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Messages - lemontea

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1
General Discussion / Summary
« on: June 01, 2005, 12:29:15 pm »
This high volume of replies surprise me, really! And it\'s nice to see the discussion are rolling. I\'ll be doing the clean up and summary, then :)

Note:If you are in a rush, before replying, please, at least read the first and the last paragraph of the summary to get the idea.

Summary

---Must read for participators---

The topic is started by me, and my motion is as follows:
1)Since the game is not completely open source, where the program is GPL and the game content is under Atmoic Blue License, we should state this clearly on the web site, and move the passage that mentioned this in the info page to the top of the page.

2)The game content license has gone into the extreme of protecting itself (over-protective) in that it scares away potential contributors since the Atomic Blue team get all the rights, and more importantly, it is selfish to the public by even not allowing any creatively made derivative work.
I suggested to lessen the restriction by allowing creatively made derivative work.

---End of must read for participators---



2a) Further development of the idea suggest a more transparent process of suggesting possible improvement to the game content.

What follows is some misinterceptions, including thinking I thought the whole game is GPL, and thinking I want to make them all open source. This are all wrong.

However, the discussion does progress, the major objections are:
1) The level of protection for artwork is a must, any lessening on the restriction will cause trouble, since there exist bad people in the public that wanted to spoil it.
2) The restrictions should not be lessened because people will just mess with the content and spoil all the organisation, lowering the quality, breaking the structure and cosistence of the game.
3) The license stated that you cannot do this and that, so you can\'t do this and that.

I countered their arguments with the followings:
1) This defeats the propose and ideology of open source development, since if you distrust the public, you shouldn\'t be giving this game to the public at all.
2) When we make the license more open, we will welcome anyone\'s comments, suggestions, proposal for modification, etc, but still have organisation and filtering, contrary to the belief of many who think open source = no organisation and a mess, this is wrong again.
3)That\'s what we\'re discussing, the possibility to change the license to close the unreasonable part of it.

The discussion then degraded as Kiva assumed me of bad faith(thinking I have conspiracy).

I defended myself by stating that I want the project to success, even if I can\'t do much with it.



---Must read for participators---

After that, the discussion forked into three fontlines:
1)My original motion, see the beginning.
2)Whether the development process for game content should be more open, by allowing people to contribute freely, but with a filtering and organising process. How should the filtering and organising be done is still a major undiscussed area.
3)How is decision made in Atomic Blue organisation, and if they want to change the license, does it need
a- All members and contributors to agree
b- Only all members in the Atomic Blue Organisation agree
c- Only the three master(acraig, Vengeance, Talad) in Atmoic Blue Organisation agree

---End of must read for participators---



That\'s the end of the summary.

2
General Discussion /
« on: May 28, 2005, 11:13:30 am »
@Asraniel: That\'s quite a grey area. I\'ve looked up the web page and found this
Quote
Source code, other than game rules, are treated as open source software covered by the GNU General Public License, available here http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html with copyright explicitly assigned to Atomic Blue.

The problem is, will the contributor automatically become a member of the Atomic Blue? Also, how will decision of \"Atomic Blue Organisation\" be made? Must there be a majority or even all of members agreeing to make the decision? Or is there a small group of people in the organisation who will make the final decision? I would like to see members in Atomic Blue organisation clarify the situation.

3
General Discussion /
« on: May 27, 2005, 06:24:47 am »
No, the character data is stored in a database on a server, while the one you are using is called a client. Only the admin, developers, etc, will be given direct access to that server. The software used for managing the database, or the server\'s software, is free and open source, however.

4
General Discussion /
« on: May 27, 2005, 02:10:56 am »
@Kiva: I will now answer your question of \"why he cares so much when he\'s not affected by this license anyway\"

Refer to my last post , @Kiva section, point 3 , it explained my motivation to post is because I care about this game and open source development in general , as has been mentioned before. I think you already knew that.

As for the word \"care\" , well, that\'s because I treasure the existence and success of every open source project, and treasure them as a reminder to the whole community our potential. Further I believe in the spirit of open source and I\'m a member of the open source community myself(since I\'m the developer for a game see my last post) , I believe every open source project that success is a honor to all members of open source community, no matter whether he participated in it or not. See my idea of \"community as a whole\" ? I believe if I find any possible way to further improve a project, I should propose it by all mean.

