STOP THE MODER INFIGHTING NOW! - Page 3

STOP THE MODER INFIGHTING NOW!

Discuss game development here, from a distinct game project to an accessible third-party mutator, down to the interaction and design of individual units if you like.

Moderator: Moderators

User avatar
Argh
Posts: 10920
Joined: 21 Feb 2005, 03:38

Post by Argh »

meh... it'd probably just become another flame-fest. I just wanted to share my conclusions about this, now that I'm not being completely emo.
tombom
Posts: 1933
Joined: 18 Dec 2005, 20:21

Post by tombom »

smoth wrote:argh, can you start another thread about gpl, gnu and creative commons, I would love to give more work to the community but I have no idea how I can format it so people can be happy.
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=8495

If you check any of the threads about the issue there are bits and pieces in there.
User avatar
Fanger
Expand & Exterminate Developer
Posts: 1509
Joined: 22 Nov 2005, 22:58

Post by Fanger »

In all honestly.. I dont get this GPL stuff it annoying legal stuff, and Im sure that crap is always set up to be confusing..

Im still not quite so sure why a large portion of this community is so incredibly freaked out about having their stuff stolen...

As far as scripting work goes.. IN all honesty I think some of us should go check around before we GPL scripts or suggest we developed something new and groundbreaking, because we may in fact be reinventing the wheel and some script may have already be produced and put out for free use on TAU or another TA site.. BOS scripting has been in circulation for some time now so with regards to scripting unless its something new relating to stuff added via spring, you might want to go searching around before you claim your work as oringial and GPL it..
User avatar
smoth
Posts: 22309
Joined: 13 Jan 2005, 00:46

Post by smoth »

this is why I wish elcapitan did not post that crap in here. People are still upset over it. MODERATORS PLEASE LOCK MY THREAD it is no longer usefull.

The issue still burns for some people, I swear.
El Capitano
Posts: 156
Joined: 13 Oct 2006, 10:48

Post by El Capitano »

Argh wrote:The GPL is a way to do that. The LGPL ensures that others can use my work, but it doesn't prevent them from taking it, changing it dramatically (in a good way) and then calling it theirs.
No, that's not true. All that the LGPL does is prevent tainting of external objects. If your mod was licensed under the LGPL, I could not drastically alter it and call it my own. If I took an LGPL unit or script and integrated it into my mod, I would not have to GPL my mod, but I would have to keep the script itself LGPL. Thus, if I had to alter the script/unit, I'd have to release those changes under the LGPL too.

Seriously, this does need to be cleared up before it becomes even more of an issue.
User avatar
Argh
Posts: 10920
Joined: 21 Feb 2005, 03:38

Post by Argh »

Fang, saying there's nothing original left to do... is simply untrue.

Look... I have a case in point coming down the pipe. It's a script that deals with human motion, if it wasn't already clear through my previous hints around here. I made a guy that can walk and stuff. Big whoop, right? Lots of people have BOS-coded walkscripts before.

But you know what? Mine looks almost real when moving. My guy breathes when he stops jogging (not running, because a jog is a lot more natural). His knees move fluidly, and act as swinging counterweights, like real ones. His aimscript works perfectly, and interrupts his shoulder motions, and it's coded in a way that can be easily changed for whatever aiming style you'd like- wanna gangsta with two Uzis? No problem. Just make the model, record a couple of pose changes, and voila! You're done. Making it that easy is not easy.

He even bounces slightly into the air at the high points of each step, like real people do. His shoulders go to a natural position while aiming a gun. It's a hoard of details, kept as simple and fluid as I can make it go.

Think "nuke script obsession with detail" applied to a guy running around with a gun ;) I haven't done people in NanoBlobs, because I didn't want to, not because I lack the skill.

And I'm highly tempted to make a variant where he has to stop moving entirely to aim and goes into a prone, sniper or crouched stance. Etc., etc., etc.- this is something a LOT of modders are going to want to use.

Moreover, it's short and very efficient. That isn't minor stuff, Fang- we're talking a week of my free time here, including all of this last weekend, when I wasn't flaming and being impossible to be around :P

And I don't want you, or people like you, to be able to use it.

