[1.3.x] SETI, Unmanned before Manned [Patreon]

[Homer_S]

People re-implement even patented things. If an independent person said "What if I wanted to move the KSP components around to more closely implement rocket development on Earth?" couldn't they create new code/scripts to do that? As long as they don't dig into the code of this mod... Surely this mod's license would not prevent Squad from rearranging the content of their own game.

Also... what is the time limit on this type of license? Here's hoping it is shorter than copyright...

Homer

[Snark]

On 11/30/2018 at 5:34 AM, Spikos said:

But what if the author of the mod is dead or left his work forever. Is it fair to let the mod die, too?

Whether it's "fair" or not is entirely beside the point, because we're not talking about "fairness"; it's irrelevant.  What we're talking about is the law.

It's not super complicated:

1. If you make a thing, then it belongs to you.
2. If a thing belongs to you, then you get to decide how other people can use it.

It's as simple as that.

In this case, the mods in question are All Rights Reserved, which is the most restrictive license possible.  It says "you can download this thing I made, from the place where I've put it for download; but you can't post it for sharing anywhere else, and you can't use it as part of another work, and you can't distribute it in any way, including modifying it at all."  Which also implies "...so if I, the mod author, ever suddenly disappear from the public scene, then my mod will be irretrievably dead just as soon as a KSP update makes it incompatible."

Is it annoying for users of the mod that this thing they love has become unusable?  Of course.  But that doesn't matter, here.  What matters is that the author specified the rules in the license, so anyone using his stuff has to abide by those rules.  It's his mod, and these are the rules he picked.

On 11/30/2018 at 5:34 AM, Spikos said:

When you put so much time and love in a project like this, it is very rare that you just disappear without any comment. If I would know him in real life I would wonder if he is still alive.

Actually, in my experience it happens quite often.  Mod authors go AWOL all the time.  Usually there's nothing dramatic about it-- often they simply got tired of KSP, or moved on to other things in life.

That's why, whenever you start using a mod, you always check the license to see if it's one that would allow somebody to pick up and continue the mod if the author ever goes missing.  If it's a restrictive license that wouldn't allow that (like All Rights Reserved, or CC-BY-NC-ND), then you should carefully consider how attached you want to get to that mod.

(At least, I always check that... don't you?)

On 11/30/2018 at 5:34 AM, Spikos said:

The rules are clear for mods but I am not sure if the creators of those rules ever thought about a situation like this.

By "those rules", you mean "intellectual property law"?  Yes, I'm sure that the creators of those rules-- i.e. legislators-- definitely thought about pretty much every situation that could apply to a licensed work.  Laws tend to be fairly careful, that way.  It's why they've got a lot of lawyers reviewing them. 

(Just want to make sure that we're on the same page about which rules we're talking about, here.  We're talking about law, not KSP forum rules.  The KSP forum rule is basically just that your mod has to say what its license is.  Beyond that, enforcing the terms of the license is a matter of law, not KSP forum policy.)

On 11/30/2018 at 7:41 AM, goldenpsp said:

Now that still doesn't stop someone from re-created a mod similar to this from the ground up.

^ This.  If the mod is ARR, and the author's gone missing, then the mod is dead and there's nothing that can be done about that.  However, this is a license we're talking about, not a copyright.  There's nothing stopping someone else from building a brand new mod from the ground up.  They just can't use any of the assets from this one, that's all.  To the extent that a solution to the current problem may be possible, I think that's about the only open avenue here.  ARR doesn't leave much wiggle room.

On 11/30/2018 at 8:08 AM, DStaal said:

Other mod authors who were working under ARR have been known to come back and switch licenses on their mods either as they left or after they otherwise left.  Yemo hasn't - therefore the mod remains under the restrictions of the original license.

^ This.

On 11/30/2018 at 5:19 PM, Unturned_Fighter said:

It's doubtful the rule creators thought of a mod creator dying.

Hm?  By "rule creators", you mean the legislators who created intellectual property law, and the hordes of lawyers who advised and assisted them on that?  No, I'm pretty sure that "what happens when the owner of intellectual property dies" is absolutely something they thought about.  People die all the time.  They're noted for it.  Intellectual property rights don't vanish when the author dies-- it's why so many books by dead authors are still protected.  Your death doesn't put your stuff into the public domain unless you've made a will expressly saying that.

46 minutes ago, Homer_S said:

If an independent person said "What if I wanted to move the KSP components around to more closely implement rocket development on Earth?" couldn't they create new code/scripts to do that? As long as they don't dig into the code of this mod... Surely this mod's license would not prevent Squad from rearranging the content of their own game.

