Oolite Bulletins

Thanks chaps.

I think i'll try Amiga sounds rather than custom sounds to see if the warning klaxon screams like it used to rather than having Carol Vorderman telling me "incoming missile" in a tone of voice that suggests "dinners ready"......
Hardheads are NOT immune? Cool. PCC has 7(?)energy banks for a finger permanently on the ECM.
I'll install missile analyser and take out some of the other OXP's(why is a Mosquito sport slower than a Mosquito trader??
She says "countermeasures" when im not running my ECM so NPC's are frying my missiles. Cant I just have a screaming noise and a big E on my scanner when ECM emissions are present?
Thanks for all the help and i'll try that OXP thing where i install my own sound(.ogg). Thanks Thargoid. Even if you are a big dirty bug......
If Tigers and SuperCobras have an unbalancing effect on the game, which ship am i suppose to aspire to out of all the "Classic ones"? Or have i just made 1.4M Cr for nothing..

Finished the Ionics massacre of Ramazan Govt Ships. Told me to go to Begebe Link base if i wanted to carry on working for them. There isn't one. Went to the station. Nothing. Not even a sticky bun. Any ideas????
P.S. im back in G1 having done Spyhunyter and Asteroid Storm.

Possibly, but it makes little sense. ECM has a chance of making the missile go wrong, it isn't a device that reduces the explosive charge at the front of it.

-Oz

RazorbackSnr wrote:

If Tigers and SuperCobras have an unbalancing effect on the game, which ship am i suppose to aspire to out of all the "Classic ones"? Or have i just made 1.4M Cr for nothing..

That's what happens with most open-ended games when you play them for long enough.

Of course you may have fun with the game any way you choose to, even by buying ships that are poorly designed in some people's opinions - they are only other people's opinions after all.

Personally, I enjoy flying some of the less powerful ships - fully kitted out, though - and just explore the galaxy, only earning credits when I need more to buy fuel and other necessities.

Cool.

I'll buy a SuperCobra and just keep mooching through all the galaxies till I hit "Elite".

I might have a Pentium 4 by then to run the v1.71, with full graphic capabilities and the best OXP's.

Cheers!

RazorbackSnr wrote:

Finished the Ionics massacre of Ramazan Govt Ships. Told me to go to Begebe Link base if i wanted to carry on working for them. There isn't one. Went to the station. Nothing. Not even a sticky bun. Any ideas????

The mission is finished at that point. Feel free to script a follow-up.

Feel free to "script a follow up".......
How do i do that then?????

Sorry, I was a little short of time last Saturday, so it was one sentence only. What I meant was:

The Ionics.oxp is far from being complete, but its author (Galileo) abandoned it (and any other contribution for Oolite) a long time ago. In effect you are stranded somewhere in the middle of the story. You can have a look on the OXP's wiki page and find out what Galileo had planned to do for a version 1.3 and even 2.0.

On the roadmap for version 2.0 you see the items: Add Link HQ at Bebege, Write random mini-missions in sector, Assassinate dictator mission, and War in Legeara. So I guess this is what Galileo had in mind for the next stages of the mission.

But as he abandoned the whole OXP after version 1.2, none of that was ever realized. Therefore there is no Link HQ at Bebege yet, and no following missions or storylines.

But Oolite and all its derivative works are in the public domain. It would of course be a break of etiquette (although perfectly legal and justified) to modify and/or extend and/or rewrite an OXP as long as its original author is still working on it. But in the case of Ionics I think it is safe to assume that he isn't anymore (Galileo's last contributions were more than two years ago).

So if you have an idea how and where the story could evolve from where it is now, and if you know something about scripting, it's like I wrote in short: feel free to take up the ball and finish the OXP.

Commander McLane wrote:

But Oolite and all its derivative works are in the public domain. It would of course be a break of etiquette (although perfectly legal and justified) to modify and/or extend and/or rewrite an OXP as long as its original author is still working on it.

Er, no. Oolite is not in the public domain. And OXPs are not derivative works of Oolite unless they contain materials copied from Oolite or based on parts of Oolite’s built-in data (except in the state of California, which has some batshit insane legal precedents in this area).

In more depth:

In principle, it would be a breach of copyright to distribute modified versions of others’ OXPs if no license terms permitting this are specified (unless the OXP is a derivative work of Oolite, in which case Oolite’s license terms apply). In most cases an OXP author who can’t be contacted is unlikely to actually object to this, and some would probably be saddened by the idea that copyright concerns might cause someone to forgo improving on their work. However, the way things are going, we’re approaching a situation where protection rackets rightsholders’ associations and police forces might initiate legal action against you on suspicion of violation of copyright without any need for a formal arrangement with the copyright holder. If this worries you, I can only suggest you a) avoid violating copyrights and b) get politically engaged on the issue of copyright reform (at which point you might consider civil disobedience to be an option…).

If you create OXPs and do not want them to end up in this sort of legal limbo if you wander off, it is vital that you specify license terms for your OXP. The simplest way is to include the following text in the Read Me file for your OXP:

My Spiffy OXP Copyright 2008 Me.
My Spiffy OXP is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license, version 3.0 or later. for more information, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

This allows others to reuse your OXP as long as they acknowledge your work, don’t try to make money off it, and distribute their version under comparable terms.

If your OXP contains significant content based on Oolite’s built-in data, you are in fact required to include that notice, although I’m not going to prosecute you over it. (Strictly speaking, you could use the GNU GPL version 2.0 or later instead, but CC-by-nc-sa is more appropriate for OXPs.) If you want to choose different terms for your OXP (and it’s not a derivative work of Oolite), The Creative Commons license chooser is a good starting point. You can of course use a non-CC license if you prefer, but I suggest using CC by-nc-sa 3.0 if you don’t have any other preference because standardising on one license avoids complications in using bits of different OXPs.