It's not personal. I have accepted your apology, you've bent over backwards to take care of our mutual misunderstanding- it's ok, and I'm not even grumpy about it at this point. But I don't want private-code people to be able to take my work, improve it in some major way, and then go, "ooh, look what I made kids", when they are just building on MY work. That is a very big deal to me.
El Capitano
Posts: 156
Joined: 13 Oct 2006, 10:48

Post by El Capitano »

smoth wrote:this is why I wish elcapitan did not post that crap in here.
Crap?! Excuse me, this stuff needs to be said, seeing as nearly everybody seems to be misinterpreting the issue. Please don't get all condescending about it.
User avatar
AF
AI Developer
Posts: 20687
Joined: 14 Sep 2004, 11:32

Post by AF »

Why are you all arguing over this? The only people left who're bothered are those annoyed that they ahve todo a load of work to replace GPL'ed content or do work to GPL their own stuff.

This is all raging on amongst the same few people, and you dont seem to really be listening either just debating something with no intention of doing anything but stand your ground.

Argh has a GPL licence, we should respect that.

This means to use Arghs GPL stuff:

GPL your project.
Add a LICENSE file in project with the GPL 2 license in it.
Add a CREDITS file listing the ppl who contributed GPL code or you took from.
Provide the source materials for your project.
Provide a means to get the source for original stuff Argh did.
Tell Argh what you did.

Smoth made all his own stuff from scratch and is immune to any of this stuff.

He can pick whatever license he wants and do whatever he wants, the only people who can say otherwise are Bandai, who are perfectly happy with what smoths doing, so smoth neednt worry about Gundam copyright issues.

Fang wants to be free of Cavedog resources, but cba with the GPL license stuff, to him its effort he can put in elsewhere, and he'd rather remove GPL content than take flak for improper GPL license compliance.

These are the stances of the 3 most invovled people. Everyone else is sorta just butting in and arguing and the only real contribution has been clarification of what GPL actually is and an explanation of LGPL.


There is nothing left to discuss. I hereby request this thread be locked. Further posts to this thread should be treated with suspicion as there's no reason to post about this now save to perpetuate infighting.


btw TA based mods cannot use GPL content for the same reason there very existence is brought into question. The GPL license is incompatible with the closed source commerical license Atari placed on the OTA content. Any mod using Atari intellectual property and any fo Arghs GPL content is in violation fo his GPL license and as such would require argh to enforce his license and have you remove all Atari content and GPL your mod or remove all GPL content.
Last edited by AF on 18 Dec 2006, 14:04, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
smoth
Posts: 22309
Joined: 13 Jan 2005, 00:46

Post by smoth »

it's cool capitan, damage done, I just wish we had a whole detailed, flameless thread about the stuff. I did not mean to sound condescending about what you typed. I would prefer if there was a detailed thread about it because I am still unclear after reading your post and many other posts here on the forum.

My main agrivation is that this is way off topic, this post was about moders helping each other and not fighting.
User avatar
Argh
Posts: 10920
Joined: 21 Feb 2005, 03:38

Post by Argh »

In regards to AF's statement, let me add a bit of legal clarification:

Per the letter of my license, the Nuke script and other non-BOS code was all released under the Creative Commons license- you can do whatever you want with it, period.

That is something I can't take back, so if you're just using my FX code, sounds, models or bitmaps, you're totally free and clear of the GPL. I didn't GPL the FX code for the more complex stuff mainly because I was too darn tired to think about it at the time, frankly. But that's ok with me.

I will be correcting that in future releases of NanoBlobs, if I write any more FX that deserve some protection (which is rather unlikely, unless Yeha gives me animated particles or normal clouds or some of the other more exotic stuff that may come down the pipe). Just warning you now ;) I will not bother with ordinary, run-of-the-mill, "oh yeah, Argh did that like, months ago, dude" stuff, of course- that would be pointless and lead to no end of disputes...
manored
Posts: 3179
Joined: 15 Nov 2006, 00:37

Post by manored »

How about we making a moral (not oficial but as respected as it) agreenment of not using other people work if we dont allow em to use our work? (that would be sticked somewhere for everone to see)
User avatar
smoth
Posts: 22309
Joined: 13 Jan 2005, 00:46

Post by smoth »

not really something that is going to stick with people. I think if someone offers something, and you can meet what that person asks in return that is enough for me.

