Please, give the community KSP1's source code

[timmy kerman]

I really think this is a good idea. The amount of stuff that would suddenly become possible would be amazing - proper multiplayer integration for instance, huge improvements to principia and kopernikus, just to name a few things.

[MarkedZero]

What is going on letting Venamonde open this thread again?

[Lisias]

On 3/5/2025 at 8:55 AM, timmy kerman said:

I really think this is a good idea. The amount of stuff that would suddenly become possible would be amazing - proper multiplayer integration for instance, huge improvements to principia and kopernikus, just to name a few things.

And you are not alone.

Recently, VALVe released all the source code for Team Fortress to the Source mod tools!

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/fps/valve-adds-all-the-team-fortress-2-client-and-server-game-code-to-its-source-mod-tools-letting-modders-build-completely-new-games-based-on-tf2-and-publish-them-on-steam/

Essentially, anyone can use the Team Fortress 2 Source Code to write new games. Or to port TF2 to any other platform natively, as ARM or RISC-V.

Interesting enough, even Electronic Arts is jumping in - the first 4 Command & Conquer games are now officially Open Source too:

https://kotaku.com/command-conquer-ea-source-code-red-alert-generals-1851767009

Opening the Source of games is becoming a trend, finally.

Things are getting very exciting nowadays - not a single day too soon, given that ID is doing it for 25 years already!

I think we still can hope for KSP¹ going Open Source, eventually!

Edited March 7 by Lisias
Entertaining grammars made slightely less entertaining...

[Bej Kerman]

On 3/5/2025 at 12:02 PM, MarkedZero said:

What is going on letting Venamonde open this thread again?

♫ Who let the Vanamonde out ♫ 

[Sirius628]

On 3/5/2025 at 4:52 AM, Lisias said:

And you are not alone.

Recently, VALVe released all the source code for Team Fortress to the Source mod tools!

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/fps/valve-adds-all-the-team-fortress-2-client-and-server-game-code-to-its-source-mod-tools-letting-modders-build-completely-new-games-based-on-tf2-and-publish-them-on-steam/

Essentially, anyone can use the Team Fortress 2 Source Code to write new games. Or to port TF2 to any other platform natively, as ARM or RISC-V.

Interesting enough, even Electronic Arts is jumping in - the first 4 Command & Conquer games are now officially Open Source too:

https://kotaku.com/command-conquer-ea-source-code-red-alert-generals-1851767009

Opening the Source of games is becoming a trend, finally.

Things are getting very exciting nowadays - not a single day too soon, given that ID is doing it for 25 years already!

I think we still can hope for KSP¹ going Open Source, eventually!

It's just downright depressing that T2 or whoever bought KSP from them is being less consumer-friendly than EA. 

[Lisias]

Well... Going straight to the matter: there was an appeal in August 2024, but it was rejected.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/23-35468/23-35468-2024-08-26.html

So the verdict was confirmed (it's the meaning of the AFFIRMED at the end of the decision), and from this point changing code in memory is a Copyright Infringement with a established legal precedence.

Bungie could not care less about modding, they were aiming on cheaters - but the winning argument screwed our lives the same.

Modding without legal access to the Source Code, or at least to the API is going to need some creative thinking.

So, from now on, LEGAL ACCESS to the Source Code would be a decisive factor for a successful and healthy modding scene on the long run. KSP¹ modding appears to be safe for now, we had the API willingly published and until a new ToS arrives, we are still allowed to mod KSP under the last agreement published.

On 5/26/2024 at 1:11 AM, Lisias said:

I was following this one for some time, but frankly, I didn't believed it would fructify.

But it did. And this is terrible.

In a nutshell, Bungie (a Game Studio own by Sony, and makers of some heavy hitters in the market) sued a cheat maker and won.

I'm not siding with the cheat maker (besides there's nothing intrinsically illegal on it, and I don't see a problem when the cheats are not used on online PvP games), but what's making me excrements on my pants is in which grounds they won the lawsuit.

They are literally creating precedence to make (direct) Reverse Engineering illegal - i.e., anyone that had ever decompiled a copyrighted binary material would be infringing the Copyright, and so being liable to respond to the infringement as a Copyright Violation.

The relevant parts of the lawsuit were summarized by Game File as follows (emphasis are mine):

Dear sirs, these three paragraphs essentially summarized what modders do around here for some time already. This crap is going to bite our collective asses badly, be you the one that decompiled some code to understand what's happening, be you the one directly using this knowledge to do something.

