Oolite Bulletins

LittleBear wrote:

Hi all,

The reason I got into writing for Oolite in the first place was that it was fun.

I’m afraid it ceases to be fun if I cannot update my own work, because Lestrade has decided unilaterally that he can simply Copy and Paste anything I have written into OSE and release it.

The legal rights or wrongs of it are really not the point. The point is that it changes the nature of the project from being one of, when I have time and the mood takes me I can write some code for an OXP to one of: when I feel like writing some code for an OXP I must first write it and test it and the submit it to Lestrade to include in OSE.

Frankly, it changes the nature of the task from one that is a bit of a laugh that I can do when I feel like it, to submitting work to a boss.

Whilst I can see the advantages of a “One OXP to Rule them all”, as a writer I don’t particularly like being ruled by OSE, so I’m giving up writing any new code.

Anybody, including Lestrade, should feel free to use anything I’ve submitted to the project for the good of the project, but I do not intend to write anything more or update any of my OXPs.

I do think it is a shame that the project has effectively been divided into OSE v everything else. But I haven’t got either the time or inclination to write for Oolite, when anything I do write I immediately lose control over and cannot expand or bugfix without it going through the OSE clearing house.

I’ll drop by from time to time, but basically I’m retiring from the project.

And I mean it.

I've been on this board for quite a while now so some of you won't remember the Sung incident, but I do, LB was on the end of that too, but this is hundreds of time worse and for that I am very sad.

I have read every single post of the Licensing discussion, it was been very painful to do so - while I don't create OXPs you can't write almost 3.5K posts, create over 10% of the ads for YAH, hundreds of news items of Snoopers/LH2 and come up with the odd suggestion that has gone on to inspire the creation of some wonderful OXPs from those infinitely more creative and clever than I (puts down trumpet) without feeling that Oolite and (oddly?) more importantly this forum has become a huge percentage of what little free time I have.

Oolite is not multi-player, but this forum makes it more multi-player than any multi-player game I have ever played.

This has been coming for a long time hasn't it - I can't be the only one who saw it coming, but just hoped somehow it would go away...

Well it didn't.

Lots of us did (do) stuff for Oolite without giving a second thought to licensing because that not what Oolite is about and it's not the kind of people who are doing stuff for Oolite are about either.

However, Ahruman has rightly pointed out that we do not live in a bubble and that rules and laws (horribly and nonsensical though some of them are) do apply even here in the Ooniverse and they can't be ignored or by-passed.

I will not do Ahruman the disservice of trying to second guess his intent other than to assume he wanted this sorted, for good or ill, once and for all.

LB - reading what Ahruman wrote about licensing as far as I can see you can continue to work on modifying/adding/creating OXPs and release them under a ND license - L can cry "not fair" all he wants but a line needs to be drawn under O(S)E now I feel - we cannot uncreate the atom bomb - but those who feel they (rightly) wish to share their work with the community but wish to remain in control over what happens to it have the legal/moral right to do so - this will not destroy the community as some have hinted at/insinuated - I think long term it will strengthen bonds - not break them - it will remind us to ask the genius oxp creators if we can use their stuff in our own efforts - they see where their work is going and how somebody has thought of something else to do with it and us lesser mortals get to stand on the shoulders of giants - Oolite will continue to get better.

L irrespective of how much work you've put into RS/O(S)E please don't play the defenceless, injured, hard-done-by party in this, you laid your cards on the table when you started the "deliberately breaking OXPs" poll over Catalysm - that raised a few eyebrows, there were a few heated words but this is a good community and in the end we let it slide. Perhaps things won't be so friendly this time round...

I do feel somewhat distanced from this because I don't want to and I don't think I could run O(S)E and therefore I have always watched its consumption of other oxps with the odd raised eyebrow but nothing more, but more and more threads have started out with "This doesn't work", followed by "are you running OSE? Coz that's been fixed in the latest, native version of the OXP". Surely that must tell you something - it tell me that OE is too big to be managed properly and that of all the OXPs you've sucked in either the original OXP creators have gone or current ones have no interest in supporting your efforts specifically (i.e. they're relying on you - to check (everyday? hour? minute?) that an OXP has been fixed, updated and re-uploaded and to also fix your version too. Finally, from what Ahruman wrote in another thread, the way Oolite does some of its implementation was changed so you could specifically re-engineer RS (and therefore I presume OE) to avoid many of these points of contention and avoidance of terms such a licensing and derivative work and you have NOT done this.

