0003510: Remove SRB2 engine plugin distribution

Notes
(0019672) WubTheCaptain (reporter) 2018-09-22 23:13	Quote from WubTheCaptain risks to rights of Sega and stuff. risks to rights of Sega and liability to Doomseeker's developers*

(0019673) Blzut3 (administrator) 2018-09-22 23:18	SRB2 has been around, and relatively well known, for long enough that I'm not concerned about any risk to us. Remember that this is also a community well known for illegally transplanting textures from one game into another, so I think ostracizing SRB2 is a little silly. That said we can look into making the plugin easy to delete.

(0019684) Zalewa (developer) 2018-09-23 07:33	Quote from Blzut3 That said we can look into making the plugin easy to delete. Shift+DEL/`rm` on the lib is not easy enough? Quote from Wub Remove SRB2 engine plugin distribution No. Only if we receive C&D from Sega then yes.

(0019697) Blzut3 (administrator) 2018-09-24 00:21	I was thinking something like the attached patch so that it would not be necessary to redist the potentially offending sources. I don't know if it would help. The farthest I would be willing to go though is making them a subrepo.

(0019702) Zalewa (developer) 2018-09-24 15:47	The patch is a good and harmless addition, I think we can merge it in.

(0019814) Zalewa (developer) 2018-09-29 10:31 edited on: 2018-09-29 10:33	My initial response was too laconic in my vain hope to save time on something that I believe should never be considered (that said, it's saturday and I've already spent 2.5 hours just responding to tickets and having written no actual code at all, ie. Doomseeker is still stuck where it was and my free-free time today is running out). I'd like to reiterate so that we can conclude this matter. First things first: complete removal of a feature is the last thing that should be considered when there is a problem with said feature. Our first approach should be to seek how to remedy the problems and keep the feature. I'm not very fond of tickets that outright state "Remove X". Of course, there are valid reasons to remove features, delete their whole code and forget they ever existed. Let's try to state some events when such action should be considered: * When we know that the feature is useless. However, in our case we don't collect any data on user behavior (and that's the way it should be), so we can't be truly sure that we know such thing. * When the reason the feature was implemented is no longer valid. In this case: if SRB2 dies off, there will be no reason to keep the plugin and it should be either removed altogether or moved to the legacy section as has happened to the Vavoom plugin. We don't spend time on maintaining the legacy plugins. Another example is the ZDaemon plugin which was completely removed after ZDaemon devs encrypted their protocol to block our plugin off. * When the maintenance cost vastly outweights the benefits this feature brings. We had a multi-threaded server refresh mechanism once. While it was nice to utilize the whole CPU and not just one core, it brought in some concurrency issues that were hard to deal with. Server refresh is now single-threaded. * When we have a superior feature that effectively replaces the outdated one, even if it means that users will have to adjust. * Soft but valid reasons for removal are when an affected party directly asks us to do so. Examples: default Chocolate Doom IRC channel removed on Fraggle's request, Wadseeker URLs were altered or removed on their webmaster's request, ZDaemon plugin was removed after the devs got pissed off at us for reverse-engineering their protocol. Getting back to the issue at hand, Wub, let me quote you: Quote from Wub [on legal issues] SRB2: It's complicated. Not okay with me personally by legal hunch. [...] I am not a lawyer. Not legal advice. No warranties. As you said, this is a hunch. My hunch is that we didn't do nothing wrong by implementing a piece of code that runs and communicates with someone else's software. Normally, companies will issue a C&D before taking legal action to court. Upon compliance with such C&D, the C&D'd party is left alone. I will not take any action until we have a direct request from the interested party (Sega). Blzut's patch can be merged as it is harmless and it makes it easy for anyone to redistribute the code without any of the plugins which is a good feature in overall and not just in regard to the potential legal issues it may or may not help to solve.

(0019913) WubTheCaptain (reporter) 2018-10-05 06:54	Okay, I finally had some time to read Zalewa's note. Fair point, though I personally still disagree. Blzut3's patch is reasonable, although out of scope for this ticket's summary – merging that patch does not mark this ticket as "fixed", since the SRB2 plugin would've not been actually removed from distribution. I'll create another ticket and assign it to Blzut3. (I expect this ticket to be closed in about a week from this resolution.)

This issue is already marked as resolved. If you feel that is not the case, please reopen it and explain why.
Supporters:	No one explicitly supports this issue yet.
Opponents:	Zalewa

Issue History
Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2018-09-22 23:07	WubTheCaptain	New Issue
2018-09-22 23:07	WubTheCaptain	Relationship added	child of 0003237
2018-09-22 23:08	WubTheCaptain	Relationship added	related to 0002540
2018-09-22 23:13	WubTheCaptain	Note Added: 0019672
2018-09-22 23:18	Blzut3	Note Added: 0019673
2018-09-22 23:35	WubTheCaptain	Status	new => acknowledged
2018-09-22 23:46	WubTheCaptain	Status	acknowledged => feedback
2018-09-22 23:51	WubTheCaptain	Priority	normal => high
2018-09-23 07:33	Zalewa	Note Added: 0019684
2018-09-24 00:20	Blzut3	File Added: optional-plugins.diff
2018-09-24 00:21	Blzut3	Note Added: 0019697
2018-09-24 15:47	Zalewa	Note Added: 0019702
2018-09-29 10:31	Zalewa	Note Added: 0019814
2018-09-29 10:31	Zalewa	Note Edited: 0019814	View Revisions
2018-09-29 10:33	Zalewa	Note Edited: 0019814	View Revisions
2018-09-29 13:16	WubTheCaptain	Status	feedback => new
2018-10-05 06:54	WubTheCaptain	Note Added: 0019913
2018-10-05 06:54	WubTheCaptain	Status	new => resolved
2018-10-05 06:54	WubTheCaptain	Resolution	open => no change required
2018-10-05 06:54	WubTheCaptain	Assigned To	=> WubTheCaptain
2018-10-05 06:55	WubTheCaptain	Assigned To	WubTheCaptain =>
2018-10-05 07:03	WubTheCaptain	Relationship added	related to 0003532
2018-10-13 19:01	WubTheCaptain	Status	resolved => closed
2018-10-13 19:01	WubTheCaptain	Assigned To	=> WubTheCaptain
2021-12-23 13:23	WubTheCaptain	Relationship added	related to 0003958