technicalfool Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 I've been silent for a while now, but now it's starting to sound like Majiir's contributions and desire to protect his burgeoning data collection empire are receiving preferential treatment because he's a big-name modder or some such nonsense. I still have not received a reasonable explanation as to why my code infringes upon his "intellectual property" or even if that's really what I'm allegedly infringing upon. Sure, it's been said that clicking the "fork" button somehow poisons the codebase, but I've also been told that I cannot post a new version that isn't forked but has the same functionality. Honestly I no longer expect an answer at this point, but I've never had such an attachment to a single line of code before.Majiir is bound by the same rules as every other modder who wishes to take advantage of Squad's services to advertise or distribute their mod. Whether an API is copyrightable may well depend on the outcome of Google vs Oracle, and I can understand the other moderators here erring on the side of caution with your original fork.As you plainly have some modding skills, why not message Majiir privately and see if you can arrange to create an easy to use UI that he can integrate into ModStatistics? Or, if you really must go into direct competition, do so with a statistics-gathering mod that in your opinion works more ethically?Either option would likely be preferable to making disabler mods, or continuing to kick up fuss in the ModStatistics announcement thread when Majiir is very aware of the criticisms of his work, criticisms that I myself have brought forward before now, and is working to address them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
technicalfool Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 shut up.Politeness, please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ippo Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 Politeness, please.That *was* the polite version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoverDude Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 (edited) Sorry guys, but this has really gone out of hand. Imho it´s just ridiculous.The accusations made in this thread are tough stuff. Majiir does nothing without the users permission. And this permission can be denied by simply changing one entry in a config file from false to true. So where is the problem? If somebody is to incompetent or illiterate to do that, then this individual has really other problems than his privacy...And to show my support for Majiir I´ve explicitly downloaded & installed ModStatistics last night.With all due respect, have you ever even created a mod and dealt with users at scale? Contrary to what you may think, a lot of people do NOT know how to change a config file. I think it's hardly a reflection on their personal worth, competence to play a video game, or their literacy. You may want to step off that high horse.(EDIT to avoid double post)Unrelated side note.I'll give this a week, but if in the end we're still at a place where the opting out is not either defaulted, or a button on load so easy even my grandmother can do it, then I will explicitly be pulling both support and integration for all of my mods for anything that implements ModStatistics in their default installation package. And yes, I realize that means pulling Kethane and KAS support from MKS, but so be it. That's the beauty of a free and open community, we get to vote with our feet. Edited July 20, 2014 by RoverDude Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marce Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 (edited) Let's be clear: BetterThanSpyware and StillBetterThanSpyware are not alternative implementations of an API. They are software that hijacks another program.Also, considering that I've been pushing for the opt in since this was first posted AND SO FAR I'M THE ONLY ONE WHO CARED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, shut up.First, I'm afraid that's much less a problem of "can't do" vs. "won't do" if I recall Majiir's statements in the channel while he started dev on this correctly. Second, just to be nitpicking: if it's checked by default it breaks the same law in the same way but as I said before that's not actually relevant here.Third, after all that might be the right way to do it, people are enabled to easily opt-out and Majiir might proof me wrong and agree with it. Thank you very much Ippo (honestly). Let's hope that he will accept your pr and this matter is finally settled for good.EDIT (and a bit OT): since it came up recently: yes I created (simple) mods. However, I have a very different approach concerning my (tiny) user base than most other mod authors. In my opinion a free to use mod is something someone created for his own good and decided to share with others. Those users have no right at all to demand anything and the mod author has no obligation at all to fix/change anything. So I won't act preemptive fixing automatically reported bugs. If no one complains and I'm not affected myself I won't do anything about it. And if someone is affected he/she can send me their logs and info if they want to. So while I see the benefit of ModStats I personally don't really need it. Edited July 20, 2014 by marce Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forfeit Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 Majiir is bound by the same rules as every other modder who wishes to take advantage of Squad's services to advertise or distribute their mod. Whether an API is copyrightable may well depend on the outcome of Google vs Oracle, and I can understand the other moderators here erring on the side of caution with your original fork.As you plainly have some modding skills, why not message Majiir privately and see if you can arrange to create an easy to use UI that he can integrate into ModStatistics? Or, if you really must go into direct competition, do so with a statistics-gathering mod that in your opinion works more ethically?Either option would likely be preferable to making disabler mods, or continuing to kick up fuss in the ModStatistics announcement thread when Majiir is very aware of the criticisms of his work, criticisms that I myself have brought forward before now, and is working to address them.As I mentioned in my response to his same request, I can't see contributing to a third-party data collection mod that does not anonymize data, even to change its function to opt-in. There are a slew of data protection and privacy laws that I wouldn't want to attempt to navigate in order to store data about users of a software product I did not publish, even if informed consent to statistics collection was granted by users.Competition requires a shared goal. My goal is to allow users to easily disable the functionality of this mod, not to provide an alternative. Hopefully I can address disabling auto-updating mods before too long, let's hope it doesn't stir up this much drama again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
technicalfool Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 I am temporarily closing this thread again. Everyone has made their opinions quite clearly known. Feelings are still running very high and to continue to keep this thread open, I feel, would result in continued arguments that provide vastly more heat, than light.As much as I mean what I say about cracking skull, I really don't want to have to. Majiir can contact the moderation team about this when he wakes up. I'm sure he'll be thrilled, and I'm sure so will the other greens and blues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
technicalfool Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 I want to respond to each post in detail, but that takes quite a lot of time. Today, I'm busy and exhausted from other obligations, so I can only leave a short note. There's only so much time I can spend on KSP, and I'm already spending more time than I should.To the donors and letter-writers, thank you kindly! To KAS players, I apologize that I couldn't have spent this time updating the mod. To forum moderators, thank you for your firefighting. To other concerned users, please be patient, and I'll address things as I have time.Cheers,Majiir10 characters Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts