I Am Leaving CA

[Acidd_UK]

Wow. Gota made a post I agree with. Did I fall into a parallel universe?

[SpliFF]

Nobody is gonna sue anybody..LOL...

I agree completely but it makes for good Monthly Topic Rotation.

Whoever makes TA 2 isn't going to benefit from antagonizing what's left of the TA player base.

Having said that, we could resolve all *A mod issues by having the installer automatically build otacontent from the original CDs rather than providing it as a download. Obviously there are technical reasons this doesn't happen but in the very worst case *A players would simply be required to own the TA disks. Assuming anyone still sells them you'd be looking at about $10 in a bargain bin or online store.

But yeah, the whole concept that Spring or its developers are at risk is total nonsense.

Well almost. It's funny to see the devs defend the engine so strongly when the bitmaps readme for springcontent contains lines like this:

Code: Select all

emptyBuildPane.bmp	probably SJ/Yeha
explo.bmp		ripped from some game
flare.bmp		Yeha (source unknown, TODO: ask Yeha)

[CarRepairer]

we could resolve all *A mod issues by having the installer automatically build otacontent from the original CDs rather than providing it as a download.

Ha!

in the very worst case *A players would simply be required to own the TA disks.

Ha!

Well almost. It's funny to see the devs defend the engine so strongly when the bitmaps readme for springcontent contains lines like this:

Code: Select all

emptyBuildPane.bmp   probably SJ/Yeha
explo.bmp      ripped from some game
flare.bmp      Yeha (source unknown, TODO: ask Yeha)

lol

[BaNa]

Spring (as a project) is not tied to the US in any way, no?

As such, US laws do not apply here, no?

I assume our file hosts are in diverse countries with many different laws, no?

So 1 C and D could not take us down. Some countries dont have any laws of this kind anyway, so the worst i can imagine is that hosting would need to be relocated.

[smoth]

talk talk talk. Seriously, you guys could replace most of the textures in a weekend, replace the sounds in a couple of weeks and switch out the 3dos for new models that have no holes. It is a win-win situation, why can't you lot do that?

[Argh]

Meh, I proposed doing just that... sheesh, well over two years ago. Nothing happened, everybody just wanted me to do all of the work.

I dunno about "a weekend", there are a lot of little greeble textures, and improving them would actually require some work. Most of them would be pretty easy, though.

[smoth]

I think a weekend is all that is needed, most of the textures are lesser variations. Argh the textures can be improved over time but getting a base would be good. yeah we both had efforts that we tried to see start. I had some submissions but it died fast.

[Argh]

I think a weekend is all that is needed, most of the textures are lesser variations.

True. Speaking of which... how many of the darker ones are really being used these days? Didn't the AA models get Bleached?

[smoth]

I don't really know, honestly I think they all look pretty flat anyway as the darkness textures were used inconsistently and several models were flat also.

[SpikedHelmet]

TASClient is the one that was downloading TA stuff without asking.

Anyway, meh, I'm tired of bitching about TA content.

[Licho]

Actually no .. TASclient never downloaded otacontent :)
SpringLobby and SpringDownloader do it..
both are unrelated to tasclient..

[YokoZar]

We are moving more and more off topic here, but i honestly dont get why (esp now, with separate installers) the truly free mods (EE and KP) don't have a much bigger linux following. As far as I see most available linux games are ... fail. Why do ppl not flock to that part of spring?

EE isn't truly free by debian free software guidelines. Kernel Panic is, but it will take a couple of months before it can be bundled with distributions. Let's hope it has a working, packaged single player by then.

really sad to see you go. Hopefully we will magically attract a dozen modelers who will miraculously free us from ip within the next 3 months so you could return .

Meanwhile, I'll be keeping my eye on your other projects If only you worked for one that *wasn't* closed beta =P

On a related note, CA should laxen its model standards, so i and others could spam crappy models to rid us of IP. Then we could redo it all over

Kernel Panic is very promising in part because it is simple, so it's quite realistic to have it modeled and balanced before all these other grand projects like areplacing the entire OTA unit models.

