Ending the Nonsense

[diafero]

he situation is tricky because, they have released their Max plugin and other things, and those are the 'official' tools. And because of this in a way they don't really need all that came from the community so far.

They might not need it, but we do. Even now. The MOULa plugin is only usable with Drizzle and Offline KI/your preferred method to link to a custom age. Since the documentation is rather incomplete, people wouldn't figure out how to do it in 3ds Max without knowing how PyPRP works and using PrpShop to dive into the prp files (andylegate, for example, says some of the amazing things he figured out were done this way).
I see that we agree here, just wanted to add this to the points you made about keeping Uru alife - because the dependency on our hacking work, as of now, is not only social, but also technical.

[BAD]

If Cyan does not provide legitimacy with the code they release, they are screwing themselves over much more than us. Giving out code is great, but it doesn't make anything we create more than a hack if they do not provide an adequate agreement along with the code released.

This is bad for Cyan because now their code is out with no way to be used legitimately. We are still hackers and they are still the business turning a blind eye to us. There is no bridge to have legitimate fan created content delivered. Once the code is out it can't be taken back away. If they don't take this chance to provide us with some kind of legitimacy, then they will permanently sever any chance to work with the hacking community. How can we use anything they release legitimately without proof they are letting us?

This is bad for us because our work is still unacceptable in a court of law. Cyan could still take whatever legal action they want if they deemed something bad enough to warrant action. They could claim an employee released the code without authorization. They could say anything they want, because there is nothing that would stand up in court refuting them.

We will be no better off than we are now, yet we will have more power to create things. It's like giving you a bike and telling you not to ride outside of your driveway.

[Aloys]

I don't think Cyan is making a big case of all the legalities and this license business.. This is all very informal. They are just throwing a couple toys at us saying 'here have fun with those guys, and we'll get to the more serious business later'.
I definitely don't see them suing anyone if something went wrong. (something would reallly have to go seriously wrong). And currently not much has been released, at least the client & server sources haven't been released and they are the only parts that could be really misused.. What they gave us so far isn't very different than all that has already been hacked & reverse-engineered. Sure it is *their* code and assets, but I don't think there's anything to be worried about. When they release the client and/or server codes this will be different.

But as always any big concerns should be sent to Cyan. Discussing through the forums is not always the best way to send them messages.

[andylegate]

I had PM'ed Chogon, thanking them for releasing the Max Plugin, and for the other stuff they'd released so far (hey, you have to admit, that's really something when you're talking about Cyan, hehe ). I asked if it would be possible to get one of their Max files for one of their Ages, like Gira or Kemo, etc.

The reason I asked for this is as many of us here know, sometimes the best information on how to do something isn't a tutorial or documentation, but to actually see how something was built or used.

In his reply, Chogon said this to me:

So far, we are still picking the easy stuff to release. And most of it has been fans suggestions, just like yours! So, I added yours to the list.

So according to him, they have a "List" of things to release.
Now I know my definition of "Easy" and Chogon's definition of the same word must be different. I mean the avatar biped max file......animating a character to me is a lot harder than opening up a Max file for an Age to see what plasma components were used on say the glowing bug emitter, heheheh.

As far as the original topic of the thread........I'm one of the lucky few that's never been "moderated" over there. Then again, I rarely post over there either.

I know that when arguments break out there (well they break out on any forum, here, GoMa, OS, UO, you name it) a moderator may need to step in. I don't mean a healthy debate about ideas. I mean when the insults start to come out, or when the debate suddenly is about something other than the original topic that goes on for many posts, then I can see moderation.
But then I don't quite agree with how the moderation is performed over there. Automatically locking the thread, or worse, deleting tons of posts. If the posts contained unacceptable language or links that are not allowed, etc, then the posts should be EDITED, not necessarally deleted. And then the poster needs to be warned about it.
(yah, I know, over at the GoMa forum we had some of this going on ourselves, but in defense, many of us had never moderated before. Now things are a lot more laid back and relaxed. The only posts that get deleted now are ones from bots spamming about porn sites or where you can buy Viagra. So we lived and learned There were many times that a post was deleted by someone over there and I was like "EEEEEEEEK!!! NOOOO! You can't do that! It will make us just like the MOUL forum!", so you know it's bad when we try to make sure we DON'T moderate like MOUL, hehehe).

I think the main problem over at the MOUL forum right now is that their forum rules are simply out of date with the current situation. The mods are told to enforce those rules, and when they do, the fans point that out (or try to). The fact that the rules were suppose to be reviewed and still pretty much read the same simply tells me that Cyan still seems out of touch with the fan base, and is just too busy with other things to be bothered about it.

Oh, and I agree.......a moderator in a forum should either fluently speak that language, or it's their first language. I know one could hollar "Discrimination" on that, but seriously people, would you hire a interpreter who either barely spoke one of the languages, or was not fluent in it for something important?

Rich Redneck: "So is Mr. CEO of that foreign car company going to buy my product?"
Interpreter: "He say, we more happy to buy your bonnets."
Rich Redneck: "Bonnets? We don't make bonnets! We make hoods! Hoods for cars!"
Interpreter: "Mr. CEO want know, why put clothes on car? You silly, we leave!"

Sooooo.......where's that Babble Fish when we need it????

[Branan]

I think by "easy" cyan means stuff that doesn't require quite as much legal thinking. A biped for animations has a lot less IP in it than a whole age.