Re: Few questions about open source
Yeah, if I spent so much time on it I'd want to get something out of it, too. It would be cool to assemble a team, I know there are capable people here, but I'm afraid in reality managing it wouldn't work. I'd want signed contracts with everyone on the team to ensure my rights to the product if I were a part of such a big project.
Re: Few questions about open source
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Negata
Yeah, if I spent so much time on it I'd want to get something out of it, too. It would be cool to assemble a team, I know there are capable people here, but I'm afraid in reality managing it wouldn't work. I'd want signed contracts with everyone on the team to ensure my rights to the product if I were a part of such a big project.
I can see that point. What do you mean though by ensuring rights? Monetary rights or like patented, so someone couldn't take the idea/project and patent/make money off it?
Re: Few questions about open source
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DevonsDaddy
I can see that point. What do you mean though by ensuring rights? Monetary rights or like patented, so someone couldn't take the idea/project and patent/make money off it?
Yeah, something along those lines. In the worst case scenario you put two years into a project just to realize 2 weeks before it's complete that you've been kicked out of the team and that others have claimed copyrights and intend to profit from your work. That would suck.
Re: Few questions about open source
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Negata
Yeah, something along those lines. In the worst case scenario you put two years into a project just to realize 2 weeks before it's complete that you've been kicked out of the team and that others have claimed copyrights and intend to profit from your work. That would suck.
That doesn't happen for a few reasons. Self preservation being one. When your project hinges highly on the source code being protected, and you kick out one of the primary devs with no compensation or copyrights (so he can go compete with you and pwn you for being dicks), a "leak" accidentally happens that ruins the profitability of the project. So splits like this generally kill projects.
Re: Few questions about open source
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jMerliN
That doesn't happen for a few reasons. Self preservation being one. When your project hinges highly on the source code being protected, and you kick out one of the primary devs with no compensation or copyrights (so he can go compete with you and pwn you for being dicks), a "leak" accidentally happens that ruins the profitability of the project. So splits like this generally kill projects.
I mean we're talking about open source here, right? The group claims copyright to all material that has been uploaded to their servers. You're kicked out of the group, you're left with a million lines of your own code that you're not allowed to use.
Anyhow, I'm just basically saying that I wouldn't feel very comfortable working with a bunch of people that have no ties to me and I've never met face to face.
Re: Few questions about open source
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DevonsDaddy
The first thing I would need to do is figure out how much it would cost to have someone skilled in this field take a look at the client and give an evaluation on how it works. If we know how it works, we can figure out how to reconstruct it with our files and packets instead. I understand it would be a long project. I'm not denying that. We've already spent what... 3+ years developing private servers, when that time could have gone toward something like this. So... anyone with knowledge in this field have an estimate on how much it would cost?
A client is nothing more than a seperate (for lack of a better word, akakori.) application that connects to the server. A client doesn't have to be written in "Hex" or "ASM", it could be C# or C++ or hell, PHP.
For it to actually be called a "client", in the game-wise term, it would only have to connect to the server and read player's input.
But hey, if you want to try to write one in ASM... good luck.
Re: Few questions about open source
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mintee
But hey, if you want to try to write one in ASM... good luck.
Where did you get that? I don't think that's what he meant at all.
Re: Few questions about open source
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Negata
Where did you get that? I don't think that's what he meant at all.
To me it seemed like he wanted to reverse engineer the client and rewrite one based off of it. Just trying to make that clear.
Re: Few questions about open source
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mintee
To me it seemed like he wanted to reverse engineer the client and rewrite one based off of it. Just trying to make that clear.
Reverse-engineer, sure, (don't really see the point of that though) but I don't think he was talking about rewriting it in ASM.
Re: Few questions about open source
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Negata
Reverse-engineer, sure, (don't really see the point of that though) but I don't think he was talking about rewriting it in ASM.
That was only for emphasis. :P
Since you know, most debuggers (OllyDBG specifically) have a seperate window for ASM code.
Re: Few questions about open source
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Negata
Yeah, something along those lines. In the worst case scenario you put two years into a project just to realize 2 weeks before it's complete that you've been kicked out of the team and that others have claimed copyrights and intend to profit from your work. That would suck.
Then theoretically, there is no way to do this. Simply because, you can't patent the idea, hoping for it to remain open source. Reason I think this is, once something is copyrighted, does that not mean people can't recreate/alter/make profit off of it unless paying the "owner" some sort of fees/buying a license? Idk much about this legal end -_- Anyways.... hmm... I'd prefer for this to be open source, where people can edit/recreate however they want, without worrying about some dickhead coming along, copyrighting the idea, and thus no longer allowing people to freely do as they wish with the open source. Is there any way you can think of that this could be done?
