19 hours ago, Lisias said:

Good question! We need to keep our expectations on check, things are not going to happen next week even on the best of the possible outcomes.

Open Source or not, it's all about money. People code games for money, and the very few that don't, have to work somewhere else to pay the bills - Open Source doesn't abolish Capitalism, it's the other way around.

This Unity's huge feet shooting fest played havoc on everything we knew about the landscape, we need to reevaluate.

Between the may possible scenarios, I can think on the most two extreme ones (reality usually choose something in the middle ground):

• The worst best outcome is Unity Technologies exercise an huge and unexpected mea culpa, fire everyone that contributed directly or indirectly (even by doing nothing) to this tragedy - or something else that, by some miracle, restores magically the (not that big, to tell you the true) trust from their costumers
  1. Unlikely by numerous reasons, one of them being the idiots that pulled this crap from their latrine uh heads don't want to lose their jobs and don't care about the consequences.
• The best worst outcome is the CEO and BoD deciding to grind until the very end, hugely screwing up not only new games but the huge existent library already on the wild.
  1. Unlikely because they are not suicidal neither, they will budge a bit - how much, and what they will do then is the big question
     1. Unity Techonologies are bleeding money a lot, they need to do something or U.T. will capsize for sure - perhaps sooner than later.

The worst best outcome is the best outcome for the publishers, but the worst for the Open Source evangelists because, well, Open Source is about finding a need and filling that need.

  Reveal hidden contents

In the near fantasist but still possible outcome, Unity will withdraw and revert all the wrongdoings and recover the trust of the customers (at the same time solving their tragic incoming problem). This managing to happen, the need for the Community to gather together on Open Source solutions for their problems will, well, diminish hugely. The fewer people in need of something, more difficult (and prolonged) are to promote a Open Source solution for them.

The best worst outcome is Unity going down for good, perhaps bankrupt or incorporated as a subdivision of someone else uninterested on committing into desktop gaming (as AppLovin - or even Apple, that will aim to promote their own line of computers and mobiles, screwing us again). It's the worst possible scenario for the developers and publishers, but it's also the best possible outcome for Open Source evangelists because everybody will be forced to work together on a solution not only for the new games still in development, but to the older ones already on te market that will be risking forced obsolescence (as it happened with the thousands and thousands os Applets made in Java over NPAPI, or that cute little SWF things (Adobe Flash)). This is where things would happen sensibly faster, because the need would be imminent, it not urgent.

Realistically, however, U.T. will try a less blatant bait and switch tactic by waiving the atrocious install-fee and replacing it with something else that will screw their locked in customers a little less, but will still screw them a bit - these guys need to raise their incoming somehow, and it's more than clear than growing their customer base will be hardly an option (it probably already wasn't anyway, they tried this crap for a reason).

So, our pledge for KSP¹ Source being opened (even if with restrictions) will not have the (strong) argument of the need to survive Unity's atrocities on the short term, and we are back to "only" engaging on fixing the numerous (and growing - I think I found another borked use case on Rerooting crafts) annoyances and bugs on the game.

We would still have a good argument (KSP¹ is still buggy as hell, it's a matter of when you be bitten, not if - and how hard), but frankly our case will be way stronger if Unity ends up committing Harakiri - because procrastination will not be an option anymore.

Very well written Lisias!

[TwoCalories]

I don't even know what the source code is...

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, TwoCalories said:

I don't even know what the source code is...

Fair enough. If we want support from the layman, we need to make them a bit less layman!

Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, I looked for someone (way better English fluent than me) that had done it nicely. And I not only found one, but it talks explicitly about how the Source Game can help gaming!

 

The importance of having access to KSP¹'s source code was already discussed ad nauseam on this thread, I suggest to read this bunch o links to have a thoughtful explanation - you may want to read some other posts of mine too.

But, in a nutshell, having access to the Source Code is essentially why we have Internet nowadays - the whole TCP/IP stack (the thingy that allows computers to talk to each other on this big network we call Internet) is Open Source, and it's the reason that everything including the kitchen's sink (LITERALLY) can talk to Internet - as there's no need to rewrite it from scratch for every new device (or pay someone to do it), what would drive the costs to the stratosphere.