I must say that I\'m disappointed by your assumption that \"people that are not affected by sth will not/ should not be interested in that affair\" . This assumption is simply wrong in that it is a motivation power for many open source project to success. Many contributors are not affected by this game anyway, but they still contribute , then do you ask them \"Why you care our project so much when you will not get any harm/benefit from it?\"

As a conclusion, I hope that you respect me and not treat me as someone with conspiracy, if you keep on that attitude, sorry but I can not go on the discussion.

@Chicane: I\'m sorry, but I don\'t think that will be possible in the near term because people just can\'t get the idea clearly with plain text and sometimes people can be so offensive(even have things similar to personnal attack) that I have to act more seriously and slightly more offensively than I would otherwise be. But I can edit my very first post and add the summary, where to look for the \"heart of the discussion\" , etc. Just give me time to write that( sigh, too busy recently )

@Asraniel & @Kiva:
1)There is no need to worry too much about the gpl, since as far as I remembered, changing license will require all coders (including core team and contributors) to agree, which is not very likely to happen.

2)Kiva, your analogy doesn\'t work too well because the concept is different. In both of your cases, they\'re real physical object, consider the painting, it is virtually impossible to make exact copy of it( although you can make copy that looks similar) ; but here the art is in digital format- which means they can be copyed exactly. While the art Asraniel is talking about is the right- the right to use copies of it elsewhere. That also concide with my point \"the team get way too much right on the game content and this scares away some potential contributors\" .

@Teegress:
First, to bold a word or something, replace your with ,repeat with the case

Free has two meanings in open source world:
\"Free as in beer\" You don\'t need to pay to get them.
\"Free as in freedom\" You have the right to share and improve on it, etc. This concept is a difficult one, I suggest you try searching with the terms \"gpl\", \"open source\", and \"free software\"

And why I started this, is due to concern this game is only partially free(as in freedom). The code is in gpl and is free, but the game content are not. Yet they don\'t state this fact clearly enough on the website- In the about page the summary of licenses is at the bottom. I suggest moving it to the top.

My final goal is that they lessen restriction of the game content by allowing conditional outside use. The reason they ban outside use is \"may be there will be many game using their artwork and their position in the market will then be stolen\" . I proposed to allow outside use if people changed the artwork creatively.

5
General Discussion /
« on: May 23, 2005, 01:34:10 pm »
@Caym:
1)Not exactly as you said, let me clarify: The mode of development I suggested is that the public is free to offer Suggestions for improvments. There will always be a filtering process which decide whether that\'s good or not.
Adventage:
It allow more flexibility because there are a wide diversity of people, each providing some different or similar viewpoint.
If the filtering is well done, it could also boost both quality and speed.
Disadventages:
The filtering process may be slow or difficult to work properly.
If the filtering is not well done, it could cause chaos.

2)My main suggestion is that not only improvement for Planeshift are welcome ( which for the game content, currently is not except for the author/core team himself/themself) , but also allowing people to use creatively made derivative work, as a reward for their creativity.

@Kiva:
1)I did not just come and complain the license was terrible, stupid, or otherwise. I just critize it and try to discuss the varies alternative possibilties. In fact, I do list both the adventage and disadventage, if you lookup the post made before.

2)You think that\'s rules, and that\'s the main problem. Rules are not perfect, in fact, many law can have holes in itself. I\'m sorry to say that if you think the license are set in stone in the first place and do not accept any discussion on it, then you\'re pretty closed-minded.

3)Besides, you have no need to worry about any possible conspiracy. Although not a core developer of Planeshift, I do care about this game and open source development in general. I myself am developer of a small game that\'s undergoing development, and I am very serious about, and respect, intellectual properties, copyrights, etc. I believe that I\'m a civilian myself in that I\'m open to discussion, wanting to contribute constructively, and seek improvement of the community as a whole as honor. Assumption of bad faith, on the other hand, is a sad thing to see in community in that it create tension.

@Caym(2) :
\"Don\'t care about user\" is never equal to \"free(dom) license\" . In fact, many free(dom) licensed software have managed to achieve a high standard that are comparable, or even surpass, the commercial counterpart.

@zinder:
Because people, until now, seems to still misintercepted my idea and the discussion has barely started(in terms of meaningful points)

@Kunisch: See the @Caym: 2) part for main point.

