Oolite Bulletins

I made this thread because sometimes we are reading the OXP List and then, some OXPs catch our eye, next we proceed to download them only to find the website where it has been stored is down.

At first sight, this appears to have no solution.

But, we forget something...

The users.

They have downloaded the OXP before the website was down and they have it in their Addons folder.


Let's use this thread to upload OXPs temporarily until their website is up again.

(By the way, Deep Horizon Industries is down and I want the Pirate Ambushes OXP. Thanks in advance if someone can upload it so I can download it.)

Torrent clients are good just for this purpose: easily publishing transfer information without too much of a setup. Even the big players in the software industry are using them heavily nowadays for distribution

Can someone upload the links to "Pirate Ambushes OXP" and "Killer Wolf Generic HUD OXP"?

Because both websites are down.

Cheyd is looking into the problem with Deep Horizons - patience, amigo!
As for the other, there might be licensing problems (or something).

In fact, Deep Horizons appears to be back up.

As for the other, there might be licensing problems (or something).

It is a very old chestnut indeed,,, I remain under the somewhat peculiar , maybe even individual view that the authors developed and published these add ons for personal use ( though not quiet probably re distribution. )... The disadvantage then in an open source space opera is that the having stood the test of time , a good proportion of the strangely still useable add ons are now unavailable for use due to the original source down load links being either withdrawn or no longer working.

Subdequently an increasing proportion of all that Ooolite can be is for one reason or another lost .... Which to anyone would seem to be that Oolite is no longer all that it was and most certainly not all that it can be ..

My old Space faring companion Norby got ripped a new one for having available at one time an OXP repository available for personal usage (not re distribution)...Me thinks the protestors did the game a dis service by encouraging the closing off of a back catalogue of add ons. We already know beyond doubt those developers and publishers who put these add ons out there wanted them out there at the time they were published and developed ... aside , then from compatability issues with subsequent versions of oolite i.e "This OXP is not compatible with the current version of Oolite, any prohibition on distribution for personal use carves a massive hole into the current game and prevents it , not only from being what it is meant to be , but in actual fact limits and stimies its current potential to be all that it can be to each individual player .... In short a grip needs to be gotten because by having old add ons that would work now unavailable is a self limiting practice which does the current developers and players of Oolite a great detriment in not allowing Oolite to be the game you play the way you want to play it ..(which in my view is most of what Oolite is all about anyway ) ..

Well that was my hapeth's worth , please proceeed to tell me I am talking scrambkled egg at your leisure

Well, wherever the hole is, the problem of missing licencing does not go away. It would be sensible though to have a repository of old unlicensed OXPs available for those interested. Those were clearly made to be downloaded and used. Emphasizing that redistributing modified versions of those is not preferable.

The one game I know which exceeds oolite in the field of extensibility, Battle for Wesnoth, forces add-on makers to release their addons under GPL. While it is preferred to ask the original authors, orphaned addons are frequently taken over.
There also exists a general repository for addons at sourceforge so that they don't get lost so easily.

Anonymissimus wrote:

forces add-on makers to release their addons under GPL

Yikes, I won't be creating anything for that game. I think authors should have the freedom to release their creations under any license they choose.

OK. Let's do something.

Let's gather all the orphaned OXPs and upload them to a server.
Anyone can download them from there.

However, if the OXPs authors say that we broke their license, we just uploaded them because their sites were down. In that case, they can take down their OXPs from the server only if their website is up again.

What do you think?

Nexus-Hex wrote:

OK. Let's do something.

Let's gather all the orphaned OXPs and upload them to a server.

Well, somebody would have to supply the server space - who will do that? The Wiki would probably not be appropriate for the reasons outlined below.

Nexus-Hex wrote:

Anyone can download them from there.

In theory yes, but again, see below...

Nexus-Hex wrote:

However, if the OXPs authors say that we broke their license, we just uploaded them because their sites were down. In that case, they can take down their OXPs from the server only if their website is up again.

