Spring secretly force people to be illegal!

[imbaczek]

I'm +1 also on removing otacontent and tatextures from base/; mods should start depending on those files being in mods/. I may even consider having them ignored in base/.

[Boirunner]

yankspankers: w00t lets program some stuff to play TA in 3D!
random guys: w00t let's play TA in 3D!
some dude: w00t i could use this engine to do non-TA stuff!
some dude: TA stuff is illegal! how dare you use it on my engine!

[imbaczek]

nono, you misunderstand me

otacontent base files causes only problems for people who don't have it there, as it breaks hashes of a lot of things. ignoring them in base/ would help that, and force mod authors to stop relying on it being in every spring installation.

[zwzsg]

that is a problem with the *a mods. they need to include their content like the rest of us.

Nonono, that would break too many things. Sure, BA and CA will survives but all the other mods depending on those resources that get played once in a blue moon and whose author lost interest in them would break and never get fixed.

Only download the 3 files if they're actually needed!!!!

That!! Can SpringDownloader opens mods and read their modinfo.tdf? It so, just download those 3 files when there's a mod depending on them.

[Gota]

yankspankers: w00t lets program some stuff to play TA in 3D!
random guys: w00t let's play TA in 3D!
some dude: w00t i could use this engine to do non-TA stuff!
some dude: TA stuff is illegal! how dare you use it on my engine!

[zwzsg]

The old FAQ stated that Spring aimed to be the best RTS ever, and that "TA in 3D" was only a temporary step toward that goal.

[KDR_11k]

yankspankers: w00t lets program some stuff to play TA in 3D!
random guys: w00t let's play TA in 3D!
yankspankers: Yawn, this is getting boring, let's do something else and let new recruiits continue the development.
some dude: w00t i could use this engine to do non-TA stuff!
some dude: TA stuff is illegal! how dare you use it on my engine!

fixed.

Besides, nowadays we're trying to pitch Spring as free software, that doesn't really work when it still tries to force-feed you non-free data.

Nonono, that would break too many things. Sure, BA and CA will survives but all the other mods depending on those resources that get played once in a blue moon and whose author lost interest in them would break and never get fixed.

Looking at what the last few Spring releases did I don't think any of those mods even work now.

[Argh]

otacontent base files causes only problems for people who don't have it there, as it breaks hashes of a lot of things. ignoring them in base/ would help that, and force mod authors to stop relying on it being in every spring installation.

Moreover, removing that requirement would mean that people could make alternative skin-packs, sound-packs, etc., might be a pretty useful feature, imo.

[adin_panther]

Just how expensive is OTA nowadays anyhow ? I think i got it for 5 bucks including CC and BT ...

[Boirunner]

yankspankers: w00t lets program some stuff to play TA in 3D!
random guys: w00t let's play TA in 3D!
some dude: w00t i could use this engine to do non-TA stuff!
some dude: TA stuff is illegal! how dare you use it on my engine!

don't quote me i hate you

[CarRepairer]

that is a problem with the *a mods. they need to include their content like the rest of us. Their users having no understanding should not be shoved on any of the players.

+1

[Forboding Angel]

Just how expensive is OTA nowadays anyhow ? I think i got it for 5 bucks including CC and BT ...

Doesn't matter. THe content was modified heavily from it's original form and then redistributed, that is a copyright violation, and it doesn't really matter if you own ta or not. You as a user wouldn't be in much hot water tho, but the poor saps distributing the content would have some explaining to do.

[SpikedHelmet]

this just indicates the need for an honest effort by ip-free designers to come together to make for better spring. i think it's pretty obvious that most of those behind the spring engine don't give a damn about IP infringement, legality or whatnot and I personalyl think it'll bite them in the ass sooner rather than later, the best thing we can do as independant developers is try and distance ourselves from it.

for instance what I'd really like to see is mods using their own installers which will install Spring and their mod content rather than having to refer people here to this website to get the Spring installer which contains loads of illegal IP (or access to it).

It should be easy enough for S:44, Gundam, EvoRTS, PURE, SWIW, KP (anyone else) to work out something. Having a home away from home would be a start. Like smoth's forum except less smothy

[Acidd_UK]

Just how expensive is OTA nowadays anyhow ? I think i got it for 5 bucks including CC and BT ...