@Chicane: Welcome! I would like to hear more from you. Especially the organising process - Deciding whether a community contribution is good or not , what can we do make sure it work smoothly? I\'ve seen too many times this decide the success or failure of the project.
Also, you may want to refer to @Caym: 2) for my main point. Just make sure you get what I\'m thinking right before we go on.
Edit: And after reading your post seriously, I found that you do mention not regularly made contributions. I would be interested to hear more details from both you and developers about the current process(how is it done currently? ) on the selection of contributions.



Note for all : It seems that currently the discussion is not interactive at all, it\'s always me replying to someone, and that person reply to me... Can\'t we discuss in a more open, and productive way?

6
General Discussion /
« on: May 22, 2005, 10:39:26 am »
Sorry for my late response, I response for a good reason(see the new point at the bottom of the page)

@Gronomist/(name changed to Kiva?) : Unfortunately, you didn\'t get a single point at all.
Your counter-arguement:
1)I misunderstood completely the definition of open-source.
2) (a)Open source does NOT mean anyone can modify it if the modification is badly made.
   (b)Open source means that you learn from the code.
   (c)Bazaar style development means any modification by anyone will be accepted.
3)The license are here to prevent someone from stealing it and claiming credit.
4)The current license forbids derivative work, so what I said is wrong.

My actual point:
2) (a)I do NOT said that any idea will be accepted, just that people will at least hear the idea and determine if it is good enough. Also note that I do mentioned the relative nature of open and close development.
      (i)Even open source does use minimum closed development model to organize the project, without that, it\'s project without leader, without organisation.
      (ii)A good open source project should balance between organisation and causalness.
   (b)Yes, learning from the community is one of the key feature of open source community.
   (c)No, you\'re wrong on this one. Even with Bazaar style development, as I\'ve stated many times perviously, there ARE some organisation to accepting contribution. I suggest you to read \"The Cathedral and the Bazaar\"
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/
3)Of course I know the purpose of license, just that I suggest slight change of it to lessen unneeded restriction.
4)Do you noticed you only partially quoted my words? If you bother to read more carefully, you should have noticed the line before it:
\"I\'m discussing the possibility of while protecting the project, we also give some rights to the public, ...(your quoting)\"
This is an imaginary conditional sentence structure in disguise, do you know? That is, what I said is IF blah blah blah...

@Androgos: When I say clone I mean exact copy with maybe the credit claimed over(in other words, work theif)
Off topic: actually this point is out of topic, but anyway, what I wanted to say is that the power of GPL, namely, the ease of cloning it and start a fork, is only possible when it is FULLY open source. With part of it closed source, you have to redo all artwork, which is costy.
Don\'t mind, afterall, this point is irrelavent, and the code being flexible is a good thing in itself.

@acraig: The atomic blue thing is relatively new(appear after my earlier posts, some those posts don\'t cover them), and I would like to state my viewpoint here:
Even in this case the project can continue, it would be a great strip down of the power, and worse is when you failed to find any new successor willing to take up the job, which again spell doom and the end to the project.

@Harkin: I knew that already, in fact, I stated that I want to focus on the art license(a.k.a. PS license), since I know the source code is already in GPL, the problem is just the current license for game content is too restrictive.

After some misunderstanding of the discussion topic I think now is the right time to do a summary before I state my new point.

Summary:
My intention is to focus on the game content license only , which I think is too restrictive on that it protect creativity , but prohibit other\'s inspiration from it , I suggested awarding people who creativly transform the content by allowing them to use it.
Objections, as I see so far, only one is valid : This starts as a personnal project and the major developers distrust the public , therefore they will never give out more freedom to the public.

After this short summary, I would like to add two point here:
a) In response to the valid objection, I could only say that if you distrust your customer, please, close source the whole project and make it private. If one assumed bad faith to the people they\'re serving, they shouldn\'t continue at all, which can only create more tension.
b) I\'ve recently discovered the lessshift, and this actually add as a point against using the restictive game content license as it is now. At the very first post, the goal number 1 is to avoid \"divide and conquer\" ( of human resource) at all cost, in which under this spirit the game content license is set up. However, this license in turns caused the lessshift fork from the planeshift, which is a division of manpower, which is just exactly going against goal number 1. See it? The license is actually doing harm now, however, if we face this issue seriously, we may still be able to avoid too much damages.