As soon as I figure out the right way of going about it mannored, I'll be donating some stuff to the community.
User avatar
Pxtl
Posts: 6112
Joined: 23 Oct 2004, 01:43

The problem exists everywhere

Post by Pxtl »

A lot of people create free content that they give to the world at large... but very few of them issue licenses with that content. Because of that, most consumers of this content are either unaware of licenses (bad consumers), or unable to build on ambiguously-licensed material (bad producers).

The Code Project (a windows-code article repository) is an incredibly bad example of this - The Code Project has two completely conflicting licenses for consuming or submitting code.

There are a large number of popular free licenses out there for content and code. Please always remember to include one with any reusable materials... not including them means that the default license is in place, which is 100% copyright, which means no derivative works, no redistribution, etc. and makes you far more selfish than the developers of Spring itself.

I know you don't want to think about this, but you HAVE to unless you want to get into fights all the time. Before you release anything, consider the license to distribute with. Before you consume anything in your own project, consider the license it was released under. Most FOSS licenses are designed to be clear and easily read by the layman, so "I don't speak legalese" is no excuse.
User avatar
Fanger
Expand & Exterminate Developer
Posts: 1509
Joined: 22 Nov 2005, 22:58

Post by Fanger »

Argh I wasnt saying nothing orginial is left to do, what I was saying is that before people go gpling some of their code they ought to check that it isnt already available somewhere else in some other form.. this would go for walk animations, aiming/firing scripts.. some other complex stuff..

I know new stuff can still be done with BOS code, and the spring devs occasionally add new functions that can be combined to form all sorts of new effects..

Its just after this script debacle smoth linked me to the TAU script deposite, where a lot of scripting content has been posted for free use, and I just think we ought to check to see we havent duplicated something there/only slightly deviated from it before we go slapping a manditory licencing on it..


I realize I differ on a level of ideology when it comes to protecting content, to me my models and textures are more important than any scripts I have, but then my scripts are all very generic so GPLing them would be silly at best..

I just dont think anything that is fairly simplistic/easily modifiable or adaptable should be GPLed, said things should just be put out for free under creative commens or what have you.. only really large stuff that would require some amount of knowledge or skill to reproduce/alter should be GPLed..
imbaczek
Posts: 3629
Joined: 22 Aug 2006, 16:19

Post by imbaczek »

Fanger wrote:Argh I wasnt saying nothing orginial is left to do, what I was saying is that before people go gpling some of their code they ought to check that it isnt already available somewhere else in some other form.. this would go for walk animations, aiming/firing scripts.. some other complex stuff..
If you got it from somewhere else and it's not under any license, you can't use it by default. If it is under something else, no problem, as long as you actually comply with this something else.

My short guide to OSS licenses:
GPL - if you don't want credit, but want to have any and all modifications availible to everybody - examples: Linux, Spring
BSD - if you want credit, but don't care about availibility of modifications (BSD requires attribution in the program, e.g. Windows TCP/IP stack is based on BSD source, and Windows software says so when asked)
MIT, Python license, public domain - if you want neither (not really sure about MIT though) - examples: Python, sqlite

Oh and btw: if you make something, it's yours and you can license it whatever way you like. GPL does not forbid you to make something similar, patents do.
User avatar
Zoombie
Posts: 6149
Joined: 15 Mar 2005, 07:08

Post by Zoombie »

Anyone else think we should just shoot the lawyers and start again? Cause all this legalise is giving me a headach.
User avatar
SwiftSpear
Classic Community Lead
Posts: 7287
Joined: 12 Aug 2005, 09:29

Post by SwiftSpear »

El Capitano wrote:
SwiftSpear wrote: This is not the case. You can individually license specific pieces of code in a coding project under GPL and the entire project does not need to be GPLed.
That is not true. The GPL requires all distributed derived work to be licensed under the GPL too. The one real "exception" is that you can basically run GPL code on top of a GPL-incompatible platform. For example, you can run proprietary code on Linux. However, if I, say, took a GPL unit and integrated it into my non-GPL mod, I'd be in violation of the GPL. If I built a GPL unit for a mod, then that's slightly muddier ground, but seeing as the unit is conceptually another layer on top of the mod, you're probably in the clear.