That said, not everything need to be Open Source in order to succeed. Most games are an example of that. But sometimes, some games get relevant enough to demand a higher level of support that perhaps may not be under the reach of the publisher! Some people may be willing to port the thingy into ARM processors, some other may want to run it on RISC-V dev boards, perhaps a new lightweight, energy efficient and powerful (but pretty expensive) tablet is being launched somewhere in the World and NASA would love to have it on the Space Station running KSP.  It would not be feasible economically to KSP's publisher to spend all that money themselves, neither reasonable they start to charge people that run KSP on PCs to fund such development. If KSP¹'s source code would be available, interested people (as NASA engineers) would be able to do the port themselves using their free time.

Now we need to talk about something else: what Source Code is not. 

As it was said above, having access to the Source Code is not the same as being able to relaunch a version of the Game yourself and make some bucks from it.

Images, characters, lore, sounds, animations, missions, all of this is also Intelectual Property, and they are not part of the Source Code. So, unless KSP¹'s published decides to release everything as Public Domain (as did by the Fables author!), you may recompile the thing, and (depending of the license) perhaps redistribute the compiled code to whoever may want it- but not the rest of the game. The dude that would download that code would need to buy KSP¹ the same (if not had done it already), because the compiled code by itself is not enough to play the game.

Being pragmatic, the real need for the KSP¹'s source code is to fix the bugs. For years KSP¹ is being plagued by bugs that were not fixed - or were poorly fixed, leading to yet more bugs). Obviously, such bugs are not going to be properly fixed anymore now that the KSP¹'s development cycle is finished. Having access to this Source Code will allow us, Authors, to be able to properly fix or work around these bugs without creating new ones, because we will be able to check on the Source Code (and by debugging sessions) exactly what's happening under the bonnet, and so be able to do something about.

(I will not discuss, again, about shaddy ways to get access to that Source Code and that's being already exploited on the wild - we aim to be EULA and Forum compliant on this task, some of us are professionals where it's unethical to do such things, as it may affect negatively our careers).

Completely unrelated to KSP¹ but affecting it, recently Unity Technologies decided to go the Racketeer way and virtually almost killed their game scene. It was really that bad, and perhaps will keep being that way.

The Worst didn't happened (yet?), but if things had really gone down trough the tubes,  having access to KSP¹'s source code would improve the chances of having it ported to something else by the Community (porting things is where Open Source guys really shine). On the other hand, if KSP¹ were made using an already Open Source engine like Godot (or anything else that could suit them better), all that drama would just not affect them - because it's plain impossible to go rogue on the customers that are using Open Source themselves.

One can withdraw support for the object of the contract, but can't prevent someone else from offering a replacement contract (see the last Red Hat drama).

— — — 

I have noticed that someone (I forgot who, sorry!) is using my Banner on their Signature:

But just miniaturising the image made it ugly due the white text being illegible and screwing the aesthetics.

So I rendered a new one, without the white text, in a small "form factor":

Whoever you are (and everybody else), fell free to use it instead!

Cheers!

[TwoCalories]

Okay, I think I get it now. The source code is a simplified version of the code that humans can understand. The reason that access to the source code is important is because it allows for modders to make better mods...?

Edited September 25, 2023 by TwoCalories

[Jacke]

37 minutes ago, TwoCalories said:

The source code is a simplified version of the code that humans can understand. The reason that access to the source code is important is because it allows for modders to make better mods...?

Source code is written  in a language that makes it easier to understand what the program is doing and to modify it.

Source code isn't really simplified.  It's often much more complex to give programmers the tools to write what the program does in a way that's easier to understand, but in execution is much more complex.  Compilers are the programs that take source code and turn it into object code, much closer or actually the instructions the machine hardware uses.  The complex structures in the source code like data structures, programming loops, conditionals, etc. are made into simple but more wordy structures in the object code.

It is possible to write object code directly.  But that is only done now in limited cases.  Compilers are a whole 'nother area of Computing with lots of fiddly bits.

[Lisias]

On 9/24/2023 at 11:36 PM, TwoCalories said:

Okay, I think I get it now. The source code is a simplified version of the code that humans can understand.