Can I suggest the following - OE exists - so be it - for those whose who have had oxps sucked into it without thinking you needed a license (and therefore could maintain control) - c'est la vie - unfortunate, sad, annoying - yes, but it has happened. L - you fix what you have and release OE as is, if it grows from here then it must be of your own work and/or with the express permission of the creators of (improved/bug-fixed/new) oxps many of whom I imagine will now start to add licenses (ND) to whatever they do from this moment on (after all from this moment on any oxp creator can modify their oxp to say, dump a variable to the log file, issue this as new new oxp with a new ND license and that's the end of that for future inclusion in OE). The problem is, as far as I can see, you have assumed (incorrectly) that the free (and easy) spirit of the Oolite community meant you could take what you wanted and make it yours (and leaving the readme or acknowledgement of the original source OXP is not the point). Nor is this a question of scale, the difference between me creating a new ship and using the shaders from Griff, who in-turn, got them from Ahruman (with suitable acknowledgement) is not the same as pulling in loads of OXPs and then manipulating them to fit your ideals of Oolite (and stating - if you don't like the idea of RS/OE then don't download it/use it is not sufficient!).

The reason so many people are up in arms about this is that you have revealed the flaws in our happy little commune - that our "hippy ideals" can be used against us to create a monster (not you - your meta-oxp) - there is anger because there is sadness and embarrassment that we thought we could continue on sharing the odd file or lines of code or texture or ship design and that everybody would play "fair" but, for me (and I don't think I'm alone), your idea of "fair and reasonable" and a huge portion (I'm not saying majority because I don't know this to be the case) of this Coommunity are widely are irrevocably out of step.

Ho hum. Very sad now, that I should write so many words on such a subject, Who'd have thought it.

I will refrain, for the time being, welcoming people to the friendliest board this side of Riedquat, because this will get worse before it gets better, though I shall not abandon the forum or the friends I have made here nor the game/community I love so much. However, I do need to go wander off, suck my thumb and skulk for a while...

Later,

DH

I'm generally sad that both L and LB are leaving the scene. It just makes me very sad. I don't want to include complicated licenses in my own OXP's. I came here to be creative. I refuse to leave this scene but yes it has damaged the friendliness of this board.

I hope we can quickly go back to being friendly. For me this time period was The Riequat OXP war.

Can I just say - now I have understood what this is about - that Oolite is a f***ing great game! The OXPs enhance game play massively and if they are individualistic, quirky, creative - then that's even better. I just want to thank the people who have been writing them and plead for a resolution so that no one feels they have to leave. Rather than restrict why not just give more info on the wiki about which a compatible or not and so on and let people build their one Ooniverses as they want? The only prob with OXPs I have as a new player is that I am not always sure what I am getting if I add them.

The problem at hand is not compatability, it is that person A has written an OXP, and person B has taken that, modified it and added it to their own larger OXP.

Person A then complains that person B has acted against their wishes, and requires a license for this work. Person A is at least technically correct.

The debate revolves around what is morally correct, what implicit license may be in effect, and how to move this forward.

No one has to leave, but some may, as indicated, wish to do so.

LittleBear/Lestradae

The only real losers here are the rest of the comOonity. We're all the poorer as a result.

Hope you both reconsider, but otherwise hope other endeavours go well.

<sternly wagging finger and looking over half-moon glasses at both L and LB...>

Know I know you'll both be reading this. Writing the burning bridge email may satisfy temporarily, but you'll miss being part of this BB, trust me. Never write stuff when you're hacked off...

...You may make the best speech you'll ever regret.

</sternly wagging finger and looking over half-moon glasses at both L and LB...>

If you two were local I'd suggest a nice hot cup of tea and a chat, but there we go.