7
General Discussion /
« on: March 16, 2005, 11:13:42 am »
Quote
Originally posted by Moogie
\"If the PS team deny a particular content improvement, then there\'s nothing people can do.\"

And I said, \"Should they be able to?\"

If the content improvement being suggested by people is so obviously needed, we arn\'t going to just ignore it for some odd unaccountable reason and let people suffer. If it\'s denied, it\'s denied for a reason- most likely that it doesn\'t fit in Talad\'s grand schemes for PS.

But since this is Talad\'s baby, and our hobby, it\'s not up to anyone else what we do or don\'t put in the game. It\'s simple as that, really.


To sum up the previous points:
-Using a restrictive license, the core team has final right on content improvement.
-Because the project started as personnal interest, there will be one absolute grand plan of the content that no one(except the author himself, of course) can change.

@Moogie: If what you said is true, then unfortunately I have to tell you that this project shows characteristic of a \"closed development model\". In open development model, the project is open to idea from any people, hence the name of \"open source\" ; as a contrast, in closed development model, the project resists ideas from outside.
If you\'re picky, you may see that there\'s no absolute \"open\" or \"closed\" development, rather, in most case it\'s a mixture of two, but in this case, it is somewhat more closed development.

Please note that I do not mean to say closed development model is bad: in fact, in the case of a game, it\'s sometimes better to have closed development model for better consistancy. (http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/games.html)

What I demand now, is that if the project is not 100% open source, then you STATE it clearly on the website, directly on the about page, without the user having to bother to look at the license page to actually find out what part of the project is open source, what is not.

But in the end, this hasn\'t been the main point of the discussion. What I want to discuss, is that while the license now protect the project itself, it is somewhat unfair to the public: sacrificing the right of the public to protect itself, it is a classical example of being selfish. I\'m discussing the possibility of while protecting the project, we also give some rights to the public, namely, if the public get inspiration from the art and created some derivated work, they\'re allowed to use it. In this way creativity, especially among the open source gaming community, is encouraged. What opinion do the core team have on this? I\'m looking forward to recieve a reply.

8
General Discussion /
« on: March 14, 2005, 12:17:10 pm »
Quote
Originally posted by Moogie
Quote
Currently, any improvement suggested must go through the approval of the PS team, surely they can accept most technical improvement, but there may be some arguement on the content one. If the PS team deny a particular content improvement, then there\'s nothing people can do.


And they should be able to? This is our hobby, not everyone else\'s. :) Personally I\'m grateful that PS is protected the way it is.


Able to what? Why do you think the current protect level of the license is good? I would like to have your points clarified more clearly.

9
General Discussion /
« on: March 13, 2005, 08:16:36 am »
Quote
Originally posted by Tharizdun
Those are some interesting points. Are you aware that there is no license that applies to the Planeshift project in its entirety? ......(cut)
http://www.planeshift.it/pslicense.html

Yes, I know about the dual licenses nature of this project, just that the source code part is not my major concern- the license of the source code is ok.

Quote
Originally posted by Tharizdun
The proprietry nature of the art license does not really impact greatly on the Freedom of the overall project, in my opinion. If I wanted to......(cut)
I could incorporate any new code that they have written into my game.

While source code can be reused in some degrees in another similar project, it\'s impossible to copy the whole source code and clone this project, anyway, I can\'t see any relavent point here, although this point is quite interesting.

Quote
Originally posted by Tharizdun
The Planeshift team are the copyright holder of the art files, they could release all art  under the GPL tomorrow if they desired. ......(cut)
...cannot be taken away by anyone. This is a good thing!

The key problem is that if the PS core team broke up, or they decided to terminate this project, then no one, I say no one, except the PS team, will be able to continue the project unless people redo all the artwork, websites, etc. Which is highly troublesome. Also, if someone in public find a minor problem with the artwork, for example, a missing vertexin 3d model, they will have to report it to the PS team. See it? Every action related to the artwork must first go through the approval of the PS team.

Quote
Originally posted by Tharizdun
What part of this do you think will cause problems?......(cut)
...... I certainly dont see the GPL as being a problem that \'drives artists away\', it is not relevant to artists as the art is not covered by the GPL.

If, suppose GPL is used for the artist, that means the public has freedom on using/improving it, but some artist do not want to see their artwork used everywhere, you know?