If you don’t want anyone modifying or “remixing” your OXP, I suggest stating so explicitly, possibly with the CC-by-nc-nd license:

My Spiffy OXP Copyright 2008 Me.
My Spiffy OXP is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works license, version 3.0 or later. for more information, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

You’ll note that these two licenses have rather similar names, and there are other Creative Commons licenses, so it’s important to actually check which terms are being used before fiddling with a CC-licensed work.

Does this mean RBS can or cannot modify Ionics if he (or anybody else) so desires it - can he/they at least take an exact copy of the whole OXP and call it Ionics:TNG and then carry on the storyline?

The example I can think of is: I created the Oo-haul ad for Doc Nil's YAH, Doc Nil then created Oo-Hauler, I then created Tescoo Hauler (never released) based on the Oo-hauler ship and the Tescoo Constore, based on my own ad for YAH but on on the Doc's "ship" design - at the time there was much "go for it" etc and no questions/issues about ownership.

And I remember the dark, dark days of the "Sung Textures" which themselves were a blantant copy over of the original textures created by the Lord Giles Himself.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Does this mean RBS can or cannot modify Ionics if he (or anybody else) so desires it - can he/they at least take an exact copy of the whole OXP and call it Ionics:TNG and then carry on the storyline?

In short, no.

Without explicit permission, you may not copy, distribute or (arguably) use Ionics, or any other OXP. You must obtain permission from the author.

This is why it is so important to specify a license for your OXPs (and any other creative works): without it, people are not allowed to do anything with it until 50–95 years after your death (and that period is likely to continue to be extended again and again). Traditionally, this applied to commercial publishing, but through lobbying, amendments, treaties and highly creative interpretation has been extended to cover almost all use of any creative work. (Of course, the details vary by country, but this is broadly true in most countries.)

And I remember the dark, dark days of the "Sung Textures" which themselves were a blantant copy over of the original textures created by the Lord Giles Himself.

Some of them, yes. This was resolved by Sung rereleasing them under the GPL v. 2.0.

In the unlikely event I ever produce a working OXP and in case I forget and in the spirit of all that is good in Oolite, I hereby state that (unless expressly stated in a specific OXP - not likely) I default to distribution under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license, version 3.0 or later. for more information, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

So let it be written, so let it be done (to get all Hollywood and Biblical!)

Well the simplest thing to do would be just to PM Gallio and ask if he minds someone else picking up the plot thread he left at the end of Ionics (using his models and textures as appropriate). I suspect he woudn't and would be rather flattered. Personally, I make clear in any OXPs I put forward that you are free to do whatever you want with them as long as you don't sell or charge for them and I only ask that you rename things not for copyright reasons but just so that two OXPs don't clash in code.

<lawyer_mode>
Copyright is the moral right to be identified as the author and to chose to what extent if any your work is used by others.

In UK law interfering with this is a tort (or civil wrong) if and only if loss is caused. A tort (unlike a contract breach) is only actionable with proof of damage. So IMHO an OXP author would have no cause of action at common law if another OXP writer used his textures or any other part of an OXP in another OXP as he has suffered no loss by the other's actions. Doing so without asking or at least crediting the oringinal author in your readme would be rude and basicly not cricket, but not legaly actionable.

The UK common law might recoginse this as a wrong, but in tort the measure of damages would be to put the author in the position that he would have been in but for the tort. Since no OXP author is making money out of their OXPs no loss is suffered by another making use of them. As no loss is suffered, the claim is not actionable in tort under de miniumus.

In UK law however Equity (as opposed to Common Law) would recognise the moral right of an OXP author to protect his work and so (in theroy) one OXP author might obtain equiptable relief in the form of an injuction to stop another OXP author using his stuff. Equity is a discretionary remedy though and charctarised by the moto "He who comes for equity must come with clean hands". Given the questionable copyright position (note copyright as opposed to tort) with B&B whether an OXP author could claim equitable relief is questionable to say the least. I woudn't fancy your chances before a DDJ in a list of 20 non-mols! Your lucky if you can get a board DJ to listen to you about somthing important like wheather your client should be locked up for the next 9 months until the Crown can be bothered to put forward any evidence that he did something criminal, never mind who owns the copyright to an OXP!:roll:
</end_lawyer_mode>

Personally I'd like to think Gallio left a plot thread for himself to pick up in the future if he felt like it or another OXPer to do. I left a plot thread hanging at the end of assassins and would be pleased if somebody else wanted to pick it up (Perhaps the player was Agent Wombat and has been hex-edited to forget this and now has a new mission to do for GalCop!).

I don't think we should get too worried about the legal status of stuff we do for Oolite, as its all a bit of fun and if you want to use somebody else's stuff then the polite thing to do (never mind the law!) is just to ask them. Most would be pleased that you thought thier stuff was worth pinching. I know I would! A while back I put up modded versions of Murgh's Military and Wombat's Thargoid Wars (just with a couple of lines of code to avoid a mission clash bug with oither OXP mission that can run at the same time as these missions). I did PM them both first and ask if this was OK, but not because of copyright but cos it seemed the polite thing to do. I really do thing we should all approach the project with this attitude rather than worring overmuch about the legal position! Its the friendliest board this side of Reaidquat after all.

LittleBear wrote:

it seemed the polite thing to do. I really do thing we should all approach the project with this attitude rather than worring overmuch about the legal position! Its the friendliest board this side of Reaidquat after all.

Well said LB there's no substitute for common sense. Mind you Kaks seems to have gone AWOL...............you don't think.........he could be...........sleeping with the fishes do..............do you?