Yep! Some few of us ends up understanding machine code directly - but I'm not absolutely sure we can call them "humans" , so yeah, it's exactly it! 

 

On 9/24/2023 at 11:36 PM, TwoCalories said:

The reason that access to the source code is important is because it allows for modders to make better mods...?

It's one of the reasons, for sure. There're different ways of releasing the source, with different outcomes. I will summarise the most relevant ones (being plausible or not) to help you on understanding the matter:

• The Source could be released on Public Domain, so anyone can do whatever they want with it.
  • Yeah. Right. Dream on!
  • Unless they are completely out of hope of keeping the franchise alive, they will not do it. I won't neither, and I AM an Open Source evangelist.
• The Source could be released on a MIT/Expat License style:
  • Almost the same thing as Public Domain, but at least anyone using the Source Code will be obliged to mention you on the copyrights and documentation.
  • Again, I won't do it neither. There's no gain on it while there's hope of making money on the franchise.
• The Source could be released under a GPL or similar Free (as in speech) license
  • Things here start to be feasible. GPL style license don't forbid you from rereleasing something using the Source, but demands that any modification you do on the Source must be distributed under GPL (or whatever is the license you chose) too, and so any enhancement will be available to you too!
  • Same for bug fixes. I would be allowed to legally download the Source code, apply my changes, publish a binary only package to whoever would be nuts enough to use their time testing my gadgets that so would help me to check if I did things right - as well anyone else here (many will fail, but we need only one succeeding to have the problem solved)
    • I scratch your itch, you scratch my itch, and both of us profit from the ordeal.
  • But, besides all the other assets not being part of the deal, the Source - in theory - can be used on a competitor trying to cut their teeth on the same niche, and having access to the Source is a barrier less to do such.
    • So, in the end, it's up to them to decided if they think what's worth more for them: to gather open source resources around them (what's, being sincere, it's a problem by itself) but allow a few opportunists to try their teeth on their niche, of if it's better to alienate such workforce but keep a small edge over the competition (that can still invest their own resources on it, if they find profitable, and compete the same - [edit: and assuming they aren't doing it already by using shady practices]).
      • Only them can answer this one - we don't have enough information to even suggest something.
• The Source can be made available on a restricted license, that allows me us to merely read the code and compile it on my our rigs, so I we can debug it. But nothing else.
  • It's a compromise on doing nothing and going Open Source.
  • Ok, I will not have any incentive to fix the thing myself and push the fixes to be used by them, but I at least I can check exactly how and where things are happening under the bonnet and, so can do something on my add'ons to prevent triggering problems and/or work around them (as I already do on KSP-Recall).
  • THIS is the option that fits perfectly what you said.

In a way or another, such Source code is their property - more or less as you computer, home or car. It's up to them to decide what to do, our role on this thread is to offer them options, in the hopes we manage to reach a win-win situation for all parts involved:

• Users want to play the damned game without being peskyed by bugs, crashes and nuisances.
  • Plain impossible on Stock, and it's becoming extremely hard with mods
• Authors will be able to really understand what's happening inside the damned thing, and finally we will be able to locate the real source of the problems instead of finger pointing each other, trying to save face (or something worse).
• They will have a better chance to keep selling KSP¹, helping on keep things funded so they stay afloat.
  • If they go OSI, it's plausible (depending on how dextrous they are on gathering people on their cause) to even expand the user base by supporting new devices currently beyound their reach, as porting things around is where OSI is really good.
  • Not an easy feat, but plausible.
  • It's exactly how we have WINE and Proton nowadays.

 

On 9/25/2023 at 12:20 AM, Jacke said:

Source code is written  in a language that makes it easier to understand what the program is doing and to modify it.

Ideally. Perl, for example, doesn't exactly copes with your statement!!!!!

(yeah, I'm maintaining some Perl code these days - the problem is that the damned thing is still be the best tool for the task, so…  )

Edited October 1, 2023 by Lisias
Tyops, and a missing statement (in italics)

[Nazalassa]

2 minutes ago, Lisias said:

If they go OSI, it's plausible (depending on how dextrous they are on gathering people on their cause) to even expand the user base by supporting new devices currently beyound their reach, as porting things around is where OSI is really good.

KSP 1.12.5 for BeOS/Haiku is coming...