Quote
Originally posted by Tharizdun
Re: Fair Use, the courts in the US at least have not accepted this as a valid reason to distribute copyrighted works in recent years, despite that its a fundamental part of copyright law. This issue is a huge problem, but is not really something specific to Planeshift and I dont think discussing it here would really achieve anything.

I dont presume to speak on the behalf of the Planeshift team. I\'d like to hear their opinions too.

Oh, I see. I would be glad to be able to hear from the PS team too.

Note: I actually try to focus this thread on the art license only , sorry.

May be I should have stated my point more percisely:
The proprietry nature of the license, while protecting the project itself, is in some sense, overprotective, such that the freedom of the public on the artwork is lowered. The spirit of open source is that the public has the freedom to improve it. Concentrating on the word improve, applying to artwork, there are a few types of improvment possible:

Technical:Fix a missing vertex in 3d model, spelling mistakes in website, etc.
Content: Change some lighting in the 3d model, add detail to the texture, etc.

Currently, any improvement suggested must go through the approval of the PS team, surely they can accept most technical improvement, but there may be some arguement on the content one. If the PS team deny a particular content improvement, then there\'s nothing people can do.

Using the sampling license, that award innovation, although minor content improvement are still not covered, but at least, major content improvement are allowed without the need of permission from PS team.

As a conclusion, my major worry is that the license on artwork currently give all rights to the PS team, and over-concentration of power is not good.

Note: Afterall, I think that at least the redistribute restriction should be lessened, as long as credit is retained, and the work is distributed as a whole.
Also, I think the process of reporting possible improvment of the artwork, website, etc, should be made easier for the public. For example, set up a page that public can give feedback on the website, a page that public can pinpiont where a vertex is missing, etc.

10
General Discussion / Concerning options alongside PS licenses
« on: March 12, 2005, 04:20:44 pm »
[size=18]Updates[/size]

May all people please read the summary at the second page (or click here) before posting, and please stay on topic and be respectful of others, thanks.






Hello to all,
I\'m writing to express my opinion on the licensing of this game. Don\'t get me wrong, I\'m not saying the license is not good, just that I want to say something after reading some posts that someone can\'t use the work of planeshift because of the restriction of the license. Read on.

Firstly, the points given in the license page can be summarized as below:
1)In open source development model, it\'s important to group human resources together so they can concentrate on smaller scope and increase chance of success overall. In other words, avoid \"divide and conquer\" at all cost.

2)It\'s vital to have quality over quantity, and being unique to standout. Avoid \"reinventing the wheel\" and \"mass and messy\", also, protect the project from being copied/cloned.

3)Many artists want their works to be respected and used as they wish only. Hence GPL will drive some of them away.

4)Similar to point 3, if retaining their full right over their work, they may retreat their work/refuse to co-operate, which will spell doom for the project.

Note that in both 3 and 4, threats mentioned in 1 and 2 take effect.

5)Hence the solution: credits belongs to the author, and the PS team will have full right of the work. The public and the author in this case, will have no rights other than fair/personnal use.

See the source of problem? Contradiction appears on what level of rights should the artist and public be given. Too much on artist and it may \"abuse\" his work, too much on public and the public may steal the work;too little on artist may drive them away, too little on public may damage their image of open source project.

I think the license now is leaning on the low side for both the author and the public, can we find the balancing point? Well, after some searching, I found the license below even closer to the ideology:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling/1.0/
The title and original use of it may sound strange, but its idea of \"awarding people that creatively reuse the work\" is brillant:

a)For the public, people that want to steal the work wont success while people that get inspiration from the work can improve and use the work in such a way that didn\'t destory the uniqueness of the original work, win-win situation.
b)For the artist, they know that their credit will be reserved, their work will be improved upon, and their work will not be stolen. In the case of author submitting this work to many project, this will not happen because the project (public) can\'t reuse the work unmodified.


Of course, mass switch of licensing is a big task, and I hereby suggest giving this license or a similar, trailor-made one, as a third option alongside the first 2. Using this license, while protecting point 1 and 2, encourage innovation, which is beneficial for both this project and the public. Just my 2 cents, thanks.

PS: Actually, even with the license we have now, fair-use is not disallowed. In this case, just giving it to your friend should be a fair use as long as the number is not too large and that they don\'t use the music outside of personnal use.

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