This is the second go 'round on the issue of Orion's mod. In detail, he has submitted a ToEE mod at Sorcerer's place which includes a lot of the stuff from Co8. Upon close examination, much of what he has added on top of our stuff, turns out to be substandard or worse. Much of what he has added: serves no purpose, causes game crashes, does not live up to the standards to which we hold ourselves, etc. What should we do with this, given that he wants to have a release of his 'game enhancements' seperate from what we have here, but considering that most of his content is derived from what was originally released here.? Darmagon
I agree with the idea that if he needs Co8 stuff for his own mod to work, he should require people to install Co8 separately and apply his own stuff on top. There should be no confusion as to what is 0rion's work and what is Co8's.
I agree with Kalshane and Darmagon. If 0rion wants to use Co8 stuff as a basis for his mod, end users should have to download the latest Co8 release and apply 0rion's work over the top of it. Right now the only leverage we have, and most likely ever will have, to get 0rion to change anything is the fact that Taluntain took his mod off Sorcerer's Place. If 0rion finds a different site to host his mod, and chances are he is already looking for one, most if not all the leverage we have will be gone. Once he gets his mod hosted elsewhere, our only recourse will be to find where ever he posts about it and flame the hell out of it. I don't imagine other hosting sites will be as sympathetic to us as Taluntain is. So, if we want any changes to his mod, we are going to have to take the initiative and contact him first, and probably have to work with him on it. No, I don't feel it is right or fair that we have to make the first move, or have to do any of the work. However, if it is important to us that these changes be made and our name be taken off 0rion's buggy, substandard work, this is the way it will have to be.
And it sounds to me like we need a legally binding licence agreement for anything we release here. Maybe we should start looking for one, or attempt to write our own. And this is me, who hates the very idea of such things. It is very sad that the simple existance of Orion79 would force us into such a thing. But he exists and we have to protect ourselves and he has shown himself to be a vindictive SOB. Maybe we should look into this.... Darmagon Darmagon
Agetian and I have been discussing the license issue. We feel that all future Co8 releases should be under the GPL license (I hope I'm not speaking out of turn here, Agetian). This would ensure that all rights would remain intact for everyone involved, including Atari and all third party contributors. The only issue is with .dll files. We could only licenses .dll patchers under the GPL, not pre-patched .dll files, since they are mostly Troika work. We would either have to figure out all the changes in moebius2778's temple.dll and engineer a patcher to make them, or release the .dll under the current (BSD I think) license and the rest of the mod pack under GPL. But this is something that should be discussed in another thread. Suffice it to say that the licensing issue is being considered.
We would have to continue to supply 3.0.4: we can't just say "something to go over the latest release" as that wouldn't work. Keeping that in mind, and assuming we are willing to leave a thread around with a download for 3.0.4, then I agree he should have to do a seperate mod of his stuff. I think it is the easiest and fairest solution in the long run, and later he can add to or modify his own stuff to his heart's content ad nauseum.
Actually, it would have to be 4.0.0, since his mod uses Liv's work and your work Ted, plus moebius2778's temple.dll fix, among other things.
Sorry, my brain was switched off when I wrote that... but I think it predates 4.0.0, I think it was 3.0.4 + 'my' mod patched a fair way up if it included Ah Fong and the stuff for Mother Screng to sell tattoos. Well of course I still have my mod lying around but I took off the server here as it was large and taking up space (and all in 4.0.0). So yeah, I guess 0rion can make his mod 4.0.0 compatible, or be specific what he needs and I can put it back up. Its certainly not our job to second guess what he needs.
Well no, he didn't use 4.0.0 per se, but he used everything that is in 4.0.0 except for Allyx's ShopMap and the optional DH, so basically he used 4.0.0. He claims in the readmes that he used moebius2778's stuff and Liv's stuff as well as your work and 3.0.4.
my 2 cents.. Maybe the installer package guy here at Co8 write an executable installer package that installs the Co8 4.0.0 MOD with all of the options DESELECTED. Further, the installer should not list any of the options, just have it automatically not install any of the options, including not installing Agetians ToEEFE option. I don't know what to call it - maybe, the "Co8 Pre-Patcher before Orions addons"? At least, he cannot say we are being snobs and cannot say bad things about our support of our products if Co8 provides this? Laff...whatdyawl think?
Remember - he eliminated the kids' giggle and Cujo's howl. Just more 'ridiculous bullshit,' no doubt. Ditto the Darmagon Initiative here. And if we end up going that route, I think that Agetian and/or Morpheus should voice the demand, being the formal leaders of the community. This shouldn't come off as a 'just a little note from Cousin Eddie' type thing. It has to carry some weight and appear entirely serious and, in fact, totally humorless.
There's me thinking that Gaear (our elected "Mod manager") should be the one who delivers the terms... :evil_laug ...that said, those are 2 very competant descision makers.