WORST. This also make users liable. Also from the same article above:

Every law will be (ab)used to its maximum extent. There's not a single exception from this rule - once the you open the gate, holding the flood is near impossible. Nintendo anyone?

To learn more (some links under paywall or registerwall):

• PC Gamer: Bungie wins a little walkin' around money in first of its kind jury trial against Destiny 2 cheat maker
• Law 360: Bungie's Code Copying Claims Questioned At Seattle Trial
• Torrenk Freak: Destiny 2 Creator Bungie & Cheat Maker AimJunkies Go Head-To-Head at Trial
• casetext search for the subject (missing the court's decision at the time this post was written)

From my best knowledge, the defendant's Attorney is called "Mann Law Group".

So, Fellow Kerbonauts, we may be in the verge of an inflection point. Having formally legal, authorized access to the Source Code is risking not being a question of convenience or even mutual assistance, but a matter of mere survival.

Direct Reverse Engineering is not a viable option anymore (IMHO, it was always risky), as this is not about only the EULA and the Forum Publishing Guidelines. Now, we have a AAA Game Studio, Bungie, paving the way to make illegal the very foundation of modding in general (besides not targeting modding in special), and this is the base for some important ones on this Scene (I prefer not to nominate them here).

Copyright Infringement is serious business, and this case have the potential to be enforced even on countries where Reverse Engineering is authorized by law - Copyright treaties as the Berne Convention establishes that Copyright works from foreign countries should have their home country Copyright respected. This also puts non USA citizens on a tight spot when dealing with USA's Intellectual Property.

Unless this court decision is reverted, we need the Source Code to prevent some serious disruption on the KSP¹ modding scene!

 

 

Edited March 20 by Lisias
Hit "Save" too soon

[PDCWolf]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

Modding without legal access to the Source Code, or at least to the API is going to need some creative thinking.

So, from now on, LEGAL ACCESS to the Source Code would be a decisive factor for a successful and healthy modding scene on the long run. KSP¹ modding appears to be safe for now, we had the API willingly published and until a new ToS arrives, we are still allowed to mod KSP under the last agreement published.

Due how the legal system work, this is the outcome if there's a charge brought up against someone. US courts most probably won't act ex officio with state-initiated prosecutions on cases such as these. So what really has changed is that the door has now been opened and there's precedent as you said, but you still need the legal department of T2/Haveli/Whoever to want to walk through it and seek to prosecute a modder for doing their thing. Basically no report > no crime, even if now there's precedent for the legal system to penalize such an action, the legal system won't come for you without someone accusing you.

Further on, KSP1, KSP2 both have precedent for developers and T2 authorities allowing a modding scene to take place, even knowing such modding scene was making use of reverse engineering, injection and decompiling tools. This muddies the water a lot and since we're talking about mud, I will not pass up another opportunity to throw more dirt at T2: KSP1 was part of their lineup and so was, for a while, under the same EULA KSP2 was. The forum rules and addon posting guidelines also weren't updated during this time to clarify the situation. Haveli also hasn't done anything about this... but them not doing anything is what we know them for so far... Still, someone should really come out and clarify this mess.

Last but not least: What you do with your copy of the game in your disk drive, in the privacy of your own home (thus, you don't upload it), is entirely your business.

[Lisias]

12 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Due how the legal system work, this is the outcome if there's a charge brought up against someone. US courts most probably won't act ex officio with state-initiated prosecutions on cases such as these. <...> Basically no report > no crime, even if now there's precedent for the legal system to penalize such an action, the legal system won't come for you without someone accusing you.

As well as larceny. Doesn't really matter if the current Copyright holder will report or not, they could. And if they sell the IP to someone else, this new owner can do it the same - for 70 years, until the Copyright expires.

This is not a comfortable place to be.

 

15 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Further on, KSP1, KSP2 both have precedent for developers and T2 authorities allowing a modding scene to take place, even knowing such modding scene was making use of reverse engineering, injection and decompiling tools.

Knowing you are being robbed and not reporting the thefts in the past invalidates the crimes if you report the crime now? This matters.

Anyway, injection and decompilation tools weren't a Copyright Infringement until this lawsuit. Now it is. This can be used retroactively? Copyright term extensions are retroactive, can this be?

