Zandronum

In light of recent findings of the whodunit server on BE, I thought I would make this perfectly clear, even though it SHOULD be common sense.

Hosting users projects is fine but in no way, shape or form should you edit, tamper or add things into the main PK3/Wad file a user has released. Especially since this txt file usually comes with it and contains this information.

* Copyright / Permissions *

Authors may NOT use the contents of this file as a base for modification or
reuse. Permissions have been obtained from original authors for any of
their resources modified or included in this file.

Authors MAY use the content of the included source files in the /src
directory of the pk3 for their own project, so long as proper credit is
given.

You MAY distribute this file, provided you include this text file, with no
modifications. You may distribute this file in any electronic format (BBS,
Diskette, CD, etc) as long as you include this file intact. I have
received permission from the original authors of any modified or included
content in this file to allow further distribution.

You may host the file with add-ons, but you may NOT edit the wad without the authors permission. Proof needs to be provided. Any servers found with tampered wads that contain this txt file will be banned immediately.

If there's anything I forgot, feel free to post and let me know. This will be moved to maps and mods when it has enough attention.

Thank you Metal for bringing this to the community's attention. As for whodunit, the only pk3 files that have my consent and that of shooter7 to be hosted are whodunit.pk3 and whodunit_fixed2.pk3

Why do i have the feeling this has something to do with the lightman's mod that was hosted with it for a period of time?

W1D3A55 wrote: Why do i have the feeling this has something to do with the lightman's mod that was hosted with it for a period of time?

Probably because Metal stated WDI in the first line ^_^

I'm actually glad you brought this up. Who's to say someone can't rig a wad to do something unfair, or-if it's even possible - malicious.

How did this happen? did the file use a different name to wdi, seeing as that would already have been hosted on BE?

It could be debated that servers that do decide to host content like that can be warned / blacklisted from the master server.
In the case of multi-server hosts, it would be up to the server host's discretion.

Edit: Metal added the blacklist rule so nothing to see here!

Christ. Are we gonna have to start posting checksums with our mods when we upload them? It's shady and just downright disrespectful to modify and then reupload and distribute somebody else's work without their permission.

I remember somebody did this to one of my old wads back in the day. I was wondering why nobody could connect to my server ... then I looked on wadhost and found an EDITED version of my mod (which obviously had a different filesize and therefore failed authentication for anybody who tried to connect after getwad used this source). Needless to say, my jimmies were rustled.

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Although, IMO, banning the person who hosts said wad shouldn't be the first course of action. They might not be aware that they're hosting or distributing a "tainted" version of the original wad. I'd be in favor of notifying the host first and telling them that they're hosting an illegally-modified wad.

Does this mean the edited WW-Nazis.pk3 will finally need to get Weasel's permission?

ww-nazis edited whatever crap already got the attention of wildweasel, and after he flipped his shit with it he was ok with it.

ww-nazis-fnf got direct permission from him.

Right, then, good.

I wanted to make an add-on for whodunit.pk3 because I thought it would be kinda cool, but then all of this happened. I only added custom things like the LightmanWrench or the DamagerPipe, and some custom ravekits (thur epic :T!!) to my lightman_wdi.pk3. The whodunit.pk3 itself is unmodified.

Is that bad or tolerable, because "You may host the file with add-ons..." and "in no way, shape or form should you edit, tamper or add things into the main PK3/Wad..." confuses me :T...

That would be fine. (Unless lightman_wdi.pk3 contained copies of WDI material without permission.)

Qent wrote: That would be fine. (Unless lightman_wdi.pk3 contained copies of WDI material without permission.)

That worries me, because the custom weapons have some of the original weapons' coding (LightmanWrench has some Wrench inheritance, cuz... it's a wrench... and their both wrenches...), but their sprites are different and the coding is also changed. Does that still make it 'lright?

Lightman68 wrote: Is that bad or tolerable, because "You may host the file with add-ons..." and "in no way, shape or form should you edit, tamper or add things into the main PK3/Wad..." confuses me :T...

Yes, it seems you have some confusion.

To clarify, you ARE NOT allowed to edit the main WDI pk3 and reupload it. However, you ARE allowed to create your own pk3 with only your original stuff in it.


So what you wanted to do (make an add-on for an existing mod) is perfectly fine (as long as your mod is a seperate pk3 that gets hosted along with the original).

EDIT:

Lightman68 wrote:

Qent wrote: That would be fine. (Unless lightman_wdi.pk3 contained copies of WDI material without permission.)

That worries me, because the custom weapons have some of the original weapons' coding (LightmanWrench has some Wrench inheritance, cuz... it's a wrench... and their both wrenches...), but their sprites are different and the coding is also changed. Does that still make it 'lright?

I'm sure that's fine as long as you didn't copy+paste like 1000 lines of code.

Just to be on the safe side, I'd PM this guy first: http://zandronum.com/forum/member.php?a ... le&uid=244

Lightman68 wrote:Does that still make it 'lright?

Asking is a good thing, but generally, if you don't do this:

Zeberpal wrote:A guy named Tiberium Soul made his version of wdi named ..tibdunit.pk3. How do you like that? I don't know what he did there, but he wanted his modern gun in final WDI which was rejected. I'll buy you a bear if all he added was that gun. I think such a people should be banned for this, seriosly. How come one person just copied a work of about 12 people claimed as his own in title?

You ought to be fine.

Although the pk3 is unmodified, you made actors like spawners replace the original ones. Technically you are not really 'editing' the source pk3 but you are overwriting the original actors and behaviour that existed there. Also lightman, nothing personal. This is not meant to target and bring down your addon in any way - I am just trying to say my POV on this situation.

Replacing actors via an add-on is allowed (and what Doom modding is based on!). People might think you're a jerk if your replacements stray too far from the original design (or they might think you're a genius; who knows?), but they can't prevent you.

Well if you inherit from an actor and modified stuff.. you didn't actually copy the original one to your addon as well because you still inherit them from the original file.

People should also become familiar with the TEXTURES lump so no one has to copy/paste actors, but rather do translations on the fly without touching/modifying someone elses work.


In addition, if the person borrowed an in game sprite from there, just borrow that from their source if it's allowed and you'd be fine.



W/ respect to coding stuff and borrowing code, you can (as said previously) inherit. Copying the decorate code probably isn't a huge deal, but if you can do it with inheritance very easily there is no reason that inheritance shouldn't be used. If anyone needs help with how to use inheritance properly or the Super::State pointer, I can help.