I agree with you though - there should be a real effort to make free units, even bad ones that look ugly. If it bothers the CA devs enough to have ugly units, consider making a "FreeCA" (even if almost no one plays it) as an active demonstration of what is currently legal and what needs work.

[Pxtl]

"Couple of months" - what in KP is non-free? If you're talking quality, I've seen many worse, buggier projects in various repositories.

[YokoZar]

1) Spring installer still lets you access TA IP
2) Both TASClient and SpringLobby allow access to TA IP and servers which host TA IP..

These are both changing. The mods needing it now have the OTA content built in, and springlobby won't offer to download it anymore - instead you'll just get it from other players. This makes the lobby no different from eMule, bittorrent, or any other peer to peer software.

Once that's done, there's no longer a reason to include mods in the Installer, and we only need to worry about the engine being legal. Aside from the possibility of a few textures being ripped from places unknown, the engine should be completely legal now as it doesn't copy any actual code.

[YokoZar]

"Couple of months" - what in KP is non-free? If you're talking quality, I've seen many worse, buggier projects in various repositories.

I think you misunderstood - nothing's wrong with Kernel Panic in it's current state (or future state) -- the "couple of months" is just how long it takes for new distro releases to come out. Making a good kernel panic package and uploading it (along with Spring proper) to the repositories for the next Ubuntu release is one of my goals for the next few weeks.

[Forboding Angel]

EE isn't truly free by debian free software guidelines.

If you are talking about the content not being IP free, you're full of crap. We slaved away like dogs to free if of any possible copyright IP infringement.

[lurker]

EE isn't truly free by debian free software guidelines.

If you are talking about the content not being IP free, you're full of crap. We slaved away like dogs to free if of any possible copyright IP infringement.

/facepalm
Debian only accepts open source, modifiable content.

[Saktoth]

This isnt about 'oh noes we gonna get sued'. This is about wanting to be proud of your work, put it in a portfolio, distribute it without having to tell people 'Well, its not technically legal but nobody will care' or flat-out lying to them about it.

This is about getting CA and Spring into the wider Open Source community, where we are virtual pariahs due to our quasi-legal 'abandonware' nature. We wont be taken 'seriously' while we are a 'remake of OTA'.

Even if the IP holders dont even care, it hurts our advertising, distribution, and our standing. With the quality we have in this project we should be the posterchild of open source gaming, not its closet-dwelling bastard half-brother.

EE isn't truly free by debian free software guidelines.

If you are talking about the content not being IP free, you're full of crap. We slaved away like dogs to free if of any possible copyright IP infringement.

Except infringement of Fangs IP and copyright.

[Gota]

Advertise your IP free game don't impose it on people.
The discussion WAS straying towards "omg we gonna get sued we need to make sure this evil illegal OTA material is disposed of".

If you have an free IP game go and advertise it and make a website and make an installer and maybe even use your own server.
OTA based mods do not interfere with IP free games that are trying to get noticed.
"getting CA into the wider open source community"(and dont add spring here) is the Goal of CA devs but OTA content does not stand in their way of increasing their playerbase,on the contrary,it fills gaps that the CA dev team can't fill and allows CA to be playable with many units.
When you make enough models you can replace OTA ones.
CA development and the fate of IP free projects on the spring engine is completely separated and stating that Spring's goals are connected with CA replacing all the OTA content is incorrect and very egocentric(why should s44 of SWIW devs care about it?).
In short,instead of attacking OTA content focus on replacing it or just ignore it if your project IS already IP free.
Any motivation to forcefully alienate OTA content at this point can only come from the desire to advance different projects on the expense of the prevailing OTA mods OR just some crazy paranoid delusions about the Interpol chasing spring devs down and locking them behind bars.
there is no reason to remove OTA content from everywhere(unless it can be replaced) until someone actually asks the spring community to stop supporting it.

[KDR_11k]

EE isn't truly free by debian free software guidelines.

If you are talking about the content not being IP free, you're full of crap. We slaved away like dogs to free if of any possible copyright IP infringement.

/facepalm
Debian only accepts open source, modifiable content.

Adding to that Debian rejected Firefox because the logo is trademarked and they have rules that unofficial builds must bear a different logo.