My advice, take a week off, cool down and come back.

Cheers,

Drew.

Cmdr James wrote:

The problem at hand is not compatability, it is that person A has written an OXP, and person B has taken that, modified it and added it to their own larger OXP.

Person A then complains that person B has acted against their wishes, and requires a license for this work. Person A is at least technically correct.

The debate revolves around what is morally correct, what implicit license may be in effect, and how to move this forward.

No one has to leave, but some may, as indicated, wish to do so.

Oh I see, thanks for explaining - as a bystander I would say that it seems to breach etiquette to use someone else's OXP without asking - I can understand people being miffed. Surely there's a way to resolve this.

LittleBear

wat r yu doin sayin that about kwittin? Lawyers r paid good coz they r well logical but u are bhavin' like uz kidz: mor e-motional than rashonal

"Yor" oxps inside OSE iz _not_ your risponsability. jus chil and ignor it bro. wtf u need that stress 4?!!

Keep yor eye on the prize ov the Ooniverse made well bettr coz ov yor freakin kool contribushons. Develupment of the Ooniverse is abuv all!

pleez keep doing oxps

u rok f*kin hard man

Well, I can't hope to compete with Ifnfan's eloquence but have been watching this debate with mounting horror - not least because a comment of mine seemed to be the final straw. So I'm going to throw in my 2 credits worth as a relative newcomer to both Oolite and this board.

I'm not going to comment on who is in the legal right in this debate. While the various permutations of licences, or their absence, can make for interesting discussion they should be relegated to the background. This is a community of enthusiasts who all want to both enjoy the game itself and add to others' enjoyment of it if possible. Waving the book of rules around should not be necessary for people who share this common goal.

I suppose one thing that needs agreeing on is where the dividing line is between personal and public versions of an OXP. Several of the OXP's I have are no longer fresh from the box (pun intended ) with little tweaks I have made to them. I hope none of the OXP authors would object to my having made these tweaks as long as they remain on my own hard-drive. I have also discussed some of these tweaks on this board. Although this is a public forum, I still consider this to come under the heading of personal, as these are merely ideas as to how people may wish to change their personal versions of an OXP - there is still the official version there via the wiki and it is understood that once you have changed a personal version of an OXP any problems that result are entirely your own fault.
Now if I were to start distributing these tweaked OXPs to folk who requested them we'd be entering a grey area. I'd still lean towards this being personal but will be interested in others' opinions on it. Even further into the grey area would publicising these tweaked OXPs on this board. And finally we have them being added to the list of OXPs on the wiki - which is undoubtedly public.

As a way forward I'd suggest that we regard that only OXPs listed in the wiki be considered public. All other levels of distribution being personal. The author (or someone who had adopted an orphaned OXP) would only be responsible for the public version - not that they would necessarily have to do anything about problems with it but they shouldn't be troubled with reports of problems with the personal versions. Then a simple criterion for an OXP being listed on the wiki page would be that its inclusion in (not exclusion from) ones AddOns folder does not prevent the inclusion of other OXPs from the wiki list by design. Of course there will still be clashes between combinations of OXPs but these should be regarded as problems to be overcome rather than being a case of having to choose one OXP or the other.

This approach would not rule out the existence of meta-OXPs. Such an OXP could either include existing OXPs with it being made clear that the meta-OXP was a personal rather than public release (and so excluded from being listed on the wiki). Alternatively it could have other OXPs listed as pre-requisites and do interesting things with their outputs. The onus for keeping this latter type of meta-OXP would then fall squarely on the shoulders of its author - although I'd hope that the author of the pre-requisite OXP would give assistance in making adjustments to the meta-OXP (when the pre-requisite OXP is altered) there would be no moral obligation to do so.

Anyway, all this blather aside, seeing two respected members of the board leaving over this misunderstanding is deeply regrettable. LittleBear's OXPs are up at the top of most peoples' "must have" lists and Lestrade's vision of an Ooniverse where you can pilot any ship you see while keeping the internal logic consistent is an admirable one. Sadly the internet doesn't yet have a decent equivalent to a chat down the pub where this could all be sorted out over the beverage of your choice. But I really hope that feathers will unruffle and we can all find a template to move forward and keep making this game better.

