Oolite Bulletins

I'm hanging out on the other side of Riedquat for a while.

Cheers,

Drew.

Killer Wolf And Selezen are speaking wise words. The model of Selezen is simple to understand and just as true as all the licensing models.

Dave's Directives for the Galactic Co-operative of Oolite Developers

1: Don't use someone else's work without permission. If that person is not available and is not likely to be available to get permission, use their work WITH ACCREDITATION.

2: If someone requests that their work be removed from something of yours, honour that request without argument. They did create it after all...

3: Be objective. If you would have offered permission to someone to use your work but they haven't asked, then point out the fact that you would like to be asked, but don't go crazy. Support your fellow developer and (in the spirit of this community) teach them the right way to do things...

4: Stop banging each other over the head with licensing models. if you don't want people to use your stuff then why write it in the first place? Oolite was MADE to be improved. Your work should follow the same model.

5: Please please please remember that opinions are subjective - there will NEVER be a consensus of opinion on ANYTHING on a board this size, so don' try to make it happen. Not everyone will like your OXP. Not everyone will DISLIKE your OXP either. My personal measure is that if ONE person likes something I've done I'm happy (and I have no problem fixing the problems that the other 72 people have either)...

6: Serve the public trust.

7: Protect the innocent.

8: Uphold the law.

9: [CLASSIFIED]

I sign for this.

Ok, hyperspacing back from Riedquat for a moment...

With a due sense of trepidation and without wanting to wave another piece of legalise in everyone's face..

1: Don't use someone else's work without permission. If that person is not available and is not likely to be available to get permission, use their work WITH ACCREDITATION.

This does seem to fly in the face of the CC license I've been using for all my contributions to Oolite. It clearly says I can copy and distribute to my hearts content as long as I give the original authors credit, make no money and keep the license the same.

2: If someone requests that their work be removed from something of yours, honour that request without argument. They did create it after all...

Sorry. Disagree hugely with this.

I didn't seek permission to use the Imperial Courier, or the Oo-Haul freighters, or the Q-Bomb, or the hard head missiles, Thargoid motherships, the tionisla graveyard, boy racers, supercobra, cobra courier or any other aspect of the multitude of OXPs that were out there when I wrote my stories. I figured that was the beauty of it. I was free to re-use the bountiful imagination of others without restriction.

I couldn't pull the Q-bomb from out of Status Quo, or the Tori stations even if the authors did request it. It blows the gaff. Impossible. I'd have to decline that request. It's unworkable. And the original author has no right to ask for this based on the CC license.

Likewise I can't pull Griff's new gorgeous ship designs from the new cover of Status Quo even if he so desired. It's out there, people have downloaded it.

If you're telling me I need to seek permission and will need to alter my 'derivative' works because somebody wants to reserve the right to pull 'their' content out at some arbitrary point in the future then there's no point in trying to create anything that references any previous work with that reserved right in force.

Now I appreciate that my stories aren't anywhere close to being in the same league as the wonderful OXPs that people have created, but are you really expecting authors of new works to seek permission to use existing CC-BY-NC-SA material, and then manage requests to remove, update, change and alter material that they built an original work on? That's an impossible situation for an developer/author; OXP or story.

So, maybe your trying to tell me that OXPs are different from other works (i.e. stories/fanfic/artwork). Charming. Frankly, I don't see it, and would regard it as rather belittling if such a distinction was made.

I have absolutely no problem in my Tianve OXP or my stories being re-used in this fashion, in fact I'd view it as a high compliment that others would consider them worthy enough to be re-used.

You don't have to install the OXP, and you don't have to read the stories. What's the big deal? As far as I'm concerned, once it's up there with that license on it, it belongs to the community, not the original author.

I'm quite at liberty to design a widget based on linux kernel 2.4.20, even if it is effectively obsoleted by the latest 2.6.30. Mr. Torvalds himself couldn't stop me. The source is out there.

If you don't want any version of your OXP, story or artwork wrapped up in a meta OXP, meta-story or meta-artwork then say so from the start, don't complain about it afterwards.