 

23 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

<...>Still, someone should really come out and clarify this mess.

Agreed.

 

23 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Last but not least: What you do with your copy of the game in your disk drive, in the privacy of your own home (thus, you don't upload it), is entirely your business.

Not anymore.

This is a Copyright issue now - you can be sued by watching copyright infringing material in your computer, don't you? The whole Napster drama started this way ("vicarious copyright infringement").

Using copyright infringing material is also an infringement!

This crap opened a huge can of worms.

[PDCWolf]

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

Knowing you are being robbed and not reporting the thefts in the past invalidates the crimes if you report the crime now? This matters.

This is where we're forced to depart from the theft/other crime analogies. Those DO have a time limit to report them on some jurisdictions, or the fine/jail time diminishes as time since the crime was committed passes. Copyright infringement does not.

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

Now it is. This can be used retroactively? Copyright term extensions are retroactive, can this be?

You could use this retroactively to send C&Ds to mods, or block further distribution of said mods. Obviously, if taken to court, modders could argue that the climate in the forums was developers and T2 being in the know and even supporting said mods at the time, which'd be a huge factor in lessening the impact, even dismissing the case completely. However what I said first would still apply: Cease development and distribution or you will be committing a crime now under the new rules of the game.

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

This is a Copyright issue now - you can be sued by watching copyright infringing material in your computer, don't you? The whole Napster drama started this way ("vicarious copyright infringement").

Using copyright infringing material is also an infringement!

This crap opened a huge can of worms.

Watching is not the case here. Watching would mean you obtained it illegally by a distributor who themselves is in violation of copyright law by producing unauthorized copies or doing unauthorized public broadcasts of the media. This here is very different and almost nothing like how media copyright is managed can be applied to this.

What you do with your legally bought copy of Disney's Frozen, in the privacy of your home, provided you don't distribute copies, or broadcast it, is entirely your business. Wanna dub over the musicals? Wanna deepfake your face onto Elsa? You can absolutely do that, so long as you do it for yourself and not create/distribute publicly accessible copies of it.

In the case of KSP2, you can absolutely decompile it, look at the decompile code, alter it, and recompile it, you can inject data onto the memory addresses of it, you can do literally whatever with it, even backing it up in 8 septillion individual copies hosted in a tape NAS. No one can act on that simply because the tools are not there to police that. However, if you were to distribute your modifications, or create unsolicited copies of the game with your mods... or invite a T2 (or now Haveli) employee to watch whatever you did to the game, then yeah, you can absolutely be prosecuted for it.

The point of legal inflection is distributing altered copyrighted material (or the tools to facilitate others altering it, such as bepinex + some mod), which now is being infringed in two ways: Unauthorized distribution of a copy, unauthorized use of altered copyrighted material (or the tools to alter it, as it was the specific case of the cheats).

Edited March 20 by PDCWolf

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, PDCWolf said:

Watching is not the case here. Watching would mean you obtained it illegally by a distributor who themselves is in violation of copyright law by producing unauthorized copies or doing unauthorized public broadcasts of the media. This here is very different and almost nothing like how media copyright is managed can be applied to this.

What you do with your legally bought copy of Disney's Frozen, in the privacy of your home, provided you don't distribute copies, or broadcast it, is entirely your business. Wanna dub over the musicals? Wanna deepfake your face onto Elsa? You can absolutely do that, so long as you do it for yourself and not create/distribute publicly accessible copies of it.

I think you failed to grasp the nuance here... Tampering the binary in memory is now a Copyright Infringement, ergo that in-memory-copy is not an authorized copy anymore. So you are in the possession of an illegally obtained copy of the game now - even if an ephemeral one.

Sounds ridiculous, but it's exactly the consequences of this verdict, as it's an argument used by the winner party of the lawsuit and so is also part of the precedence:

Quote

(Bungie has also argued in its legal filings that these kinds of cheats cause the players using them to also breach copyright, but it has yet to sue a player who simply bought and used them.)

https://www.gamefile.news/p/bungie-aimjunkies-destiny-2-trial

 

1 hour ago, PDCWolf said:

The point of legal inflection is distributing altered copyrighted material <...>

Not anymore!!! Using it is also a copyright infringement! They won the lawsuit where the argument that users would also be in infringement is part of the allegations. I will say it again: they won the case.