^ I believe pretty much this, yes.  Nothing to stop someone from building a whole new mod from scratch, as long as they don't re-use anything from this mod.  So that could "solve" the problem.

But that's what it would take.  It's a pretty big job.  That's presumably why nobody's done it yet, and is one of the risks you undertake when you choose to use anything licensed ARR.

48 minutes ago, Homer_S said:

Also... what is the time limit on this type of license? Here's hoping it is shorter than copyright...

I'm not a lawyer.  But for purposes of this discussion, you might as well assume "effective infinity".  It's not going to be something short like "a year or two". 

[severedsolo]

2 hours ago, Snark said:

There's nothing stopping someone else from building a brand new mod from the ground up.  They just can't use any of the assets from this one, that's all.  To the extent that a solution to the current problem may be possible, I think that's about the only open avenue here. 

The problem with that of course for this mod, is that this is a bunch of config files. Hypothetically speaking, I could re-write every single config by hand, they would be technically my own work, but it would look identical to the ones that Yemo posted. If (again hypothetically) it ended up coming to court (or more likely, a forum moderator looking into it) - I'd be very hard pressed to prove that I didn't just copy and paste the original configs.

Or, I make some changes to make it clear that they aren't the same thing, but then of course it's not the same mod any more. Which is precisely the reason (I imagine) that nobody has picked it up, because it's pretty much impossible to prove that you haven't breached the license (it's certainly the reason I haven't, and I love this mod, I'd adopt it in a heartbeat if I could).

BTW Snark - apologies for the ping you'll get for this, I was just using your quote as a launching point for the point I wanted to make, as you said alot of what I wanted to.

Edited December 22, 2018 by severedsolo

[strozyk85]

I don't have patience for waiting  so I've started reconfiguring original KSP files to build my own "Unmanned before Manned" tech tree and it works well. The problem is, that if a new update comes, my work will vanish, because the files will be overwritten. If I knew how to write proper code, I would have written a similar mod, and call it e.g. "Unmanned Beginning" but unfortunately I don't know how to do it.

I hope that the developers willi mplement a new tech tree in the next update which will force unmanned career beginning, nerf reaction wheels, etc.

Edited December 23, 2018 by strozyk85

[kcs123]

2 hours ago, strozyk85 said:

The problem is, that if a new update comes, my work will vanish, because the files will be overwritten. If I knew how to write proper code, I would have written a similar mod, and call it e.g. "Unmanned Beginning" but unfortunately I don't know how to do it.

You should backup your modified files in some folder outside of installed main KSP folders, so you can copy that over your new install when KSP updates.

Also, it is wise to keep main KSP install files unmodified. Just copy whole KSP folder elsewhere, outside of steam folder if you use it. Then install mods over that copied instance of KSP. That way, nothing will be overwritten when KSP updates and your mods would work properly for that copied KSP version.

Considering ARR licence, that is only option left, to modify and use files by yourself for personal usage, without any distribution on internet. We can only discuss what need to be changed to make this to work, info about it already exist in this thread, just search for it. And on top of that you can use UBM extended config files.

 

[theonegalen]

7 hours ago, strozyk85 said:

I don't have patience for waiting  so I've started reconfiguring original KSP files to build my own "Unmanned before Manned" tech tree and it works well. The problem is, that if a new update comes, my work will vanish, because the files will be overwritten. If I knew how to write proper code, I would have written a similar mod, and call it e.g. "Unmanned Beginning" but unfortunately I don't know how to do it.

I hope that the developers willi mplement a new tech tree in the next update which will force unmanned career beginning, nerf reaction wheels, etc.

This is the modulemanager wiki. It will tell you everything you need to know about using modulemanager, which is how you can make cfg files to change parts when as are load into the game. All KSP modding starts here.

https://github.com/sarbian/ModuleManager/wiki

Edited December 23, 2018 by theonegalen

[SpinkAkron]

It clear that trying to recreate UBM part-by-part, node-by-node, with the accompanying license issues, is a dead end.  A handful of us make our own edits to make it work with our games, but that doesn't really keep the concept alive for the community at large.   What needs to be done is to design a new mod with similar vision.  I'm willing to give it a go if there's enough interest in seeing something like this continued. 

I've not published any mods for KSP, but I have for other games (MightyFine Crew Mod for Silent Hunter 5).  I've messed around enough with MM patches that I'm confident I understand how to do it.  I don't have any experience with Github or anything like that so I'd need some technical assistance on that end.

 

Spink

[kcs123]

There is a lot of interest, I would like to do it too, but unfortunately real life commitments does not give me enough free time lately. That is reason to hesitate doing it, I can't tell how much time I would have to create it and let alone maintain it later on.