Doesn't matter. THe content was modified heavily from it's original form and then redistributed, that is a copyright violation, and it doesn't really matter if you own ta or not. You as a user wouldn't be in much hot water tho, but the poor saps distributing the content would have some explaining to do.

Presumably though the Spring devs could distribute a tool that took the original files (e.g. from an OTA CD) and do the necessary processing to turn them into the files TA/Spring mods need? This would not be illegal as far as I am aware, since it relies on the user having the content files / does not involve the devs/mod makers distributing it themselves.

[adin_panther]

Legal or not, by now the content and the game have evolved so heavily, that it hardly SHOULD still count as a vioation in my opinion. Other then that, i think this wil be ignored ... there are more then enough project out there that were 10 times more direct about stealing content and nobody cares. And yes, i know there are also alot that were bashed, like freecraft for example, but meh.

[imbaczek]

spring engine developers shouldn't even care about ota content anymore - it's something the mods should do. i agree that springdownloader's functionality that autodownloads it is convenient, but we should distribute a version that's 100% legal.

a generation software would be 100% ok, i guess.

[smoth]

Legal or not, by now the content and the game have evolved so heavily, that it hardly SHOULD still count as a vioation in my opinion.

the only thing that changed in ota content is
they added alpha layers for 3do reflective and I had to turn the teamcolor tiles purple for the teamcolor settings.

Other then that, i think this wil be ignored ... there are more then enough project out there that were 10 times more direct about stealing content and nobody cares.

you pulled that number out of your ass. how can you be 10 more of taking the content directly. Some of us have morals and values, so we care.

And yes, i know there are also alot that were bashed, like freecraft for example, but meh.

freecraft was almost shut down now it requires the cds to run. Also a lot is TWO WORDS.

aciduk a direct install of ta rip will not work as the tiles have to be extracted and converted. adding the alpha and the purple for team color.

*edits* for better accuracy

[zwzsg]

for instance what I'd really like to see is mods using their own installers which will install Spring and their mod content

KP already has its own installer. Actually, it's by triple-checking if KP installer was working well that I noticed that SpringDownloader was adding those TA files. So for now I just disabled SpringDownloader in KP installer, and will probably remove it in the next iteration of KP installer unless Licho does something about it.

As for a website, all the mods you mentionned except KP have one.

Making the TA concent autogenerate from TA's CD is needlessly complicated, I don't care that people are still distributing and playing TA derivative, all I care is that we also enable the possibility to have custom installs free of them. Which is already possible, beside that far-fetched bit with the default multiplayer client starting SpringDownloader, and SpringDownloader getting them as soon as it starts.

[adin_panther]

the only thing that changed in ota content is
they added alpha layers for 3do reflective and I had to turn the teamcolor tiles purple for the teamcolor settings.

Quite correct, though these mods did spawn from another great community and you know they did a little more then that.

you pulled that number out of your ass. how can you be 10 more of taking the content directly. Some of us have morals and values, so we care.

Nope, i didn't. Check out Skrupel, if you want. It's a browser game that literally CONSISTS of stolen content. They stole from ALL the biggies in Sci-Fi. And i'd go as far as saying they have as many players as we do. Aside from the units and some metal grafics, what is left from the game we once knew as TA ? Oh, right, the sound, which was as generic as it could be already when TA was created, or have you never noticed who all is using that sample pack ? In fact, much more could have been stolen, like the campains, the awesome speech that went along with it and so on.
And morals ... values ? Don't make me laugh, if you have such outstanding morals and values, change your avatar, you thief ! lol
You act like Infogrames would actually be HURT by this, which is a rediculous thought in the first place. If they ever sue for this, they sue because they CAN, like blizzard did, and not because they HAVE TO. Infogrames is not a hand full of poor programmers, it's a software empire, that on itself has ruined many very promising software developers already.
OTA was a given up thing and the fan community kept it alive all these years, if they have any success with rereleasing this game THEY are the ones who should pay the fan community for their amazing works. Don't even try to denunce anyone here like that.

freecraft was almost shut down now it requires the cds to run. Also a lot is TWO WORDS.

Thats what i implied with "bashed".

[zwzsg]

I'm fine with the stealing of TA content, it's just it itches me a little that it's now done behind the user back while pretending the installer is clean.