Additionally, this is not only about USA: on Australia, possession of copyright infringement material is illegal and subject to penalties. Since the Berne Convention kicks in, altering the memory used by a game protected by USA laws make it an infringement even if doing it would be legal on any other game, and so an Aussy would be in possession of copyright infringing material in their computer memory, and so in theory they're liable under the Australian Law.

But let's keep things simple for now: in USA, public performances of the infringing material is an offense, right? So what we can say about all that Youtube videos and Imgur screenshots of modded** games around the Internet? They are public performances of the game, right? If these public performances are made using infringing material, then they are infringements themselves.

Granted, in theory. But everything is theoretical until it happens - and when we talk about legalese, if it's possible, it will happen. Every law will be applied to its maximum extent given enough time - and I'm still to see any exception to this rule.

Forget what you used to know about acceptable practices about Copyright (in USA or anywhere else) - this lawsuit changed everything, this is as bad is it can get.

---- POST EDIT ----

** Modded by memory/bytecode changing techniques, to be clear.

KSP¹ have a Mod loader that loads our code without any "illegal" patching. So as long you don't change any of the KSP¹'s code (bytecode) using patches, this specific problem will not bite you.

Edited March 21 by Lisias
POST EDIT

[PDCWolf]

44 minutes ago, Lisias said:

I think you failed to grasp the nuance here... Tampering the binary in memory is now a Copyright Infringement, ergo that in-memory-copy is not an authorized copy anymore. So you are in the possession of an illegally obtained copy of the game now - even if an ephemeral one.

Not if it happens in the privacy of my home, for my own use, without connecting to servers or multiplayer sessions. What's a mess is that it's gonna be dependent on how hard do developers/publishers want to police their singleplayer games.  I've heard some devs being against their games being modded (they mention offensive mods but really you ALL should know the slippery slope by now) and I'm sure those over-reaching parasites would be happy to ban you from your own 80 USD singleplayer game because you downloaded a bikini mod if they had a chance to police that through DRM or other cancerware.

So to state again: What I do with KSP1 and KSP2 games (which lack any sort of controlling DRM or call-home policing tool) in the privacy of my home, is not in Haveli's capacity to police (yet, and thanks to those games not having DRM) So the concept of "unauthorized copy" doesn't apply, in the exact same vein your local copy of Frozen can be toyed around with because Disney has no way of knowing. What I won't be able to do (if Haveli so desires) is to distribute mods created with bepinex or whatever other injection/decompilation method is out there, and in some universe out there, I won't be able to join KSP2 MP lobbies with a modded game.

Australian law escapes me, but what doesn't escape me is the concept of the Fourth Amendment, which would probably fare well enough if brought up in the case of the FF losers trying to take me to court over my self-made bikini Tifa mods.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

At this point you would likely have little luck, but i can see it one day. EA kind of surprised me with their particular culture. 

Im sure a developer of sufficient skill and ability could write a letter to the contact at havalli and maybe get some kind of response.

To whom it may concern,
As I am sure you are well aware, picking up unfamiliar code with a ton of technical debt is years in the works and expensive. Considering that KSA has launched as a spiritual successor to the flaming flagship that was KSP2 or T2s attempt to capitalize on indie support and brand loyalty. This means the rockets you are licensing  and plushies are likely the only means of revenue.  Please consider opening up the source code up to the public. 

This will not hurt the mobile games and pod racers you are planning to pump out as a way to make the midden heap once again profitable.

[Bej Kerman]

4 hours ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

At this point you would likely have little luck, but i can see it one day. EA kind of surprised me with their particular culture. 

Im sure a developer of sufficient skill and ability could write a letter to the contact at havalli and maybe get some kind of response.

To whom it may concern,
As I am sure you are well aware, picking up unfamiliar code with a ton of technical debt is years in the works and expensive. Considering that KSA has launched as a spiritual successor to the flaming flagship that was KSP2 or T2s attempt to capitalize on indie support and brand loyalty. This means the rockets you are licensing  and plushies are likely the only means of revenue.  Please consider opening up the source code up to the public. 

This will not hurt the mobile games and pod racers you are planning to pump out as a way to make the midden heap once again profitable.

Dewit

I bet my dignity on Haveli just pasting a ChatGPT output in response.  AI seems to be how they generated much of their "team", so why not? 

[Lisias]

11 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Not if it happens in the privacy of my home, for my own use, without connecting to servers or multiplayer sessions.

