I think open source should take a backseat to closed source. What we need more is the ability to create libraries dll style where functions are available but you cannot see them or mess with them. If that were done, I think many more people would release things for use by others. Taking credit for someone elses work is all too common around here, and that is one reason many people do not create anything for other people. Once that is implemented (hopefully it will be for version 4) then it might be wise to create an Open Source channel for games which are open source and have many variations of the original hanging around.

An OpenSource section would not bother me. However, what does open source have to do with not being able to make a complete game out of something? If you release the code, graphics and sound, what's left? Sure, there are some bad projects out there, but open source does not mean "incomplete garbage that you have to work for weeks with to get running".

Personally, I'm happy enough when someone releases their source files. The more source files released, the less worries about the hub being clogged with specific games. Forming communities might be a little much because many might not care to donate while someone has to run it if they do. Unfortunately, it might be the only way to make the presense of the authors known without going to court (or shoving more work onto the hub moderators).

Ya, OpenRPG is a attempt at making people see the good in OpenSourced projects, but It hasnt gone far. This is mainly because I have been working on FlashChat when ever possible. I like the idea of open sourced because everyone can contribute. And people "ripping" normaly gives the creater of the project rights to anything he adds into the game, well, idea wise(as long as it is stated in the ToS or terms of use). This can cause some great creativity.

About that dll type thing, it could probably be used to easily create external map editors for projects that have more than one person working on them,

It's quite easy to make a trimmed down version of the game only provide the datum prototypes which can be used to make maps. Just look how I did it with my Racing Game.

and so the actual programming for those games couldn't get leaked.

Gah it always annoys me when people use programming or coding as nouns for source code. It's either source code or code for short.

That was taking it a bit far, and no I won't step off a pier into a lake of radioactive scorpians. Calm down and keep your pants on.

And your strange reasoning does not fit. Open source projects will spawn more games that use pre-existing code, whether they be all the same, a nice multitude of diversity, or even all being completely different. Also, I never said that all the spin offs needed to be stopped; so don't go putting words into my mouth. The topic was about creating an Open Source channel (Doesn't have to be called Open Source, that's just what we are calling it for conversation's sake) in which games can go if they are merely modifications of an allready existing game. There is nothing wrong with that idea, in fact it is a good idea. If people play through most of the published games and want to find something else, they can go browse through the Open Source section to find variations of some of the games they just played.

If you don't like the idea and think that all spin offs should go right alongside the originals in the main channels then that's fine, you are entitled to your oppinion; but don't get all upset and vent your sarcastic threats on account of my oppinion.

Leftley wrote:

regardless of how many open-sourced games are available, the number of rips will remain relatively steady proportionate to the number of "mod-class" programmers.

I don't know about that. I'm pretty sure providing them with a source of acceptable free games would make it so that the average "mod-class" programmer would release one of each type (as he/she got bored). That's based on the fact that these programmers are really just playing the games when it comes down to it.
That wouldn't effect live that much however, because you only ever play a game at a time, but I think it would have a huge effect on the amount of garbage hub entries.

Well..what if the libs code someow interfears with the main code...they should be able to choose..like an editable lib or an non editable lib which would be a .dll

Loduwijk wrote:

And your strange reasoning does not fit. Open source projects will spawn more games that use pre-existing code,

Y'know, I was being sarcastic when I said "Your attitude here seems to be that rips are created by open source projects, as if the released code packages themselves are creating the rips", but here you come right out and say it. Open-source projects do not automatically distribute clones of themselves, virus-like, throughout the hub; such clones are spawned by BYOND's user base, and in particular by newer programmers who are more eager to get something they can slap online (be it a full-featured open-source game, or just a two-line snippet for a chat verb) than they are to learn how to program. For sake of argument I will refer to these simply as "newbies", although it must be stressed that not all who are newbies in the conventional sense actually fall into this category. With that disclaimer, we can amend your statement to the much more accurate "Newbies will spawn more games that use pre-existing code".

DarkView does raise a relevant point by suggesting that such newbies simply go through all available open-source projects one by one and spawn a knockoff of each, but I believe that he vastly overstates the impact of this effect. For one thing, each newbie has a limited amount of time to invest, and despite appearances these knock-off projects often do represent a fairly considerable amount of time investment. For another, I tend to be optomistic enough to believe that most people grow out of this phase in a pretty reasonable amount of time--and even if they don't, many of them will wander away from BYOND on their own. Rather than saying that the number of knock-off games is completely independent of the number of open-source projects, I suppose it would be more accurate for me to say that there's simply a saturation point beyond which open-source availability is no longer an issue--but this happens to be a very low point, especially since it's possible to observe newbies regurgitating multiple knock-offs of the same single open-source project in the absence of others to work off of.

Moreover, suppose that you managed to completely eliminate all open-source projects, thereby preventing any knock-offs at all from being produced. What do you gain? That's not going to stop the newbies--they're still going to slap together crappy games from whatever is available (the examples in the reference guide, if nothing else) and choke the hub with them. Encouraging open-source games provides a more constructive outlet for this impulse.

The same principle applies to hub divisions, as well. Sure, you could shove open source projects into their own section--with largely the same result. If you swept all of the "ICON TRADER EXTREEEEMZ" and "DBZ OMFG ULTRA (NOT A ZETA RIP REALLY!!!!)" off of the main hub listings (which would either require complete cooperation from users, or a much heavier hub-monitoring workload), do you really think that the hub would get any better? Maybe for a day or two, until the authors of said games start working on "all-new original" projects to put up on the hub. Getting a newbie to stop making "rips" isn't going to magically make them any more able to produce unique, quality games.

Now if you're looking at the prospect of an open source channel from a purely organizational standpoint (rather than the standpoint of trying to screen out shoddy projects), there would definitely be some merit to some sort of "open-source" or "based on" designation filled out on a semi-voluntary basis, but actually creating a seperate channel for it seems rather silly--what player is going to log onto the BYOND Games site and say to themselves "Gee, I want to play a game that's open-source!" They might be looking for a particular game which happens to be open-source, or a certain modded version of an open-sourced game, but having them go looking for it in an "Open Source" channel would be just as arbitrary as creating channels for "Games with the letter 'K' in their title", "Games that were created on a Tuesday", or any number of other silly categories. I'm all for the encouragement of (and even some potential enforcement of) hub channels or even completely independent websites for specific games and their open source "communities", but a blanket "Open Source" channel is just arbitrary and capricious.

Crispy wrote:

and there will be, on average, only two rips of each game.

In theory, but if we stayed at a hundred (which I doubt) everyone would probably choose to use the coolest one.
Right now there are plenty of leaked DBZ games in circulation, DBZeta is just the most popular.
Part of the reason we have so many DBZ games is because someone sees one and goes "Yeah, that looks good, I want to do that too", usually with a "but I'd do it better" tacked onto the end.

You may think that more open-source games leads to more rips, but it ain't necessarily so. I've seen people's hub listings filled with ten Zeta rips at a time. They wouldn't have ten Zeta rips AND ten OpenRPG rips AND ten Bob the Hack'n'Slasher rips all at once. They'd be more likely to have three or four of each.

Again I beg to differ. When you look at the creation dates for those ten Zeta rips they're usually pretty close together, why? Because the creator keeps coming up with new ideas (and usually because when a game doesn't take off it's easier to make for a "fresh" start).
My guess is it would just add fuel to the fire having plenty of differnt types of games to choose from. You can only do so much with a single game before it gets boring, but with fifty games by the time you've got to the last you're ready for the first again.



I'm torn on the issue, but I think the pro side is jumping to a lot of conclusions that if wrong could blow up in their face.