Spring RTS Engine

You are distributing BA? Are you insane?

To be fair there is blame on all sides. Blacklisting zervers IP address, forum bans, etc are no way to encourage discussion as abma would like to believe. Given time i'm sure everyone will calm down enough to realise that forks are not evil and the lobby server is big enough for everyone (especially once the multi-version support is properly handled by the lobbies and servers).

Having said that the gpl violation source does need to be made available per the GPL license as soon as possible since binaries have been made available for download. If you don't do that you have no rights to distribute the binaries and you leave yourself open to any Spring contributor making legal claims against your project.

Frankly this has all got too personal and was badly managed by everyone. Now that it's done I see no reason why everyone can't get along provided basic obligations and respect is given where it's due.

SpliFF wrote:To be fair there is blame on all sides. Blacklisting zervers IP address, forum bans, etc are no way to encourage discussion as abma would like to believe. Given time i'm sure everyone will calm down enough to realise that forks are not evil and the lobby server is big enough for everyone (especially once the multi-version support is properly handled by the lobbies and servers).

better ideas are welcome, this isn't really constructive, too. i showed a possible solution, but zerver ignored it.

GPL violation isn't acceptable, ignoring (or better tying to troll) game devs branding/mutator policies isn't acceptable, too. this rule exists to limit frustration for players and game devs.

if you don't accept this rules, either discuss or ask ... imo thats the minimum respect which is needed to have a working community.

abma wrote:better ideas are welcome, this isn't really constructive, too. i showed a possible solution, but zerver ignored it.

So you brought down a ban-hammer as a solution which ultimately didn't improve things. I get the feeling a lot of what's happening here is zerver reacting badly to being pushed out of projects he contributed a lot of time to. I know he spent a lot of time with the BA code trying to make it thread-safe and even though the "MT" version does nothing to change the gameplay of BA he's being asked to call it something else (which it really isn't).

I'm not endorsing everything zerver has done but there is clearly too much drama going on and taking drastic actions doesn't eliminate drama, it amplifies it.

SpliFF wrote: I know he spent a lot of time with the BA code trying to make it thread-safe and even though the "MT" version does nothing to change the gameplay of BA he's being asked to call it something else (which it really isn't).

if he did that it was against the wishes of the BA maintainers. If he did that and they later decided to add stuff that will not work with his, where will that leave his split. Does that mean he can just take whatever spring project he wants alter it and post it on his site as little more than a download as if it was something he whipped up all on his own over the weekend. I mean hey, if he wants to go maintain his own branch of my shit, hey that was cool of him to port it to his engine.. but to not even give as much as a shout out to where he got it, what it is from etc. There is no history on the site. What about the people working on these projects and how disrespectful it would seem to them. I am not try to bust his balls here but the current maintainers of BA are pretty upset going by these posts and I would be to if he didn't at least ask. The reason I feel he didn't ask is that they seem pretty displeased going by their posts.

I am not trying to jump on zerver, I may have misinterpreted their posts but they do not seem happy.

SpliFF wrote: I get the feeling a lot of what's happening here is zerver reacting badly to being pushed out of projects he contributed a lot of time to. I know he spent a lot of time with the BA code trying to make it thread-safe and even though the "MT" version does nothing to change the gameplay of BA he's being asked to call it something else (which it really isn't).

sorry, that is no solution / help. many bad things happened, yes, but atm i don't see a way to unban his ip for hosting the games if he doesn't change his mind & the problems with it already talked about a few times.

also maybe we should wait until zerver responds, this really goes off-topic...

abma wrote: also maybe we should wait until zerver responds, this really goes off-topic...

what is his timezone like? it might be the middle of the night for him or really early in the morning?

abma wrote:also you are still violating BA's rules about forks.

I don't see why it makes sense to enforce any sort of IP rules like this (or the engine's GPL, for that matter) while completely ignoring the flagrant and long-standing violation that the "original" project represents. It comes across as a selective enforcement intended solely to screw zerver over.

smoth wrote:I may have misinterpreted their posts but they do not seem happy.

yes you are. for example your whole post about "to hesitate on add support for another engine and an OBVIOUSLY COMPETING ENGINE? So how was this hostile?" makes no sense because gpl violation was already supported but then banned. Maybe in this threads only affected people should post.

Hello folks!

I already released my game "Balanced" which is an exact copy of BA with threading related fixes.
Silentwings was not happy with this name, but since I already released I have no plans to change the name now.
However, I have offered to change the name in conjunction with the next (7.79) release of BA.