You can commit any crime if no one is able to see what you are doing, granted. But, by then, you are essentially living in the shadows and without connectivity, how you will share your work and have other people's work shared to you? By using the Deep Web together illegal stuff dealers and worse?

But, still, OK, you will survive the ordeal for some time. I have no doubt of it.

And the rest of the KSP players? Educational Institutions? Kids (that usually just don't know better, see how many of them were caught by the MPAA RIAA in the Napster times)?

You see.. I want all of them playing modded KSP¹, not only you.

 

11 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Australian law escapes me, but what doesn't escape me is the concept of the Fourth Amendment, which would probably fare well enough if brought up in the case of the FF losers trying to take me to court over my self-made bikini Tifa mods.

The Fourth Amendment is part of the USA's Constitution, ruling North-Americans and residents in United States of America. It's not covered by the Berne Convention.

And...

Quote

Existing Fourth Amendment law does not protect against law enforcement use of data gathered through the internet either by private companies who actively search their customer’s data and submit evidence of misconduct to law enforcement or from private companies who acquire the data on behalf of law enforcement.

https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/crsj/vol30/iss2/12/

So I think the 4th Amendment will hot hold on a Court of Law (besides probably it should, because... Heck, man... This is going to be hell...)

Please understand I'm not arguing about what's right (morally, I'm 100% sided with you). But I'm playing Devil's Advocate here, and Hell has the best Legal Counselorship in the Universe - believe me.

 

9 hours ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

This means the rockets you are licensing  and plushies are likely the only means of revenue.  Please consider opening up the source code up to the public.

And please, please, pretty please, made it sellable overseas. I could not buy any of the merchandising on the Private Division site because they just didn't allowed me to buy them due some idiotic geographical restrictions (Heck, I could buy from Estes, why not from P.D.? I want my 10th Anniversary Golden Medal!!!).

 

9 hours ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Please consider opening up the source code up to the public.

So say we all!!!

Edited March 21 by Lisias
Is was RIAA on the Napster times, not MPAA... Heck, I'm getting old...

[PDCWolf]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

You can commit any crime if no one is able to see what you are doing, granted. But, by then, you are essentially living in the shadows and without connectivity, how you will share your work and have other people's work shared to you? By using the Deep Web together illegal stuff dealers and worse?

Not like the seas haven't been sailed for this and other stuff for about 3 decades now.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

And the rest of the KSP players? Educational Institutions? Kids (that usually just don't know better, see how many of them were caught by the MPAA RIAA in the Napster times)?

Good thing! We have an opening for Haveli to show just how good they are. Also use of copyrighted material for educational purposes is well covered with educational exceptions.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

The Fourth Amendment is part of the USA's Constitution, ruling North-Americans and residents in United States of America. It's not covered by the Berne Convention.

And...

So I think the 4th Amendment will hot hold on a Court of Law (besides probably it should, because... Heck, man... This is going to be hell...)

Yeah no, I wasn't talking about Australia because I clearly stated I don't know their laws. As for the bit you copypasted...  Any bit of spyware (windows itself and a lot of apps) installed could rat you out to law enforcement for something as dumb as modding a game lmao.

 

[Lisias]

13 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Not like the seas haven't been sailed for this and other stuff for about 3 decades now.

But at that time, the sailors were adults and seasoned professionals. And it was a tough battle, I remember because I had lived it.

It's not something we want to bring to a game those intended audience is common people, kids or not, interested on STEM, not on coding or Copyrights battles.

 

15 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

As for the bit you copypasted...  Any bit of spyware (windows itself and a lot of apps) installed could rat you out to law enforcement for something as dumb as modding a game lmao.

Follow the money. The World is evolving, revolving and changing - and it's way more complicated than 30 years ago.

--------

Again, this is not an argument about what you believe is right - on that, I'm fully sided with you. But Laws don't require our agreement, only only our obedience. You are going to challenge the Law, you can't just disobeyed it on a modern Alamo stand. Well, you can, but...

[Yaroslav]

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

Но в то время моряки были взрослыми и бывалыми профессионалами. И это была тяжелая битва, я помню, потому что я ее пережил.

Это не то, что мы хотим привнести в игру, целевая аудитория — обычные люди, дети или нет, интересующиеся STEM, а не программированием или битвами за авторские права.

 

Следите за деньгами. Мир развивается, вращается и меняется – и это намного сложнее, чем 30 лет назад.