[Kerbalsaurus]

I am in full support of this movement, but we really need to push hard if we want the source code. After all, it's just 138 people against a multi-million dollar corporation.

[Nazalassa]

1 minute ago, Kerbalsaurus said:

After all, it's just 138 people against a multi-million dollar corporation.

138 people is already quite good.

[Lisias]

On 5/8/2023 at 2:05 PM, WhatALovelyNick said:

That's right. But... how will we make them to hear us at least?

I tried and this topic went dead for about two months.

Like water on rocks. As a matter of fact, there's not too much we need to do, because Life is already doing it for us.

I'm being relatively silent the last weeks because, as usual, I'm debugging problems and - guess what? - the closed source way of patching things is already screwing up the game.

Before going ahead, let's make perfectly clear that there's absolutely no sign of malice on what I'm going to describe below - but, yet, the fact that it can be easily misunderstood as malice is already a big (snip) red flag raising under our (and their) noses.

It's not a secret anymore that KSP¹ is being monkey patched by our backs - silently, and without warning. You fire up your KSP today, and out of the blue it behaves differently from yesterday. Like happened to me last year while coding a support library for Airplane+:

Interesting enough, the problem vanished on the early hours of the next Monday - what a coincidence, no?

So, the Genie is out of the bottle: Squad (and/or TTI) are monkey patching the game by our backs. Of course they intend to fix problems on the wild, but we need to rise some concerns about this practice;

• It's legal all over the World? AFAIK the European Union have some restrictions about things changing on the user's machine without explicit authorisation...
• If they didn't managed to fix the game while it was being developed, exactly why we should believe they will be able to do now? Frankly, I expect the same results we got in the past, with fixes for old bugs creating yet new bugs, on a endless feedback loop.
• Sooner or later this may be exploited by adversarial parties - i.e., KSP¹ will be used as a vector to distribute malware. The freaking game has no DRM, has it? Exactly what's preventing an adversarial from perverting KSP¹ to download… "interesting" things?
  • And even if they managed to keep the thing secure, the fact is that self-updating code is already a tremendous pain in the ass nowadays, and I'm really surprised there's no legal forces yet advocating for banning this practice.
    • This madness must stop somehow
  • And, so, KSP¹ (and everything else) will just be flagged as malware - assuming this is not happening already.

And have I mentioned that having a bunch of people doing MonkeyPatching at the same time is a receipt for disaster? No? Now I have:

TL;DR: Someone Monkey Patched something to fix a problem, but this screwed TweakScale because another dude was already emitting CIL code at runtime and the Monkey Patched thing didn't accounted for that, and so we had replaced a nasty bug on the Assembly Loader/Resolver affecting people loading DLLs with a WORST ONE affecting everybody. TweakScale is only one of the victims - but since it's pretty used, it's under the spotlight first.

All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.

None, absolutely none of that problems affects Open Source - once you have a secure channel to download binaries, of course. But as long the Source is available and anyone, absolutely anyone is able to compile and double check the integrity of the artefacts, the game will be safe - worst case scenario, we shutdown a rogue channel and replace it with a new one.

We (OSS) have bugs? Yeah, damnit, we have a lot of bugs. But they are all on the open - and we are seeing each other trying to fix them. Everything is trackable, we don't get locked between a rock and a hard place as it's happening to me right now - because I'm completely unable to even further diagnosing the problem, because I didn't managed to pinpoint exactly where it is for sure (I'm guessing it may be related to KSPCF, but yet, it may be just another victim of the problem being involved because it handled it before).

— — — POST EDIT — — — 

For anyone wondering if I'm pushing things too far with my argument against Monkey Patching:

Valve adds new security check after attackers compromise Steam accounts of multiple game devs and update their games with malware

https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-malware-attack-new-security/

Sooner or later an adversarial will realise that KSP is, right now, an excellent vector for Malware distribution. I think we should start to look to this problem before we got hit by something.

Edited October 17, 2023 by Gargamel
Portions redacted by moderator

[Royalswissarmyknife]

On 10/8/2023 at 5:58 AM, Lisias said:

Like water on rocks. As a matter of fact, there's not too much we need to do, because Life is already doing it for us.