The sources are currently withheld mostly to make a statement. I was banned from this project because other spring devs did not want my sources, so it is naturally very amusing to get insta-ban after that due to *lack of* sources (I lolled all night long). If you are in need of sources, I'm sorry that the "spring drama" has to do collateral damage like this.

I am only trying to get my fork into mainstream use, and the sources will be released when it is bundled together with the Spring release. You can see it as my response to all these stupid bans.

I had no intentions of making competing engines, it just inevitably happens as an end result in a situation like the one we have here.

zerver wrote:I already released my game "Balanced" which is an exact copy of BA with ... I have offered to change the name...

We had made it clear to you months ago, and it's also clear in the branding policy, that what you planned (and then did) release was not accepted by us. You pm'ed us to ask, after a quite long discussion we decided no - you ignored our request.

As I've said above, if you reach a point where your project is accepted as part of Spring then I'm happy to work on compatibility, but within Spring we won't allow an immitation BA, or any derivative that breaks compatibility with the official engine or lobby - whether it's a cosmetic change, rename, mutator, etc. Without an auto-d/l system to support it, and without proper coordination of install/help/support, having multiple incompatible modfiles and incompatible engines would be an awful situation.

Aside from issues of engine source, misleading names & (in)compatibility, I don't want (and all devs of BA/TechA feel the same way) to see the popularity of our games used divisively within Spring.

zerver wrote:I am only trying to get my fork into mainstream use, and the sources will be released when it is bundled together with the Spring release. You can see it as my response to all these stupid bans.

I had no intentions of making competing engines, it just inevitably happens as an end result in a situation like the one we have here.

You need to open sources because of GPL license

Peet wrote:

abma wrote:also you are still violating BA's rules about forks.

I don't see why it makes sense to enforce any sort of IP rules like this (or the engine's GPL, for that matter) while completely ignoring the flagrant and long-standing violation that the "original" project represents. It comes across as a selective enforcement intended solely to screw zerver over.

Spring doesn't infringe on any TA source code. BA infringes on TA's art and there's a well known attempt to move away from that.

That's all completely different from what zerver is doing with Spring and BA in this case though. With Spring he is in violation of it's GPL licence and with BA it's misusing the trademark.

FYI: the source code of "gpl violation-Lobby" is missing too (which is a gpl-violation as well).

gajop wrote: BA infringes on TA's art

That's all completely different from what zerver is doing with Spring and BA in this case though. With Spring he is in violation of it's GPL licence

Both are copyright infringement. The only legal framework backing the GPL is the very same set of intellectual property laws as those being broken in the act of distributing BA. Penalizing the breach of one but not the other represents a very significant double standard in the moderation of this community.

gajop wrote: and with BA it's misusing the trademark.

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f= ... p2vug.2.40 this one? Or the fact that it's half of BA's title? If I made a mod called Zero would I be banned?

Don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily think zerver is in the right here. But as far as I can see the continued punitive actions against him lack any sort of moral authority and are verging into the realm of a petty feud.

Not that that is anything new when it comes to Spring moderation

At least he has put the mapedges support code in his sping version.
When can we finally expect this to be availible in regular spring?



I cant really say much about the whole affair, and for the most... rightfully so. It isnt about the players to have a big opinion about internal coding behavior/standards.

Too bad because from the players perspective the zerver' s MT builds seemed to be better for performance.


And... in the end.... the way he's advertising his builds to us isn't helping. After all, what the bleep can we understand about this affair.

Peet wrote: Both are copyright infringement. The only legal framework backing the GPL is the very same set of intellectual property laws as those being broken in the act of distributing BA. Penalizing the breach of one but not the other represents a very significant double standard in the moderation of this community.

Of course it's a double standard, we all know that. We haven't punished BA because Atari didn't make us do that yet, and because the majority (a lot have voiced concerned though) of people here don't see any harm done in infringing on TA's models for the time being (the franchise is dead and we are moving away from the old art anyhow). On the other hand you have software made by devs from this community, and that's obviously more important here (try advertising BA on official Atari-run TA sites if there are any).

Peet wrote: Or the fact that it's half of BA's title? If I made a mod called Zero would I be banned?

Well, you probably wouldn't get sued if you made an OS called "Wind" but if you made an OS called "Wind" and also put the version name as "ows 7", you probably would.

So in short the basis for the ban is "Silentwings doesn't like it and we don't have access to the source since we deleted the branch". I guess I can live with that as long as we're being frank.

I do still feel the need to point out that BA itself was an unauthorized fork of AA. Which I am pretty sure extended the same favour to Uberhack. Not to mention ZK's roots. But all of a sudden this activity is super verboten because the guy having a ridiculously stupid feud with the devs has done it.

Not.
Read again, all of it this time.