If the OXP is licenced, and assuming the licence allows re-distribution there will not be a problem as we will not be 'breaking' the licence. However this cannot be done for un-licensed OXPs as NOTHING can be done with an un-licenced OXP. It cannot be shared, re-distributed, modified or pretty much anything else.
And I don't really think we can tell people what to do with their website, or even have one live, before they take any action regarding OXPs in this repository.

I fully support the idea of preserving/archiving old OXPs, and don't want to seem negative. However real-world laws have to be considered, and any attempt to do this must be thought through and rigorous in its integrity.

Smivs wrote:

Nexus-Hex wrote:

OK. Let's do something.

Let's gather all the orphaned OXPs and upload them to a server.

Well, somebody would have to supply the server space - who will do that? The Wiki would probably not be appropriate for the reasons outlined below.

Nexus-Hex wrote:

Anyone can download them from there.

In theory yes, but again, see below...

Nexus-Hex wrote:

However, if the OXPs authors say that we broke their license, we just uploaded them because their sites were down. In that case, they can take down their OXPs from the server only if their website is up again.

If the OXP is licenced, and assuming the licence allows re-distribution there will not be a problem as we will not be 'breaking' the licence. However this cannot be done for un-licensed OXPs as NOTHING can be done with an un-licenced OXP. It cannot be shared, re-distributed, modified or pretty much anything else.
And I don't really think we can tell people what to do with their website, or even have one live, before they take any action regarding OXPs in this repository.

I fully support the idea of preserving/archiving old OXPs, and don't want to seem negative. However real-world laws have to be considered, and any attempt to do this must be thought through and rigorous in its integrity.

OK. I see your point.

Well, somebody would have to supply the server space - who will do that? The Wiki would probably not be appropriate for the reasons outlined below.

Let's use Dropbox or Box.

How are we gonna do it, you may ask.

1-Create a Dropbox account.
2-Put a username and a password that only the Moderators know.
3-Encourage users to upload orphaned OXPs to a temporal file hosting service (file expires in custom time) and then upload them to the Drop(Box) account.

I think that solves the server problem.

About the unlicensed OXPs, think about them this way:

You said:

If the OXP is licenced, and assuming the licence allows re-distribution there will not be a problem as we will not be 'breaking' the licence. However this cannot be done for un-licensed OXPs as NOTHING can be done with an un-licenced OXP. It cannot be shared, re-distributed, modified or pretty much anything else.

As you said above, we can't do anything with them.
But the author can't complain either because the OXP was unlicensed.

So these two things cancel out, allowing us, in my opinion, to upload them.

Right?

Have you read the stickied Licencing OXPs thread? No license basically means that the author keeps all rights to himself.

Nexus-Hex wrote:

As you said above, we can't do anything with them.
But the author can't complain either because the OXP was unlicensed.

So these two things cancel out, allowing us, in my opinion, to upload them.

Right?

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), copyright laws aren't based on our opinions. Things don't get cancelled out to suit us. No licence means we can't make judgement calls like that. We have to assume we have no rights to distribute if there is no licence to direct us. Any other assumption could, at the very least, create a lot of bad feelings and unpleasant communications, damaging the reputation of "friendliest board this side of Reidquat". At worst, it could land the owner of the server from which the files in question were distributed with a serious fine.

I applaud the desire to keep alive some classic OXP's, but it might be more beneficial to put time into maintaining the OXP's for which there is a licence and no current maintainer.

phkb wrote:

Nexus-Hex wrote:

As you said above, we can't do anything with them.
But the author can't complain either because the OXP was unlicensed.

So these two things cancel out, allowing us, in my opinion, to upload them.

Right?

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), copyright laws aren't based on our opinions. Things don't get cancelled out to suit us. No licence means we can't make judgement calls like that. We have to assume we have no rights to distribute if there is no licence to direct us. Any other assumption could, at the very least, create a lot of bad feelings and unpleasant communications, damaging the reputation of "friendliest board this side of Reidquat". At worst, it could land the owner of the server from which the files in question were distributed with a serious fine.

I applaud the desire to keep alive some classic OXP's, but it might be more beneficial to put time into maintaining the OXP's for which there is a licence and no current maintainer.

OK. I get it.
Let's just delete this post, shall we?