(posting in both "Leaving" threads to maintain even-handedness )

Meta OXPs can be managed using Ahruman's stated routines (shipdata_override?) so there should be no need for OXPs to be copy and pasted.

Progress supercedes conflict.*



* copyright 2009 David TW Hughes. Licensed under a CC-MINE-MINE-MINE model under US and UK and LUNAR copyright laws. Use without permission will be punished with nuking from orbit since it's the only way to be sure.

Selezen wrote:

nuking from orbit since it's the only way to be sure.

I love that scene...

Burke: "He can't make those kind of decisions, he's just a grunt." (turns to Hicks) "No offense"
Hicks: "None taken"

Gotta love someone who knows their role, enjoys doing it, and isn't striving for attention.

EDIT- The above comment has no bearing what-so-ever on the current state of affairs. It's just one of my favorite movie scenes.

(My comments below are all “as I understand it”. I am not a lawyer, nor even trained in any way in legal matters.)

Makara wrote:

[…] I suppose one thing that needs agreeing on is where the dividing line is between personal and public versions of an OXP. Several of the OXP's I have are no longer fresh from the box (pun intended ) with little tweaks I have made to them. I hope none of the OXP authors would object to my having made these tweaks as long as they remain on my own hard-drive.

They can not object to your modifications at all so long as you don't distribute the modified OXP.

I have also discussed some of these tweaks on this board.

Not a problem. (You may even be asked to send changes for inclusion in a future version of the OXP. This is definitely a good thing.)

[…] it is understood that once you have changed a personal version of an OXP any problems that result are entirely your own fault.

“If it breaks, you get to keep both pieces.”

Now if I were to start distributing these tweaked OXPs to folk who requested them we'd be entering a grey area. I'd still lean towards this being personal but will be interested in others' opinions on it.

Nothing grey about it: you need a grant of licence to distribute modified versions. Without that, you would do better to describe how to modify the OXP; a patch file of some sort would seem to be suitable.

As a way forward I'd suggest that we regard that only OXPs listed in the wiki be considered public.

No. It's not about ‘public’ or ‘private’; it's about (re)distribution and whether the licence grants you the rights to distribute unmodified copies or modified copies (yes, the two are distinct: “you may not modify” is reasonably taken to imply “and make available to others”).

If there is no licence, then technically you shouldn't even use it; but given something freely downloadable, it is reasonable to assume that the copyright holder(s) are allowing you to use it privately as you see fit. You just don't have any rights to distribute it, modified or not.

_ds_ wrote:

Nothing grey about it: you need a grant of licence to distribute modified versions. Without that, you would do better to describe how to modify the OXP; a patch file of some sort would seem to be suitable.

Just meant grey area between the definitions I'd given. Threw the legal niceties out the window before the end of the 2nd paragraph

Hello all! Looks like I picked a dark day to randomly drop by after months (years?) of Oolite absence...

As someone who now has very little idea of the current state of the Ooniverse (the basics of this dispute aside), I'd like to make a suggestion:

The idea of this "mega-OXP", as I understand it, was to simplify things for newcomers who are confronted with a looong list of OXPs and forced to either install them all one at a time or pick a few at random and hope for the best (or, of course, ask for recommendations on the forum and wait for the replies).

Why not instead keep all the OXPs separate, but add a rating facility (and maybe a top-50 list) to the main OXP page on the Wiki (or, if it can't be done there, on the main Oolite site)? Then people could quickly find the "must-have" stuff, and top up with the more obscure/niche OXPs over time.

Also, if lots of people were unhappy with a particular OXP (perhaps because it incorporated their work in what they felt to be a detrimental manner), low ratings would dissuade others from downloading it.

We used to have such a system ages ago on the Oosat2 site, and I remember arguing for its reintroduction when it disappeared. Looking at the current size of the "Table of all OXPs", I reckon it'd be even more useful today.

Fair point, a couple of mirror sites wouldn't go amiss. I do hate loosing good oxps.

Oh boy...

Sad to see you go