I'm being relatively silent the last weeks because, as usual, I'm debugging problems and - guess what? - the closed source way of patching things is already screwing up the game.

Before going ahead, let's make perfectly clear that there's absolutely no sign of malice on what I'm going to describe below - but, yet, the fact that it can be easily misunderstood as malice is already a big fscking red flag raising under our (and their) noses.

It's not a secret anymore that KSP¹ is being monkey patched by our backs - silently, and without warning. You fire up your KSP today, and out of the blue it behaves differently from yesterday. Like happened to me last year while coding a support library for Airplane+:

Interesting enough, the problem vanished on the early hours of the next Monday - what a coincidence, no?

So, the Genie is out of the bottle: Squad (and/or TTI) are monkey patching the game by our backs. Of course they intend to fix problems on the wild, but we need to rise some concerns about this practice;

• It's legal all over the World? AFAIK the European Union have some restrictions about things changing on the user's machine without explicit authorisation...
• If they didn't managed to fix the game while it was being developed, exactly why we should believe they will be able to do now? Frankly, I expect the same results we got in the past, with fixes for old bugs creating yet new bugs, on a endless feedback loop.
• Sooner or later this may be exploited by adversarial parties - i.e., KSP¹ will be used as a vector to distribute malware. The freaking game has no DRM, has it? Exactly what's preventing an adversarial from perverting KSP¹ to download… "interesting" things?
  • And even if they managed to keep the thing secure, the fact is that self-updating code is already a tremendous pain in the ass nowadays, and I'm really surprised there's no legal forces yet advocating for banning this practice.
    • This madness must stop somehow
  • And, so, KSP¹ (and everything else) will just be flagged as malware - assuming this is not happening already.

And have I mentioned that having a bunch of people doing MonkeyPatching at the same time is a receipt for disaster? No? Now I have:

TL;DR: Someone Monkey Patched something to fix a problem, but this screwed TweakScale because another dude was already emitting CIL code at runtime and the Monkey Patched thing didn't accounted for that, and so we had replaced a nasty bug on the Assembly Loader/Resolver affecting people loading DLLs with a WORST ONE affecting everybody. TweakScale is only one of the victims - but since it's pretty used, it's under the spotlight first.

All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.

None, absolutely none of that problems affects Open Source - once you have a secure channel to download binaries, of course. But as long the Source is available and anyone, absolutely anyone is able to compile and double check the integrity of the artefacts, the game will be safe - worst case scenario, we shutdown a rogue channel and replace it with a new one.

We (OSS) have bugs? Yeah, damnit, we have a lot of bugs. But they are all on the open - and we are seeing each other trying to fix them. Everything is trackable, we don't get locked between a rock and a hard place as it's happening to me right now - because I'm completely unable to even further diagnosing the problem, because I didn't managed to pinpoint exactly where it is for sure (I'm guessing it may be related to KSPCF, but yet, it may be just another victim of the problem being involved because it handled it before).

— — — POST EDIT — — — 

For anyone wondering if I'm pushing things too far with my argument against Monkey Patching:

Valve adds new security check after attackers compromise Steam accounts of multiple game devs and update their games with malware

https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-malware-attack-new-security/

Sooner or later an adversarial will realise that KSP is, right now, an excellent vector for Malware distribution. I think we should start to look to this problem before we got hit by something.

What!!! 

Well now there is a VERY good reason for the source to flow.

[Great Liao]

THE SOURCE MUST FLOW!
#MakeKerbalGreatAgain #FlowtheSource

[AtomicTech]

13 hours ago, Great Liao said:

THE SOURCE MUST FLOW!
#MakeKerbalGreatAgain #FlowtheSource

 

Folks, after the sequel's release, it has become clear that we need to continue development of KSP, even if it's just bugfixing.

So,

THE SOURCE MUST FLOW!

Edited October 17, 2023 by Gargamel
Large obnoxious formatting removed

[Gargamel]

Please do not post in large text.   People use many different browsers or devices, and huge text can make it difficult to read on some of them.    

[AtomicTech]

11 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

Please do not post in large text.   People use many different browsers or devices, and huge text can make it difficult to read on some of them.    

Thanks for the advisory

[AtomicTech]

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