Public Engine3 without time restrictions

[Esquire]

I think we may be losing track of what the purpose of this change is. Based on your response here it sounds more like your mindset may be "how can I get access to some other server's stuff and copy or modify it for my own server" rather than "how can I learn how to develop something for my own server". There's countless areas and fragments of information all over the internet and these very forums that basically tell you how to do anything you want to do in the code. If you're worried about what another server is doing in their LUA and TRE files then I'm not sure you're looking at this for the right reasons. In fact, I'm still unclear on what the point of this is until details are released, because as I mentioned previously: what if a server has content that was created by a 3rd party which was contracted and paid to do the work exclusively for that server? Is that server now going to be obligated to release that paid development content to people who did not pay to have it developed or have access to it? If I managed to get Lockheed Martin to develop something for me, on paid development time, do I now need to share the source code even if it's completely unrelated to vanilla Core3 or the general roadmap?

Yes, servers will not want to have their Jedi unlock code made public for obvious reasons, and there's also obvious reasons that certain other content should not be made public as well. I can understand the reason to have source code made public if a specific server, for example, managed to fully develop and finish JTL for SWGEmu, then sure everyone else would want that. I fail to see how a server's unique content (whether it be LUA, C++, models, plugins, etc.) should in anyway be forced into open source for everyone if it's unrelated to the Core3 roadmap.

To be blunt, if I paid a company or person $50,000 to develop a giant pink dinosaur with a laser beam on it's forehead that zapped players into little bunny rabbits, all exclusively for my server then there's little to no chance that I'd be willing to share it with anyone unless they paid for it. On the other hand, if I happen to find unfinished Core3 content or bugs and I fix or finish them for the greater good of the entire community then of course I'd share that.

I'm not saying this applies to me or any specific server but rather as a general feeler to see if this type of stuff is being taken into consideration when forcing the release of a lot of content which is either irrelevant to SWGEmu's roadmap or funded intellectual property. Food for thought in any case. I'd hope the final details include provisions which support the Core3 project but also protect individual developer's work. The last thing I'd want to see is this become a deterrent to community developers where some people start to lose the interest and desire to do something for their server because it will just become open source. If the focus is community and SWGEmu (free to use for anyone) then I don't think we'd want to whittle down the communities which will ultimately become the backbone after 1.0



Case in point and I don't mean that in any negative or derogatory manner. I understand the need for "some things" to go open source but otherwise, and until details are released for this, I see it more as a possible deterrent to community development, where some developers may stop working on interesting and innovating things for the SWGEmu community because they don't want their source code or whatever to be released.


Cheers

I'm not sure it's Tiars that is "losing track" here.

Any play server (Bas has been said it is nothing more than a large test server) is benefiting from a open source project now. If it wasn't for that open source, there would be no other servers. There are already legal questions regarding adding to an open source project and then charging for those additions but the AGPL licensing puts an end to most all of these questions that come into play. Question that could even get the attention of a main IP holder that decides it's a little too much and makes the decision to end all of these servers. TA has to abide with his original agreement with SOE and/or LA and if he doesn't, there's another reason for all these servers to go up in smoke. We don't know the particulars of that agreement but I would imagine that "no profit" or even content that is claimed by ownership and therefore subject to sale, figured prominently. That could include up to, the "selling" of added code, lua files, etc that has been reported, at least to The Answer et al (who holds both the original agreement to allow even the conception of such a project and all rights to SWGEMU development). I can see that trying to claim copyright/ownership/right to sell/profit on any added code as being against that agreement AND against what TA et al is trying to accomplish here and is contractually bound by. And TA/EMU has the only counsel that is retained and knowledgeable of all of these matters.

The case you provide of "Lockhead" has nothing to do with a game emulator that the original work is clearly copyrighted/patented by the original maker. And those already issued copyrights/patents/ownership apply to most ALL of the coding additions that other servers are already using. Just because you add the NGE tre files or the pre-patch 9 boxes to your server doesn't mean that SOE/LA does not hold copyrights/patents/ownership to them already so any such addition can not be claimed as owned due to the fact they already are. People seem to forget that ****** now "owns" all of the content commonly called Star Wars as well. And in the case of someone paying for development for say....., JTL (and I've heard of another server(s) doing this), this is clearly part of the "roadmap" that SWGEMU is using and they could use that information as well and is already clearly owned by others. And if you only share it with SWGEMU, it will become open source anyway just as soon as it is released upon their test server. If community developers are "deterred" by having their work as open source then they're clearly working on the wrong project now. Besides that, I do not see any deterrent with ANY of the developers at SWGEMU. Perhaps we should ask them if open source is keeping them from all the work they are completing here.

The main objective, as I read what SWGEMU has said here, is a total NON-PROFIT situation ("free for all....") and if another so-called "server owner" is attempting to claim profit/ownership from something related to Star Wars Galaxies then they already have a lot more problems other than SWGEMU and/or TA. All "server-owners" should remember this even after the open source SWGEMU project is completed and the AGPL licensing that is coming now into effect, is lifted. And I would imagine that if "profits" get out of hand after 1.0 and Sony or LA does act, all you'll get from this original team is a large "I told you so".

