Public Engine3 without time restrictions

[Livy2K]

Thanks for taking the time to reply and clarify those concerns TA.

[Kevdo]

Seems this was well thought out. The team has my support.

[acidanarchy]

for all those that go open source and make all their stuff available to any and all SWG Emulator communities. Further more we are changing the license of Core3 to AGPL as well, which in turn will force everyone using our code to either go open source or stop using our code.

I'm happy to see this change come for the greater good of the community but I'm more curious as to the "why" that seems to be at the ground level and heart of the issue. Don't get me wrong, I support everything you folks do but I'm afraid that the enforcement side of this change may end up breaking the bank. Every penny is important for the project and it would be a shame to see it wasted in legal fees. As well, I see this as having potential to take people away from important project tasks over non-official code that's likely 99% irrelevant to the roadmap of SWGEmu in general and in most cases poorly coded by an amateur programmer. I can understand this move if there's some major advancement on a Core3-run server that may contribute to the "vanilla" goal, but for those servers who are just running "vanilla" Core3 it sounds like an unnecessary step that will only further consume the very valuable time of the SWGEmu staff that have more important things to work on.

There's obviously more details that we'll need to review after the terms and conditions are released, but for those who may be wondering I'm curious if there's any specifics behind this. If SWGEmu is focused on vanilla then why would there be any care about servers that are running some self-developed content that falls outside the scope of "vanilla". Why waste any effort to have the community that's using the open source make available the open source which everyone already has?

If "Server A", for example, is running Core3 unmodified, why waste the time and effort to review the "Server A" code when it's known that it's just the same Core3 everyone else has.

If "Server B" which is running the "vanilla" Core3 happens to implement code that, for example, automatically flags all players on the server as Special Forces upon login, is that something that is really of interest to SWGEmu and it's "vanilla" roadmap?

What if "Server C" decides to develop it's own 3D model and implement it on their server, does that 3D model now have to be open source? What if it's a 3D model that the people of "Server C" paid someone else to create?

What if "Server D" paid a 3rd party to develop and program a specific feature for their server, does that code now have to be open source?

Is there any consideration over server security where possible exploits or critical issues may exist?


Thanks for the time and consideration in responding to my post. Cheers


note: just for clarification purposes, I'm fairly certain I know the "why" behind this but I'm more so asking these questions for those who likely won't ask them publicly.

[Valkyra]

Great job TA! This is a step forward in my opinion, especially now at places like CUEmu and other forks of SWGEmu that use Core3, and don't mind being open source.

I can foresee this could cause problems for people who want to have their source updated but closed off for implementation ingame feature reasons (like a private server that has additional features not found in Core3 right now), but we'll see how TA handles it.

[Halyn]

I'm rather excited about this - when I saw the license changes in the RSS feed, I had planned on asking about it when the last week of patch notes were posted, but you guys are and away exceeded my expectations. This is great!

[Vlada]

I'm happy to see this change come for the greater good of the community but I'm more curious as to the "why" that seems to be at the ground level and heart of the issue. Don't get me wrong, I support everything you folks do but I'm afraid that the enforcement side of this change may end up breaking the bank. Every penny is important for the project and it would be a shame to see it wasted in legal fees. As well, I see this as having potential to take people away from important project tasks over non-official code that's likely 99% irrelevant to the roadmap of SWGEmu in general and in most cases poorly coded by an amateur programmer. I can understand this move if there's some major advancement on a Core3-run server that may contribute to the "vanilla" goal, but for those servers who are just running "vanilla" Core3 it sounds like an unnecessary step that will only further consume the very valuable time of the SWGEmu staff that have more important things to work on.

There's obviously more details that we'll need to review after the terms and conditions are released, but for those who may be wondering I'm curious if there's any specifics behind this. If SWGEmu is focused on vanilla then why would there be any care about servers that are running some self-developed content that falls outside the scope of "vanilla". Why waste any effort to have the community that's using the open source make available the open source which everyone already has?

If "Server A", for example, is running Core3 unmodified, why waste the time and effort to review the "Server A" code when it's known that it's just the same Core3 everyone else has.

If "Server B" which is running the "vanilla" Core3 happens to implement code that, for example, automatically flags all players on the server as Special Forces upon login, is that something that is really of interest to SWGEmu and it's "vanilla" roadmap?

What if "Server C" decides to develop it's own 3D model and implement it on their server, does that 3D model now have to be open source? What if it's a 3D model that the people of "Server C" paid someone else to create?

What if "Server D" paid a 3rd party to develop and program a specific feature for their server, does that code now have to be open source?

Is there any consideration over server security where possible exploits or critical issues may exist?


Thanks for the time and consideration in responding to my post. Cheers


note: just for clarification purposes, I'm fairly certain I know the "why" behind this but I'm more so asking these questions for those who likely won't ask them publicly.