Sharing ideas and pieces of pseudo code from time to time is best that I can offer for community at moment. Lurking those forums and sharing info to help other in best way I currently can.

[SpinkAkron]

So as not to hijack this thread, I've started a topic for discussion on making a replacement mod.  

Community Unmanned Start Mod

[theonegalen]

Version 3.0 of my UBM Extended is out!

Mostly it's just refinements and bugfixes, but if you have Missing History by Snark, UBME will add the tankbutted versions of Porkjet's Part Overhaul 1.25m engines using the stock mesh switch. This will not work for 1.3.1, but you don't need either Making History or UBM for them to work. You can also use my alterations to the Making History engines, both in techtree and stats, without UBM.

Let me know if things seem to be showing up in the wrong place, or any other bugs!

 Next up will be the version for 1.6.1, which I'll start on tomorrow. That will have a more granular approach to SXT integration, the updated Dmagic Orbital Science US2 parts, and rejigger the Making History due to the 1.6 rebalance.

[_Zee]

As everyone has pointed out very clearly now, this mod is out of date, the author is AWOL, and everyone has been asking for an alternative for years.
I just feel like its prudent to point out these facts, otherwise I would never advertise my mod on someone else's post.

With that said, I present one such alternative. It is a labor of love, give it a look.
 

 

Edited January 11, 2019 by _Zee

[N3N]

Hey,

Can somebody please help me?

I get this MM errors and don't understand them:

Quote

[WRN 16:39:22.360] more than one pass specifier detected, ignoring all but the first: SETIprobeParts/Pods/setiProbeStack1/@PART[setiProbeStack1]:NEEDS[RemoteTech]:AFTER[RemoteTech]:FOR[SETIprobeParts]
[WRN 16:39:22.361] more than one pass specifier detected, ignoring all but the first: SETIprobeParts/Pods/setiProbeStack1/@PART[setiProbeStack1]:NEEDS[RemoteTech,!SETIrebalance]:AFTER[RemoteTech]:FOR[SETIprobeParts]

[WRN 16:39:22.362] more than one pass specifier detected, ignoring all but the first: SETIprobeParts/Pods/setiProbeStack2/@PART[setiProbeStack2]:NEEDS[RemoteTech,!SETIrebalance]:AFTER[RemoteTech]:FOR[SETIprobeParts]
[WRN 16:39:22.362] more than one pass specifier detected, ignoring all but the first: SETIprobeParts/Pods/setiProbeStack2/@PART[setiProbeStack2]:NEEDS[RemoteTech]:AFTER[RemoteTech]:FOR[SETIprobeParts]

[WRN 16:48:02.918] 2 warnings related to GameData/SETIprobeParts/Pods/setiProbeStack1.cfg
[WRN 16:48:02.918] 2 warnings related to GameData/SETIprobeParts/Pods/setiProbeStack2.cfg

 

[kcs123]

57 minutes ago, N3N said:

Hey,

Can somebody please help me?

I get this MM errors and don't understand them:

 

You have to backtrack for this issue several pages back on this thread. MM have changed syntax interpretation few versions ago. Becasue of that older mods like SETI that didn't updated config files cause those warning messages and in some cases my not even work properly. SETI mod was published with ARR licence, so you can only follow instructions how to repair this on your own (you can find it in this thread "how to") or you can use some other mod. Bunch of things were changed in KSP, so SETI probes also might no longer work properly even when you repair "FOR" MM command issue.

Other mod that is somewhat build on SETI principles, but it is not exact copy of SETI to not violate ARR licence is Unkerbaled start mod. You might have better luck with it.

 

[N3N]

1 minute ago, kcs123 said:

You have to backtrack for this issue several pages back on this thread. MM have changed syntax interpretation few versions ago. Becasue of that older mods like SETI that didn't updated config files cause those warning messages and in some cases my not even work properly. SETI mod was published with ARR licence, so you can only follow instructions how to repair this on your own (you can find it in this thread "how to") or you can use some other mod. Bunch of things were changed in KSP, so SETI probes also might no longer work properly even when you repair "FOR" MM command issue.

Other mod that is somewhat build on SETI principles, but it is not exact copy of SETI to not violate ARR licence is Unkerbaled start mod. You might have better luck with it.

Hey,

OK, thank you!

[zer0Kerbal]

I have asked @Yemo for his blessing to continue 'SETI-ProbeParts'.

Seti-ProbeParts:

Licenses: All Rights Reserved, except for mod specific config files

Squad License for part.cfg's is MIT

 

Edited February 23, 2020 by zer0Kerbal

[gamerscircle]

By chance, does anyone know of a contract pack that is similar to SETI Contracts?  They are a nice progressive batch of missions, as the with my KSP 1.12.1 , they will not work.