Oolite Bulletins

With regards to the Licensing (which is at a level I have never experienced in a modding community before), couldn't it be changed for the manager (which I guess is the prime issue), so "by uploading to the manager you automatically agrees using (atleast) xxx License, and not logging in/responding for x (3?) months gives permission for other modders to modify your work."

I think it would be in everyones interest. Both for players but also modders (so abandoned addons could be kept alive and live long and prosperous).

Vincentz wrote:

Licensing (which is at a level I have never experienced in a modding community before)

Well, the present licensing situation with OXPs is due to one or two ummm.. unfortunate incidents in the past, wherein harsh words were said, dummies were spat, legal action was threatened, and which left quite a bad taste in many people's mouths.. so it was decided that, for the good of the community, Something Had To Be Done About It™.

jh145 wrote:

I used to spend a fair amount of time geocaching...

What is geocaching?

If the oxz available through the OXZ manager aren't quality-checked, then a solution is for interested oxpers to provide "megamods".

The one in openxcom http://www.openxcom.com/mod/final-mod-pack has really been appreciated by the game community.

The idea is to make a mod including other mods, generally but not necessarily as many as possible, in a quality-checked and balanced way.

There are two main approaches:
- dependencies,
- including the other mods.

As oolite already manages dependencies, it's easy to go with the first way.

Accompagnying ideas:
- the megamod may set different defaults than the original mod in oxpconfig to have a more balanced experience.
- the megamod may be seen as an installer to install lots of different mods, and then be uninstalled.
- in package parlance, this is a meta-package.

Day wrote:

The idea is to make a mod including other mods, generally but not necessarily as many as possible, in a quality-checked and balanced way.

I'm afraid this idea has been floated (and even tried) before but with little success.
The main problems are regarding maintenance as each time one of the 'component' expansions is updated, the 'compilation' also has to be updated. Also, many OXP-ers like to keep a tally of their downloads, and having an expansion in a 'compilation' as well makes this difficult. They also prefer to retain full control over it, and in the past many OXP-ers (including myself) have made it clear that including their work in a compilation would not be welcome.
The other problem of course is 'What is included?' Expansions are a very personal thing, and bundling things up is an all-or-nothing approach which goes against the spirit of an individually tailored game.

Good arguments

Well, then this avenue to quality-checked oxz in the oxz manager is closed.

Wildeblood wrote:

jh145 wrote:

I used to spend a fair amount of time geocaching...

What is geocaching?

something is hiden, GPS co-ods are given , go find it..... simplified greatly in the intrest of staying on topic .....

spud42 wrote:

Wildeblood wrote:

What is geocaching?

something is hidden, GPS co-ords are given , go find it..... simplified greatly in the interest of staying on topic .....

Yeah, I got that much from wikigoogliwebsourcez. I'm getting a superimposition of "that sounds like fun" & "that sounds so lame" vibes from reading them. I was hoping to elicit a more first-hand, experience-based description...?

Smivs wrote:

I'm afraid this idea has been floated (and even tried) before but with little success.
The main problems are regarding maintenance as each time one of the 'component' expansions is updated, the 'compilation' also has to be updated. Also, many OXP-ers like to keep a tally of their downloads, and having an expansion in a 'compilation' as well makes this difficult. They also prefer to retain full control over it, and in the past many OXP-ers (including myself) have made it clear that including their work in a compilation would not be welcome.
The other problem of course is 'What is included?' Expansions are a very personal thing, and bundling things up is an all-or-nothing approach which goes against the spirit of an individually tailored game.

Day wrote:

Good arguments

Well, then this avenue to quality-checked oxz in the oxz manager is closed.

In the current manager set-up, it could be worked around.

The "mega OXZ" itself could do nothing at all (or perhaps just be balancing tweaks and overrides, although that's a more grey area), but have a whole list of required dependencies which are the content of the OXZ package. Thus by installing it, you end up installing all of those OXZs that are "in the package", from their original sources and with their normal automatic updating. The other advantage is that the package itself can be small, as it doesn't have to directly include any of the OXZs that it "contains".