These are all valid questions and while I understand your concerns, you will have to be patient while we work on specifics. All necessary details will be posted in following weeks.

[acidanarchy]

These are all valid questions and while I understand your concerns, you will have to be patient while we work on specifics. All necessary details will be posted in following weeks.

Understandable and thank you for the reply. I look forward to any details or responses in regards to the questions or issues at hand. Cheers

[BigQEd]

Awakening's legal team will review and let you know...

In all seriousness, we'll check it out. On the surface, it seems like a good deal and is essentially what Awakening requested, a few months ago. We mentioned a "Partner Program" and an unlocked Engine and for that we appreciate that SWGEMU has listened!

Today, there is a New Hope...

[Scurby]

Awakening's legal team will review and let you know...

In all seriousness, we'll check it out. On the surface, it seems like a good deal and is essentially what Awakening requested, a few months ago. We mentioned a "Partner Program" and an unlocked Engine and for that we appreciate that SWGEMU has listened!

Today, there is a New Hope...

There's a lot to do yet... but I do believe you will be pleasantly surprised.

[Thrax989]

Really looking forward to this Love seeing the Project Grow hour by hour. You guys are doing a dam good job keep up all the hard work. Never seen so many devoted individuals put so much time energy and effort into this project i really respect how far you guys are coming way to go SWGemu team.

[symbolism]

Great move, congratulations to the SWGEmu team for finally being a lot more open with those "pesky" play servers. In spite of some recent comments from Vlada in other forums, this is definitely a much more inclusive way to run a community.

The only thought I have relates to protecting server based secrets to create a spectre of challenge and also a particular play style for the user base of play servers. Specifically, Awakening has decided that we do not want thousands of Jedi's running around and that we'd like to create quite a challenging scenario to unlock your Force Sensitivity. By becoming open source we would basically be giving away the secret to our player base of how they access the Jedi.

Now.. if we think about it, nothing within Glowing.lua would add to the community and ability to get us to 1.0 quicker than we're currently going. Other aspects of the Jedi system such as the Force Ranking System, Visibility, Powers and their Balance and even the Village system would definitely add to the community and should be open sourced, but glowing would basically contain the "business rules" to coin an enterprise term in how someone would then be able to access the Jedi system in game, this would mean that play servers could retain their "secret" without compromising moving this to a truly open source community where everyone opens their code base.

Thoughts?

[Scurby]

Great move, congratulations to the SWGEmu team for finally being a lot more open with those "pesky" play servers. In spite of some recent comments from Vlada in other forums, this is definitely a much more inclusive way to run a community.

The only thought I have relates to protecting server based secrets to create a spectre of challenge and also a particular play style for the user base of play servers. Specifically, Awakening has decided that we do not want thousands of Jedi's running around and that we'd like to create quite a challenging scenario to unlock your Force Sensitivity. By becoming open source we would basically be giving away the secret to our player base of how they access the Jedi.

Now.. if we think about it, nothing within Glowing.lua would add to the community and ability to get us to 1.0 quicker than we're currently going. Other aspects of the Jedi system such as the Force Ranking System, Visibility, Powers and their Balance and even the Village system would definitely add to the community and should be open sourced, but glowing would basically contain the "business rules" to coin an enterprise term in how someone would then be able to access the Jedi system in game, this would mean that play servers could retain their "secret" without compromising moving this to a truly open source community where everyone opens their code base.

Thoughts?

Will be addressed...

[duffstone]

Interesting... And little scary too... I'm afraid to ask, but will this shut down all of us non-contributors that like to use the VM dev environment to goof off and pretend that we can develop? I've been trying to learn C for years but just can't seem to take that step from modifying existing code (hacking) and writing clean fresh code that could be uploaded. but I still use this project as a good reason to keep trying to learn the language. It would seem anyone who downloads the source would "Have" to provide a mechanism for that source and any modifications to be downloaded. I know I don't have my own SVN, nor do I have anything other than the stock VM setup presently.

In the grand scheme this question means nothing because we all want v1.0 sooner rather than later... Still, it's been fun poking around and seeing how the whole thing works.

-Duff

[Scurby]

Interesting... And little scary too... I'm afraid to ask, but will this shut down all of us non-contributors that like to use the VM dev environment to goof off and pretend that we can develop? I've been trying to learn C for years but just can't seem to take that step from modifying existing code (hacking) and writing clean fresh code that could be uploaded. but I still use this project as a good reason to keep trying to learn the language. It would seem anyone who downloads the source would "Have" to provide a mechanism for that source and any modifications to be downloaded. I know I don't have my own SVN, nor do I have anything other than the stock VM setup presently.

In the grand scheme this question means nothing because we all want v1.0 sooner rather than later... Still, it's been fun poking around and seeing how the whole thing works.

-Duff

Another question that will be addressed...

[Sharp2255]

I wish a fraction of the people who run and code for private servers contributed to the core project until it got to 1.0. It would be better for everyone in the long run.