--------

Опять же, это не спор о том, что вы считаете правильным - в этом я полностью на вашей стороне. Но законы не требуют нашего согласия, а только нашего повиновения. Вы собираетесь бросить вызов Закону, вы не можете просто так ослушаться его на современном стенде Аламо. Ну, можно, но...

Sorry, I didn't read everything.. But.. As far as I understand.. the code of csp 1 can be decompiled and get it, but I think that we will have to take a step in creating a plugin that would have files 1 from the game, and replace them with our own, for example, rewritten game code, can this be considered piracy?.. If we do this in the form of a global mod similar to what we have now, i.e. community fix.

[Lisias]

5 hours ago, Yaroslav said:

Sorry, I didn't read everything.. But.. As far as I understand.. the code of csp 1 can be decompiled and get it, but I think that we will have to take a step in creating a plugin that would have files 1 from the game, and replace them with our own, for example, rewritten game code, can this be considered piracy?.. 

Before Bungie had won this lawsuit, it was a grey area. The idea is that the binary code is a representation of the Source Code, and so have the same protections. But it was not a Copyright Infringement and, so, beyound the scope of it as well out of reach of the Berne Convention.

With this lawsuit, the binary code in memory is now considered a Copyrighted copy of the original work and, so, tampering with it is now a Copyright Infringement and so anyone doing it is liable from now on. Worst, now the Berne Convention automatically kicks in and so any protection and right your local legislation would be granting you is now overruled when you are dealing with USA software.

How bad this can be depends on your local legislation. On USA Copyright Infringements are a Civil Infringement,  but on some other countries it's a penal one. On some more draconian legislations, even a felony.

But on all cases, it's definitely a Copyright Infringement and you are liable to the consequences under USA's legislation due Berne.

----- TL;DRs -----

@Yaroslav, there're two additional things I need to explain to you, if by any reason you don't know it yet:

1. USA has a Common Law legal system, while most Europeans have a Roman Law (and you probably too). On Common Law, the Laws that say what you can't do can be created by Courts of Law when deciding if something should be banned or not - exactly what happened now. This have the nasty effect of banning something that were used to be perfectly acceptable (or at very least on a gray area) out of the blue, exactly what happened here. And with Berne Convention kicking in, the rest of the World ends up getting their cheeks bitten by USA's Court decisions related to Copyrights. Exactly like now.
2. I'm not a Lawyer, I'm strictly forbidden from giving legal advises. I just can't say if any add'on published here is a Copyright Infringement or not, I can only suggest what would be needed to something to be a Copyright Infringement, and tell anyone that thinks I may be right to seek Legal Counseling about the matter and see if it affects you. It's what I did.
   1. So I will not say anything about any Add'On that may be affected by this problem here.
   2. But I can say that nothing I do or ever did (as KSP-Recall) had any kind of Legal Problems, because I only used legally acceptable techniques, as clean room reverse engineering (also known as shoving logs into my code's cheeks until it confess what I need! ) and uncountable hours of black box testings.
3. I'm advocating for the release of the Source Code because this would render any decompilation or currently banned reverse engineering technique pointless, essentially making (almost) everything we have now legal again - and making my life way easier, as I won't have to rely on black-box testings and clean room techniques anymore,
   1. But we would still have the problem of tampering code in memory - having access to the Source Code doesn't invalidate any current Copyrigths applied to assets and code. Someone would need special and clear permission from the current IP owners for that.

Edited March 21 by Lisias
TL;DR

[Yaroslav]

10 hours ago, Lisias said:

До того, как Bungie выиграла этот судебный процесс, это была серая зона. Идея заключается в том, что двоичный код является представлением исходного кода и поэтому имеет те же средства защиты. Но это не было нарушением авторского права и, следовательно, выходило за рамки Бернской конвенции.

В этом судебном процессе двоичный код в памяти теперь считается защищенной авторским правом копией оригинального произведения, и, таким образом, его вмешательство теперь является нарушением авторских прав, и поэтому любой, кто это делает, несет ответственность с этого момента. Хуже всего то, что теперь Бернская конвенция вступает в силу автоматически, и поэтому любая защита и права, которые предоставляло бы вам ваше местное законодательство, теперь отменяются, когда вы имеете дело с программным обеспечением США.

