Terrain Pack considerations

[Hobbes]

Do you allow do letsplays of your mods? The will have lot more donation than any modder that use your mods. And they contribute nothing back.

Another thing, for what donations are for? Mod? No I can grab it for free. More the work they did and will do. You could be right if any thing they did was simply "assert flip" but they mods are many times bigger and have lot of unique content. Then what if after they remove your work they still get same amount of donations? Would it mean that your point was incorrect? Funny would be if they would get more now than previously. Only in case when they will stop getting any thing your concern could be valid.

Overall similar situation is with Red Hat, they "sell" linux operating systems, this mean every one who contributed to linux is "used" by them.
But in FOSS this is not problem or even it is very good thing, because you can use all Red Hat work without paying them (Centos).
I think same model could be used in OXC mod community.

I'm not interested in discussing whether donations are commercial. That leads nowhere because I have my own opinion (they are), and that's the only one that matters when I'm deciding my rights as an author. If you don't respect it, then stop using my work. End of discussion.

The only person who ever asked me to do a Let's Play was Meridian, and I authorized it knowing that he uses Patreon because it's Meridian and he has done a ton (like you) for this project. I haven't considered the possibility of Let's Play or streams in the future but it will solved. And with my rights being respected as I choose, not according to someone's opinion of how modders should act.

[Hobbes]

Well i agree, it´s your creations, and you want to claim it, moving on. Can i buy the rights to use some part´s? Shortcut´s me some work that i will end up doing anyway.. and by wasting time i will  just pay for something already done. Win win for both

The Terrain Pack is a stand alone mod, so you can make it a requirement to use with your mod. And with a little coding magic you can also deactivate the parts that you don't want to use.

As for the assets contained in Area 51/TechComm, those are off-limits for now.

TechComm contains several of your assets (Osprey, Jeep, etc.), I'll remove them from future versions, and everything else I can find in Area 51/TechComm.

Right now my priority is to make my mods clean of any third party content made for OXC. Until that is done, I will not authorize use of any of their assets to ensure that I have the right and authorizations to decide over them.

[Hobbes]

I don't accept donations either. And I guess I'm "on your side": I'm not enthusiastic about monetization***.
I like when things are clear: commercial or non-commercial. OpenXCom is afaik non-commercial, so everything that spawns from it should stay the same, without misunderstandings.
There is also the legal issue. I'm clueless about this stuff, but we're "using" a trademark (or more than one) owned by someone else, so it might be risky: I don't want the community to be bombarded by Cease&Desist notices because the situation got out of hand.
But, as Yankes said, people monetize from youtube Let's Plays and you can do nothing about it, while modders do contribute something to the community. So I don't know if a stance like yours really makes sense all things considered (I mean no offense by saying this, just an honest thought).
I'm currently letting people use my assets (ofc strictly only for OXC modding) with the simple request that they're tweaked enough to show that the modder put in some the effort, and not simply copy-pasted them in his mod. I myself won't turn a blind eye to blatant exploitation (even though I can't really do much about it other than calling people out).

All that said, I respect your decision. I don't think I'm using anything from your mods (used a mapScript at some point but now not anymore). Please warn me if you notice something, I'll remove it as quickly as I can.

***Poor wording from me here as "donations" and "monetization" can be very different things. The sentence should be interpreted as "I don't agree with the idea of taking donations for a mod."

I say this: don't worry with the legal issues with the XCom IP.

SupSuper has been to Firaxis and met with the developers. Firaxis has official mod support since X2 and were always accepting of mods for their games. If they wanted to shut us down they would have done a long time ago. And it seems to me that the gaming industry in general is much more accepting of mods because a ton of factors, and XCom is particularly lucky of having a long established modding tradition. During UFO2000 we feared that the IP owner (which was unclear who was) would pull the plug on us, and we took steps to replace all original xcom content for that propose, but it never happened. This can change in the future, but not in the near one. And even if their policy changes, we can all still keep the stuff we have and mod in our computers - that they can't take away from us

And the same applies to this situation. I'll check but I'm not gonna be policing other people's mods all the time for my content. But I do hope that people become more aware of the rights and usage issues.

BTW: I also got stuff from you in Area 51 (not the TP) but I need to check it first and I'll inform you later.

[Yankes]

I'm not interested in discussing whether donations are commercial. That leads nowhere because I have my own opinion (they are), and that's the only one that matters when I'm deciding my rights as an author.

I only ask to reconsider this. Everyone here is grown adult and respect your decision, all your offenders are now in processes of deleting your work from theirs mods.