Doesn't of course solve the "what to include?" issue, but it could make the updating and "whole wrapped up package" issue resolve itself without going back to the bundle issues of the past. Also not sure if the OXZ manager can cope properly with chained dependencies (an OXZ which has requirements, some of which may have their own requirements etc).

Just a random thought from a passing alien anyway...

Thargoid wrote:

Just a random thought from a passing alien anyway...

<grins> Still lurking, Big T?

Cody wrote:

<grins> Still lurking, Big T?

Yup . Like to pop in when I can, albeit not as often as I used to and would like.

Nice to see the progress toward 1.82 as well, even if I don't have time to contribute much any more. But there seems to be more than enough fine OXZ writers now to fill any gap I left.

<Waves hi at the alien>

Smivs wrote:

I'm afraid this idea has been floated (and even tried) before but with little success.
The main problems are regarding maintenance as each time one of the 'component' expansions is updated, the 'compilation' also has to be updated. Also, many OXP-ers like to keep a tally of their downloads, and having an expansion in a 'compilation' as well makes this difficult.

Though, the OXZ manager does allow these particular problems to be avoided - by using the dependencies approach, all OXPs would be downloaded and installed from the authors' own sites exactly as if the user had selected them one by one in the manager, and then would be available for update in the usual way. Provided the "compilation" only sets minimum versions on the component dependencies, it wouldn't even interfere with receiving individual updates as the author releases them. It's just an easy way to install several OXPs at once, then.

(Edit: as Thargoid said - hello again, and yes, the 1.82 manager handles automatic installation of chained dependencies just fine)

Smivs wrote:

They also prefer to retain full control over it, and in the past many OXP-ers (including myself) have made it clear that including their work in a compilation would not be welcome.

To go back a few posts, statements like this are both entirely valid things for authors to want which should not disqualify their work from the OXZ manager [1] and not part of any commonly-used open source license. It's a good example of why we don't require any particular license.

[1] As I think I've said before, there are hypothetical circumstances in which an OXZ might be removed from the manager against it's authors wishes - for example, if it turned out that it was using a hypothetical security bug to execute code outside of Oolite on the user's computer - but I think it's highly unlikely that any of them would occur in practice.

Smivs wrote:

The other problem of course is 'What is included?' Expansions are a very personal thing, and bundling things up is an all-or-nothing approach which goes against the spirit of an individually tailored game.

Perhaps. I don't think that necessarily is incompatible with being able to quickly and mostly automatically install someone else's recommendation for an OXZ set, though very few people have published such recommendations anyway.

I think it's that with commercial games which have modding communities, it's quite possible for a community to decide that the original commercial author got it wrong / has bugs which need fixing by mods / would have done this if the hardware back then had supported it - and so come up with a list of "essential" mods which has wide community support, and are therefore worth compiling together.

With Oolite, it's still actively developed so we don't tend to leave bugs which could be OXPed out in the game anyway, and if the core game and community consensus of what the core game should be got so far apart that there was a generally agreed "essential OXP" to fix it then I think we'd have much bigger problems than the mechanics of putting together compilation packs.

Ha, I must have come over as a bit negative!
I'm not a big fan of the idea but don't actually dislike it - I just have misgivings about it in practice. For example I am of the view that expansions should be added in to the game thoughtfully. In other words where the user has taken the trouble to find out about it and decide that it is something they want. Amongst other things this tends to prevent the perennial problem of players experiencing 'something' which they can't explain, and it turns out to be some OXP they've added, but didn't know what it does.
In general 'bundles' usually give some things you want, and others you don't, and when it's so easy to grab the things you know you want anyway, I can't really see much point.
Having said that, having an 'Anthology' of all my OXPs available with one click does have a certain appeal......

Smivs wrote:

I am of the view that expansions should be added in to the game thoughtfully.

I'm inclined to agree - but the presence of the in-game OXZ manager makes that approach less likely.