Насколько это может быть плохо, зависит от вашего местного законодательства. В США нарушение авторских прав является гражданским нарушением, но в некоторых других странах это уголовное правонарушение. О некоторых более драконовских законах, даже о тяжком преступлении.

Но во всех случаях это определенно нарушение авторских прав, и вы несете ответственность за последствия в соответствии с законодательством США в Берне.

----- турецких лир; DR -----

@Yaroslav, есть еще две вещи, которые мне нужно объяснить вам, если по какой-либо причине вы еще не знаете об этом:

1. В США действует правовая система общего права, в то время как в большинстве европейцев действует римское право (и вы, вероятно, тоже). Что касается общего права, законы, которые говорят, что вы не можете делать, могут быть созданы судами при принятии решения о том, следует ли что-то запрещать или нет - именно это и произошло сейчас. Это привело к неприятному эффекту запрета чего-то, что раньше считалось вполне приемлемым (или, по крайней мере, в серой зоне) на ровном месте, что и произошло здесь. А с вступлением в силу Бернской конвенции остальной мир в конечном итоге получает удары по щекам из-за судебных решений США, связанных с авторскими правами. Точно так же, как сейчас.
2. Я не юрист, мне категорически запрещено давать юридические советы. Я просто не могу сказать, является ли какое-либо дополнение, опубликованное здесь, нарушением авторских прав или нет, я могу только предположить, что необходимо для того, чтобы что-то было нарушением авторских прав, и сказать любому, кто думает, что я могу быть прав, обратиться за юридической консультацией по этому вопросу и посмотреть, повлияет ли это на вас. Это то, что я сделал.
   1. Поэтому я ничего не скажу ни о каком дополнении, которое может быть затронуто этой проблемой здесь.
   2. Но я могу сказать, что ничто из того, что я делаю или когда-либо делал (как KSP-Recall), не имело никаких юридических проблем, потому что я использовал только юридически приемлемые методы, такие как реверс-инжиниринг чистой комнаты (также известный как засовывание бревен в щеки моего кода до тех пор, пока он не признается, что мне нужно! ) и бесчисленные часы испытаний в черном ящике.
3. Я выступаю за публикацию исходного кода, потому что это сделало бы бессмысленной любую декомпиляцию или запрещенную в настоящее время технику обратного проектирования, по сути, сделав (почти) все, что у нас сейчас есть, законным - и значительно облегчив мою жизнь, поскольку мне больше не придется полагаться на тесты черного ящика и методы чистой комнаты.
   1. Но у нас все равно будет проблема подделки кода в памяти - наличие доступа к исходному коду не аннулирует любые текущие Copyrigths, примененные к ресурсам и коду. Для этого кому-то потребуется специальное и четкое разрешение от нынешних владельцев интеллектуальной собственности.

I understand.. But I also support.. But there is a double-edged sword here.. On the one hand, it is.. Good.. But on the other hand, it is bad.. Because we will allow other developers who have nothing in common with the community to create their clones of csp 1, simply by using this moment.

It seems to me that the community will have to come to a black scheme someday, because it can give 2 breath to the game, while we wait for other games.
Like KSA or csp 2 redux, yes, I understand that even a transfer to the New version of Unity (Which is possible in general, as far as I could find out from more such people who watched this).. Then, in general, this is, alas, half the trouble. Even if we update Unity, we will still need to rewrite the code and add support for multi-streaming.. (I understand that this is all exaggerated, and looks a bit like a flood)

[Lisias]

On 3/22/2025 at 2:36 AM, Yaroslav said:

I understand.. But I also support.. But there is a double-edged sword here.. On the one hand, it is.. Good.. But on the other hand, it is bad.. Because we will allow other developers who have nothing in common with the community to create their clones of csp 1, simply by using this moment.

There're "clones" of KSP¹ already in the wild, and some of them are pretty good - but they lack the one thing that KSP have that they don't: Kerbals. For some reason, these little #BAD455 coloured creaters appears to be the main factor for this Franchise success.

Look on Doom, Quake and Half Life those Source Code was released for anyone willing to built its own clone (as long no original IP is used, it was legal). Some of them ended up pretty good, but none of them even dented the original Franchise - had you played Doom (any of them!) lately? Lots of people had!

VALVe is finally finishing Half Life  3 - even after releasing the Source Engine Source Code , and recently they added the full Team Fortress Source Code to the Kit!  And since TF2 has about 44K concurrent players at this very moment, access to the Source Code didn't caused any damage to the game.