If you're not prepared for your work to be copied, distributed and used according the license, then don't publish according to the license.

3-9

The rest of what was posted makes sense. I think you all need to think a bit more carefully about how to preserve this...

if you don't want people to use your stuff then why write it in the first place? Oolite was MADE to be improved. Your work should follow the same model.

It aint yours, it's ours.

My £0.02

Cheers,

Drew.

drew wrote:

If you're not prepared for your work to be copied, distributed and used according the license, then don't publish according to the license.

Luckily, he doesn't have to!
Why luckily? Because thanks to all this flurry of clarifications, everybody should be aware that they're fully entitled to publish under different licenses if they want to!

Instead of just these 2 options:

1) Publish, and have no editorial input on your creation's future
2) Not publish, and deprive the commoonity of your input.

we should now be fully aware of

3) Publish, and have a say on how your creation is handled by others.


Option three - IMO - is being noted of late mostly for people who feel uncomfortable with the concept of someone someday publishing 'The Ultimate Drew Collection' featuring everything you've written, but with some changes to a few paragraphs written in a style different to yours, and on occasions the insertion of extra paragraphs (featuring Jar-Jar Binks for 'continuity reasons' perhaps?). Of course you never saw any of those changes to begin with, and you slowly become aware of them only when people start writing to you asking why Jar-Jar Binks really hates Captain So-and-so.

Silly as that sounds, that's more or less the experience of some oxp makers, for some of their stuff included inside OE.

It seems this is still the case for parts of OE 0.8, despite major improvements in the past few weeks.

drew wrote:

2: If someone requests that their work be removed from something of yours, honour that request without argument. They did create it after all...

Sorry. Disagree hugely with this.

I didn't seek permission to use the Imperial Courier, or the Oo-Haul freighters, or the Q-Bomb, or the hard head missiles, Thargoid motherships, the tionisla graveyard, boy racers, supercobra, cobra courier or any other aspect of the multitude of OXPs that were out there when I wrote my stories. I figured that was the beauty of it. I was free to re-use the bountiful imagination of others without restriction.

That's not what I meant. You used the stuff you mentioned in a work of fiction. You didn't take the code and mash it about to make something you liked and stick into some programming job of your own. My comments were related to the scripts, models and textures of OXPs only.

Fanfic is fanfic. Totally separate entity with no controlling license at all, other than not making any money from it.

Selezen wrote:

Fanfic is fanfic. Totally separate entity with no controlling license at all, other than not making any money from it.

Well, mine isn't. It's specifically licensed as CC-BY-NC-SA.

Kaks wrote:

uncomfortable with the concept of someone someday publishing 'The Ultimate Drew Collection' featuring everything you've written, but with some changes to a few paragraphs written in a style different to yours, and on occasions the insertion of extra paragraphs (featuring Jar-Jar Binks for 'continuity reasons' perhaps?). Of course you never saw any of those changes to begin with, and you slowly become aware of them only when people start writing to you asking why Jar-Jar Binks really hates Captain So-and-so.

A risk I knowingly take when using this license. If I'm not prepared for people to do this, then I need to include a 'no derivatives' right. I can't complain about it afterwards.

Again, if people don't want to read the Jar-jar binks version of Status Quo, and prefer the original, that's their choice. Under CC, it's not my right to prevent such a travesty.

Cheers,

Drew.

drew wrote:

Under CC, it's not my right to prevent such a travesty.

Under CC BY-NC-SA it's not, but under CC BY-NC-ND - It is your right. It's also your right to waive the ND portion and allow Jar-Jar to run around with a Q-Bomb stuck to his ass.

Cmd. Cheyd wrote:

drew wrote:

Under CC, it's not my right to prevent such a travesty.

Under CC BY-NC-SA it's not, but under CC BY-NC-ND - It is your right. It's also your right to waive the ND portion and allow Jar-Jar to run around with a Q-Bomb stuck to his ass.