[Tiars]

I think we may be losing track of what the purpose of this change is.

I do not think that I am losing track. My understanding is that the intention is to make it easier to complete Version 1.0 and get it out the door.

Since the scripts and any changes to the content or by changing anything that was contained in a .tre file could cause things to be called a bug in the rest of the game code when the problem could be in those files. From experience it is very hard to debug potential problems when you do not have everything that does into recreating the problem. Since one aspect of the change is to get more people working on the code it makes no sense to even suggest that access to everything should be restricted to just the SWGEmu core team.

In the end the owners of the SWGEmu project will create a license that does what they want it to do and most of our input will be ignored. When I made my post I was expressing that much of the discussion would remove any benefits for the project by the change and my support for them taking as long as they needed to get it right. I did not feel that I would need to post any more until the agreement was posted. The actions of others caused me to feel that I needed to say more.

[Halyn]

Fair enough, and thank you.

[Livy2K]

Naritus twice as strong as lowca from that quote.

Thanks for verifying Vlada

[bigevil]

Always very interesting regarding the misconceptions of population "back in the day."

The nostalgia regarding early memories of SWG lends to greater population "memories" as with many other things. How we remember it is always full of the blinding glare of new experience.

I consistently run with as much or more people around now then back in those days just a year after launch. Also, people are much busier now with so much more accrued knowledge about the game. Not as many standing around in player cities just looking at their stuff or someone elses. More spread out i think.

[duffstone]

Vlada: A stress test and 2-3 major online communities fall remarkably shy of the 10.3K users shown in that NGE data. Either way it's comparing apples and oranges. and at the risk of sounding conciliatory, I really hope your oranges turn out to be the norm...

-Duff

[Vlada]

Vlada: A stress test and 2-3 major online communities fall remarkably shy of the 10.3K users shown in that NGE data. Either way it's comparing apples and oranges. and at the risk of sounding conciliatory, I really hope your oranges turn out to be the norm...

-Duff

SWGEmu members: 225,700 registered, active members:4,685. I am sure that other communities each have at least 50 active members, some have close if not over 1k active members. Add that up and numbers are is pretty close to those 10k you speak of. Just look at those Raph's articles, they have been posted, reposted, rereposted on each an every SWG and SWG emulation related forum, website and social media in a matter of days. There is still huge interest in SWG and everything SWG related.

[Timbab]

What does it matter though if you had 10.3k servers across all servers? At the end of the day, SOE servers were still capped at 3k and as long as servers running Core3 can match that during prime timeframes population wise, you don't really have a problem.

Regardless of what ifs and maybes, people will come to at least check it out after 1.0, people that have been following the scene for years but aren't playing or paying too much attention currently. The old forum had what, 140k members? This one has 220k+ and it's not even 1.0 yet. You just need a fraction of that to be actively playing to fill up servers. PreCU peaked at 300k subs, last that I can remember and I can assure you, not all of those 300k subs were 24/7 players, you had a bunch of double accounts, etc.

Core3 stability and the size of the playerbase shouldn't even be a concern anymore for legit 1.0 and onward.

[ADL]

you mentioned server population being greater now then back in the days of live but back then we didn't have 10 toons per account , is the server status window counting accounts logged in our toons logged in ?

excellent move btw and yes the spark for SWG is not about to die cause its the closest you can be from living the movies , and 3 more to come so no worries

[Vlada]

you mentioned server population being greater now then back in the days of live but back then we didn't have 10 toons per account , is the server status window counting accounts logged in our toons logged in ?

excellent move btw and yes the spark for SWG is not about to die cause its the closest you can be from living the movies , and 3 more to come so no worries

You can only have 2 online at the same time here, on SOE servers i remember folks having +5 accounts and toons online. So there isnt much difference there.

[bigevil]

You can only have 2 online at the same time here, on SOE servers i remember folks having +5 accounts and toons online. So there isnt much difference there.

Yep. Funny memories. My buddy having extra phone lines instaled. Multiple machines. Having issues controlling multiple people at once. Dial up was fun in rural areas back then.

Heck i had issues with one account. LOL.

[Onilwyn]

Yep. Funny memories. My buddy having extra phone lines instaled. Multiple machines. Having issues controlling multiple people at once. Dial up was fun in rural areas back then.

Heck i had issues with one account. LOL.

Hehe I had 3 accounts back in the day and my ex husband had 5. I now cringe at the money we used to shell out to SOE. I love this project and support what you guys do 100%.

[ADL]

You can only have 2 online at the same time here, on SOE servers i remember folks having +5 accounts and toons online. So there isnt much difference there.

your wisdom enlights me

[Ellyssia]

8 between me, my ex, and two kids... at least 4 of them station access...

[bigevil]

LOL. You all crack me up. Where the heck did you get time to manage that many accounts?!?!?!?