But IMHO this will be harmful in long run for whole community.

If you don't respect it, then stop using my work. End of discussion.

But this is other way around, I not mod author and I dont use your mods, but you use OXC or OXCE and in both are parts I write and I'm author of them.
I could theoretically ask you to do same. And what will result? SupSuper will ask me to stop using his work in OXCE, and then Warboy ask SupSuper to remove his work from OXC.

Overall result will be that only solution is delete whole OXC/OXCE and disband this community.

But IMHO this will be harmful in long run for whole community.

Good thing is that I fully committed to GNU General Public License, anyone can use my work without any permission as long he follow GPL.

[Hobbes]

But IMHO this will be harmful in long run for whole community.

This was a ticking bomb waiting to explode... tick... tack... tick... tack...
* What would happen next time one of those mods decided to ask for more donations without even bothering to ask all contributors if they accept it?
* Are people who contribute are informed of this policy beforehand?
* And if the donations are small or even nothing, like I was told personally in more than one occasion, why are they choosing to keep them, when they could have all my content for free if they stick to non-commercial?

The list of unanswered questions could on... the point is, one day this would end.

And in the long run? That depends entirely on how those mods now. If they're determined to go the donations path, then they'll find a way to replace my content with their own original one, and they actually become more unique, instead of sharing most of their terrains with several other major mods. Or not.

But this is other way around, I not mod author and I dont use your mods, but you use OXC or OXCE and in both are parts I write and I'm author of them.
I could theoretically ask you to do same. And what will result? SupSuper will ask me to stop using his work in OXCE, and then Warboy ask SupSuper to remove his work from OXC.

Overall result will be that only solution is delete whole OXC/OXCE and disband this community.

Good thing is that I fully committed to GNU General Public License, anyone can use my work without any permission as long he follow GPL.

I am not preventing anyone to use the Terrain Pack, the same way that you're not preventing anyone from using OXCE.

I know I can keep using OXCE but if you so desire, I'll stop using it immediately and revert Area 51 back to OXC. And if OXC wants me to leave, I'll leave as well. So I don't understand the theoretical point that you're trying to make here. Do you want me to leave?

Isn't that the whole point of a free community? To not have your freedom limited by others and not to limit their freedom? And to stay there by your choice and not by force, being free to leave when you choose, if circumstances change?

So many questions...

[wcho035]

Hobbes, from the comments I read till now, you are standing at the edge of the tipping point. It is sad to see the weight of guilt being pushed on you and anymore isn’t going to be easier. If the community is more sympathetic, the outcome may have been different. Still, it will be sorry to see you leave.

[Hobbes]

Hobbes, from the comments I read till now, you are standing at the edge of the tipping point. It is sad to see the weight of guilt being pushed on you and anymore isn’t going to be easier. If the community is more sympathetic, the outcome may have been different. Still, it will be sorry to see you leave.

I do not understand you: are you trying to make me leave?

[wcho035]

No, I am saying the community should be more sympathetic to your situation.

[Hobbes]

No, I am saying the community should be more sympathetic to your situation.

They are more than enough.

But thank you for your concern.

[X-Man]

Oh, man... And all this shit around as always grows from human greed and envy.

[Hobbes]

Oh, man... And all this shit around as always grows from human greed and envy.

It grew from a series of miscommunications between the parties involved that finally reached a breaking point.

[Lord_Kane]

Well after a few hours of SHEER PANIC in order to verify that none of my 2 released mods and my 3 indev mods dont have material from your mod.

I can safely say that they don't, even my remix of reavers megamod...(unless I missed something)

I can actually sympathize with you on this Hobbes, when I started modding here I always would ask permission, ask Nord, Chaosshade and Starving Poet to name a few.

I will make sure to credit you on future material you release with the appropriate permissions.
and if and when you ever re-release the terrain pack it will be used as a dependency with credits and instructions to download and enable it.

Best of luck to you Hobbes.

[michal]

Just a random thought. Maybe mods should have specific licenses?
To avoid similar situations in future.

For example, i guess for Terrain Pack, most appropriate would be CC NC SA:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

(I'm not saying Hobbes should license his mods under this license, i'm just giving example)

[X-Man]

Okay, lets found "The International Agency of Mod Licencing" (IAML for short) right here and right now!
The first question, my dear comrades, is to choose the Board. Offer your candidates!

[misterx]

I really agree with michal, such mod should have a CC licence,in fact it's very important for the creration of other works by the modders, otherwise each mod would have its terrains, tha would be a load of work