If people want to create a unit and allow it to be integrated into any mod whilst the unit itself is under the GPL, they should be using the LGPL. The L used to stand for "Library", which made the nature of the license reasonably clear, but Mr. Stallman had a fit of childishness and renamed it "Lesser".
This is the instance of the code argh is using for his BOS scripts AFAIK. Each script is individually GPLed. So I can use any of argh's scripts in my mod, or modify any of his scripts in my mod, and the only thing in my entire mod I need to redistribute as GPL is the script the original GPLed script derived from.
No, that's not true. That's basically the interpretation of the LGPL and it's what all these separate scripts really should be under. By making the script GPL, it does actually taint any mod that integrates it. Relicense under the LGPL, and this problem goes away.
For a blatant example. All spring mods need spring to run, spring is GPL, by your definition all spring mods are therefore GPL, this is simply not the case.
I think the reason for this is for the same reason that you can run GPL-incompatible code on Linux, it's that Spring is a platform and developing/running code (mods) on top of that platform is normal use. Just as Linux is of little use on its own, Spring is also of little use without a mod to run on it.

Please keep in mind here that I'm not trying to start or further a flame war, but I want to disambiguate the situation so people better understand the situation before this happens again.
Mods don't derive from units, they use units as console parts. An individual unit can be removed or replaced from a mod without any problem in the mod... Windows, which is not GPL runs spring which is GPL. GPL violation?
User avatar
Erom
Posts: 1115
Joined: 25 Apr 2006, 05:08

Post by Erom »

I'm glad the fallout from all this has been a better understanding of what's going on. I certainly learned a lot not only about the copyright options (I really only understood Creative Commons before.) but also what peoples opinions and preferences are.

Hopefully this knowledge will reduce the chances of this being an issue again in the future, although I'm sure it'll come up again eventually.
User avatar
Fanger
Expand & Exterminate Developer
Posts: 1509
Joined: 22 Nov 2005, 22:58

Post by Fanger »

how can it be not allowed to use something someone dumped somewhere and said Hey go ahead and use this if ya want.. you people are to caught up in this licence bullcrap..

If someone puts something up somewhere for free, then its retarded for someone else to GPL the same thing regardless of whether they copied that free thing or managed to duplicate it without ever seeing it..

if we dont follow that well end up with stupid stuff like people going HEY GUYZ im GPLING THIS:
FirePrimary()
{
if( gun_1 == 0 )
{
show flare1;
move barrel1 to z-axis [-2] speed [500];
sleep 75;
hide flare1;
move barrel1 to z-axis [0] speed [1];
}
if( gun_1 == 1 )
{
show flare2;
move barrel2 to z-axis [-2] speed [500];
sleep 75;
hide flare2;
move barrel2 to z-axis [0] speed [1];
}
gun_1 = gun_1 + 1;
if( gun_1 >= 2 )
{
gun_1=0;
}
}
Anyone whose scripted can tell you that is a easy to set up generic fire weapon setup that has been used by nearly everyone and is everywhere. acording to you people you can GPL it.. DO I think someone should, No.. I mean if someone did everyone would have to stuff licences and things all over the place to give the guy credit. Basically simple things that were already given away should not be GPLed.. if this means you have to dig around a second to find out well do it..
El Capitano
Posts: 156
Joined: 13 Oct 2006, 10:48

Post by El Capitano »

SwiftSpear wrote:Mods don't derive from units, they use units as console parts. An individual unit can be removed or replaced from a mod without any problem in the mod...
If I take my program and integrate support for a GPL library and ship a compiled version which links to that library and a compiled version that doesn't, it still means I am in violation of the GPL. If all of the anti-air units in my mod out of GPL units, you couldn't remove them without absolutely buggering the balance of the mod, thus they are an integral part of the mod.
Windows, which is not GPL runs spring which is GPL. GPL violation?
Nope, because Spring runs on top of Windows, it uses Windows as its platform. You could just about make the case that you can make a GPL unit for a mod as the unit runs on that mod, but integrating a unit into that mod and then shipping the two together taints the whole mod.
Post Reply

Return to “Game Development”