Precisely! If someone is flouting BY-NC-ND then that is unreasonable. If that's the case with OSE then the original OXP owners have a genuine grievance. If they have used BY-NC-SA or no license at all, they don't have a leg to stand on.

Cheers,

Drew.

I'm lost now.

Instead of this can we go back being creative?

Thargoid wrote:

By logical extension you have to think, whoever designed Times New Roman, Arial and Courier fonts must secretly have control over the world if they wanted it...

Taking it to a semi-loony extreme of course.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. You just had to bring up the whole even-uglier mess of font licensing, didn’t you?

*Crawls into a nice hole and pulls a rock over his head*

(Besides, Arial wasn’t “designed”. ;-) )

pagroove wrote:

<haven't got permission to use pagroove's quote yet - pending approval>

Mind if I quote you there pa? Thought I'd better just check first, you know, things being what they are...

Everyone back to the east of Riedquat, check for rogue trumbles, engage hyperspace motors, Ho!

Cheers,

Drew.

Actually, thanks Drew for your heartening reaction that has shoved my decision to simply quit over this whole (partially!!!) bizarre debate from 95% probable to 75% probable.

I have two problems with continuing OE.

Problem 1: Repeating myself here, sorry. The bullying, trying to stop at every junction, denouncing, defaming (like Selezen suggesting I would effectively "steal" the work of other authors) etc. has to stop. As simple as that. Debate, criticise, suggest to me, but don't attack me. I will stay polite anytime then, too. I promise. A_C & Ahruman can lock the thread anytime I step over that line unprovoked. They wouldn't have to. I wish for a friendly forum, very much. It just hasn't been for me many times in the past.

Problem 2: Exactly what Drew said concerning the whole licensing issue. I always considered the beauty of Oolite to be able to build (not rip apart and put Jar-Jar Binks in) upon the work and imagination of others. I try to create OE as a hommage to this enormous tapestry of imaginations. If I include "Cataclysm.oxp", it doesn't mean I don't respect McLane's achievement, it means I think it's great and looks even greater inside the whole pletora of possibilities if all is put together.

I simply can't continue this if I am asked to rip things out already in, for exactly the reason Drew couldn't write any further stories if he had to ask permission for every plot point, character, ship etc.

I would rather wish this travesty to stop. Some people here genuinely try to moderate the whole conflict (like Ahruman, who himself wants to hide under a rock in the meantime due to this whole licensing ... issue), some really want to stoke the flames as all they want is to OE not to happen and always wanted, and some write to me and want me to continue.

There is only one possible do-able way forwards. It would look like this.

1) I don't have to ask people if I may include their stuff. We are not talking commercial theft here as some have hinted at. We're talking of, I can only cite Drew: "I didn't seek permission to use the Imperial Courier, or the Oo-Haul freighters, or the Q-Bomb, or the hard head missiles, Thargoid motherships, the tionisla graveyard, boy racers, supercobra, cobra courier or any other aspect of the multitude of OXPs that were out there when I wrote my stories. I figured that was the beauty of it. I was free to re-use the bountiful imagination of others without restriction. "

In the future, I will have to look at the licenses and if they contain a no-derivative-works license. None of the works published up to date have one. And there will be the question if it is derivative if I include something into a bundle absolutely unchanged. Because that would be a viable compromise for the future: I either include things with no derivatives exactly as they are or I ask for specific permission to ask specific stuff.

2) I would, if there was no bullying and dissing accepted in the future, closely work together with original oxp's authors for the OE bundle. Actually, and perhaps unbeknownst to most of the forum, I already did so for the last months with I think more than ten original oxp authors. We debated changes to oxps, update scenarios and wishes for don't's if their stuff appeared in OE, too. There were always win-win scenarios in that.

One of these people then suddenly reappeared here attacking me after an exchange of friendly PMs to do exactly what said above. Shame on you, you know who you are.

Last words for now, I would find it really belittling if petty, ignorant "mine mine mine" logic won the day here. Are we people all working on a great creative project or a horde of Gollums all sitting on their stuff going "my precious" every time someone does something new with it?