What will cause damages are unauthorized use of the IP - the art, the missions, the characters, i.e. allowing 3rd parties to exploit the IP unchecked - i.e.² piracy.

 

On 3/22/2025 at 2:36 AM, Yaroslav said:

It seems to me that the community will have to come to a black scheme someday, because it can give 2 breath to the game, while we wait for other games.

Nope. Black schemes will be the death of this Community. Most people have careers and Real Life™ duties that prevent them from dealing with such schemes, and no matter how much we like the game, we like our lives more.

I'm fortunately old enough to had lived in a Country where USA's Copyrights in Computers weren't recognized and then they finally was - in a nutshell, the Black Schemes you mention were plain legal here. And then USA signed the Berne Convention in 1988, that Brazil had signed since 1887, and everything changed overnight.

Yeah, we suddenly could not freely use USA's Software in our companies and had to pay for it. And it initially sucked. But then people around here started to move to provide cheaper local alternatives for some of that Software, and now we have a strong IT economy around here - that simply wasn't possible before.

Black schemes works for a very, very small amount of people - those that don't mind "living" in the underground, Kiss Youtube bye-bye for starters.

So, no. Anyone venturing into a Black Scheme will lock themself in a very restrict, niche and small place. This is not a future that most people are willing to live.

-----------

Given the sensitivity of the subject, I will decline the opportunity to comment about any project other than my own (that don't have any of the problems mentioned on my posts).

Edited 5 hours ago by Lisias
Entertaining grammars made slightely less entertaining...

[Bej Kerman]

14 minutes ago, Lisias said:

There're "clones" of KSP¹ already in the wild, and some of them are pretty good - but they lack the one thing that KSP have that they don't: Kerbals. For some reason, these little #BAD455 coloured creaters appears to be the main factor for this Franchise success.

Are you entirely sure about that?

[Lisias]

18 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Are you entirely sure about that?

Are you? Please tell us more.

[Bej Kerman]

11 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Are you? Please tell us more.

I only think it's daft to ignore the avalanche of gameplay differences between KSP and its competitors and pretend that all they need in order to do better than KSP is a cute mascot.

[Lisias]

On 3/22/2025 at 7:46 AM, Bej Kerman said:

I only think it's daft to ignore the avalanche of gameplay differences between KSP and its competitors and pretend that all they need in order to do better than KSP is a cute mascot.

And I think it's naive to think that all you need is better gameplay and features to reach success.

History is littered of examples of how better produces lost the market for... hummm... not so better ones because the later managed to captivate the audience first.

We have already better alternatives (at least technically) than KSP, solving a lot of the KSP's perceived bugs and even integrating a Planetary/Solar System Editor. It gave me some serious fun and, believe me or not, helped me to be better on KSP on some details, as it exposed and explained them on the game play, making a bell ring somewhere in the echoing chambers of my big, dull skull.

There was this dude, Gerry Anderson, that made some serious heavy hitters in British (and World!) television in the 60's and 70's, like Thunderbirds, Stingray, Joe 90 and Fireball XL5 (to mention the ones I remember watching). He tried hard to capitalize the Thunderbirds success on other works, but failed. Besides being proud of Thunderbirds, he was a bit bitter about this series because he would prefer to be remembered by some more serious things like Space: 1999 and  Doppelgänger (1969) - all excellent pieces of work, but instead his masterpiece is a "puppet show".

I remember he saying that we don't really know why something reaches so much success as Thunderbirds - we really don't have a choice on the matter, once it happens you need to seize the day and pursue it.

And nothing really changed. We still really don't know what make something a huge success - all we know is how to keep it going once it happens. Or not, as it was the case of KSP2.

One of the biggest Entertainment Industries of all times, Disney, started with a mascot. Do you know Mickey Mouse?

Edited 5 hours ago by Lisias
Now it was the autocomplete! I swear!!!

[Bej Kerman]

2 hours ago, Lisias said:

One of the biggest Entertainment Industries of all times, Disney, started with a mascot. Do you know Mickey Mouse?

I know that Steamboat Willy was one of the first cartoons to do sound well, which may have had a little to do with it.

Besides, realistic spaceflight is a niche market, as flight simulators are. Are we to think that Microsoft Flight Simulator and X-plane need cartoon mascots to do well?