Re: Few questions about open source
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DevonsDaddy
Then theoretically, there is no way to do this. Simply because, you can't patent the idea, hoping for it to remain open source. Reason I think this is, once something is copyrighted, does that not mean people can't recreate/alter/make profit off of it unless paying the "owner" some sort of fees/buying a license? Idk much about this legal end -_- Anyways.... hmm... I'd prefer for this to be open source, where people can edit/recreate however they want, without worrying about some dickhead coming along, copyrighting the idea, and thus no longer allowing people to freely do as they wish with the open source. Is there any way you can think of that this could be done?
Blackmail. :blushing:
Re: Few questions about open source
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Negata
I mean we're talking about open source here, right? The group claims copyright to all material that has been uploaded to their servers. You're kicked out of the group, you're left with a million lines of your own code that you're not allowed to use.
Anyhow, I'm just basically saying that I wouldn't feel very comfortable working with a bunch of people that have no ties to me and I've never met face to face.
You can't just claim copyright on something. If the original authors were in the project under an open source license, only they are permitted to use the project in any way not according to that license (they all own the copyright). What they can't do is tell you that you can't use it, but they can release the next version under a different license, and your rights (if you're no longer a member of the team) for that new version will be limited to the provided license.
You will want to get a formal copyright declared with the copyright office (not just an IP inferred copyright). You usually can't proceed with litigation otherwise. You don't want some kids taking the source, modifying it for their server, then only releasing the binary when clearly the client is a modified fork of yours (many ways to verify this). In a case like that, you'd want to file a DMCA with sufficient proof, and for a lawyer to even consider that, he's going to want documented proof that you guys own the copyright to the project.
Don't open source the server. That's a terrible idea, and I've never understood why people do it. Software that provides an endpoint service is not even similar to application ware. If you make a new messenger, open sourcing it sounds like a good idea. If you make a new application that provides an endpoint service like a protocol handler (<insert protocol here>d, game servers, etc), unless the distributed use of it won't damage the idea of the project, releasing it open source is usually bad. The idea of an emulator is to provide a custom version of the game, often improving it and removing bugs that the original developers refuse to fix. You shoot yourself in the foot immediately if everyone has unlimited access to the project since you see over 9000 servers go up over night, now what you have is a massive choice of.. identical servers.. running on varying, often unreliable hardware, fragmenting the community dramatically and providing a highly inconsistent experience. Those hosting love it. Those wanting to just play hate it. The best idea is to release a limited binary for people to play around with and only a full binary to trusted sources, those you know aren't going to charge $300 for max gear and inane prices for shit in-game to profit from your work and to further diminish the quality of the private community.
Re: Few questions about open source
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jMerliN
You can't just claim copyright on something. If the original authors were in the project under an open source license, only they are permitted to use the project in any way not according to that license (they all own the copyright). What they can't do is tell you that you can't use it, but they can release the next version under a different license, and your rights (if you're no longer a member of the team) for that new version will be limited to the provided license.
You will want to get a formal copyright declared with the copyright office (not just an IP inferred copyright). You usually can't proceed with litigation otherwise. You don't want some kids taking the source, modifying it for their server, then only releasing the binary when clearly the client is a modified fork of yours (many ways to verify this). In a case like that, you'd want to file a DMCA with sufficient proof, and for a lawyer to even consider that, he's going to want documented proof that you guys own the copyright to the project.
Don't open source the server. That's a terrible idea, and I've never understood why people do it. Software that provides an endpoint service is not even similar to application ware. If you make a new messenger, open sourcing it sounds like a good idea. If you make a new application that provides an endpoint service like a protocol handler (<insert protocol here>d, game servers, etc), unless the distributed use of it won't damage the idea of the project, releasing it open source is usually bad. The idea of an emulator is to provide a custom version of the game, often improving it and removing bugs that the original developers refuse to fix. You shoot yourself in the foot immediately if everyone has unlimited access to the project since you see over 9000 servers go up over night, now what you have is a massive choice of.. identical servers.. running on varying, often unreliable hardware, fragmenting the community dramatically and providing a highly inconsistent experience. Those hosting love it. Those wanting to just play hate it. The best idea is to release a limited binary for people to play around with and only a full binary to trusted sources, those you know aren't going to charge $300 for max gear and inane prices for shit in-game to profit from your work and to further diminish the quality of the private community.
Obviously I don't know much of this legal stuff, anyway. Like I said, I just wouldn't like the idea of working my ass off with people whose names I don't even know. Also the open source part is troubling for reasons you stated.