That is the question that will decide if I continue OE or not. These are the stakes. And no one blame this on me: These are the results of the people who insisted on a flamewar instead of instigating a debate.

L

PS: And thanks, btw, namely to Ahruman, A_C, Kaks, Thargoid, Cmdr James and many others for doing their best to turning this into a debate. This is duly noted by me, to not be only critical here, too.

drew wrote:

pagroove wrote:

<haven't got permission to use pagroove's quote yet - pending approval>

Very good.

It's an ironic indication of how far this thing can go though, to be honest.

I'm saddened by Little Bear's decision to back away from development because he now feels he can't have any control over what he creates. That's the ultimate upshot of this argument. Doesn't matter about what licensing model one uses, I think that someone that creates something treats it like their baby and doesn't like seeing their baby stolen and changed and messed up, even if it makes it better.

The main crux of this for me isn't about which license to use, it's about creative control and respect for fellow developers. Developers are tinkerers and, as everyone knows, the best projects are never finished, rather they are in an eternal state of being "almost finished".

I have two personal examples that illustrate the opposite ends of this concept succinctly (for a change). The Elite Timeline thing I did is one end. People can use this for whatever they want as far as I'm concerned and I'm honoured that it's as widely accepted as it is. The main reason behind that is that it is a completed work. I can't extrapolate any more from the canon material. Thus if people want to use it and expand on it, that's up to them. The material of the basic timeline won't change.

The Imperial Courier is another matter. The V1 was a prototype, written when I was getting to grips with ship OXP making. The V2 was written to supercede that, but is still not completely finished to my satisfaction (partly because of some Oolite limitations). Thus I want to retain control over the versions of it so I can replace previous versions with new, better ones and keep track of what's out there.

With the way things are going, and because of the fact that I haven't included a licensing model in the original versions, I can't do that. People can take that OXP and do what they like with it, and they are under no obligation to honour any request I make for it to be removed. It doesn't matter what the license says or what the "legal" aspect of it is, because at the end of the day it's about respecting your fellow developers. If they don't feel valued then they won't contribute.

Why did I not include licensing in the OXPs I have made? Because I could trust the people in the community to respect my requests. That's no longer the case, it would seem. Now we're having to lock down our work in case someone walks off with it. I don't care if that's not actually the case or how much discussion goes on in the background. The impression people are getting now is that thanks to the friendly nature of the devs and the license people can just waltz in and grab other people's work without so much as a by-your-leave. We're now discussing options that would restrict the access community members have to our work in order to protect ourselves. It's crazy!

It's a free game with one of the friendliest and most respectful communities I've ever been a part of, and it's sad to see that the friendly community aspect seems to be fading. Trust is all but gone, and people are now starting to leave. As Kosh once said, "The avalanche has already started. It's too late for the pebbles to vote".*

I wanted to be part of this community and am still proud to be here, since the majority of you are still superheroes in my eyes. I regret that a minority have made this sort of discussion necessary. I would REQUEST that some respect be given to developers and contributors and that their opinions and desires about their works be heeded, otherwise people will be dropping like flies and the productivity of our fair land will be worth the same as a shipment of weapons to pacifists. Or condoms to catholics. Or trumbles to anyone but Cpt Hesperus.

Sorry if that's inflammatory. I'm narked about LB.


* Copyright 1994 J. Michael Straczinski and Warner Brothers Domestic Television. Used without permission. All rights reserved. No profit will be made from this use of third party intellectual property.

Lestradae wrote:

I simply can't continue this if I am asked to rip things out already in, for exactly the reason Drew couldn't write any further stories if he had to ask permission for every plot point, character, ship etc.

If you are using things that are not licensed, and the authors are not willing to give you an exemption, then you are simply out of luck. So the decision is simple, remove the bits that you are required to, or discontinue work.

Personally, although I dislike RS/OSE, I find it extremely unfortunate that this has happened, and I dont want to see your project killed, so please just make the changes.