Source management and Licensing for Mods

[Gandalf]

@Cooolaid:
Like ratchetfreak explained, the source of all mods is available within the mod itself. Lua is a scripting language, you can just open the zip-files and read them. What I explained in the opening post is, that this is very tedious and there are more convenient ways to make your code accessible.

So the issue isn't getting the code, but rather being legally allowed to update/change/use/re-publish it. People have to explicitly allow it, usually via a standard licence.

Now, you say enforcing the use of open licences will solve this and that mods without a licence hurt the community. However in most cases the opposite is true. One of the key reasons why there are so many mods for Factorio (and similar games) is that they are very easy to make. The Forums offer a simple way to share them, even if they aren't exactly fit for the purpose. Basically any idiot can throw something together and upload it. And that is important! If this whole process gets complicated by enforcing the use of licences, making code accessible etc. modders will just not publish their mods on the forums anymore! They may find a different platform or just keep them for themselves. So instead of some outdated mods there will just be less mods altogether.

Also bear in mind that just because it is possible (and legal) for a third person to update a mod doesn't mean it'll actually happen. Popular mods sure, but the odd old mod that barely anybody uses…?

Like @Bisa said, the right way to do it is to educate people, tell them why they should use licences and publish their sources in an accessible way. And that is exactly why I opened this thread.

[Blu3wolf]

Mods without a license does hurt the community. Id offer KSP as a good example where the benefits of requiring a license (not necessarily any specific one, just that one is specified) outweigh the slightly raised entry bar.

Id say you should bear in mind that if its not legal for a third person to update a mod, it might happen, but its certainly a lot less likely than if it is legal for them to do so.

I would say the forum rules should require that any mod posted requires a license attached, and leave it up to the poster to pick one somewhere in between ARR and WTFPL (pretty broad spectrum that).

[Bisa]

While opinions differ - here's mine;

Posting a mod, a program, a picture - whatever really, without an explicit license, in legal terms always defaults to a "don't use or redistribute this"-license.
I agree with Gandalf, while it should not be a requirement I also want to point out that encouraging mod authors to pick a license by adding it as a field when submitting mods is a good way to spark the interest needed for un-initiated authors to discover licensing - I do not feel it's a required field but it can definitely be strongly encouraged.

[bobingabout]

Long story short.

If there was an official tag/file designation so that the license information apeared in game, I would use it.

While there isn't, I likely won't bother.

[daniel34]

Posting a mod, a program, a picture - whatever really, without an explicit license, in legal terms always defaults to a "don't use or redistribute this"-license.

Bisa has taken this very seriously:

Hey, rso-mod author has posted an update (1.3.4) , and the old version on your server (1.3.3) isn't available anymore.

Nobody can join until you update the mod or make the file available for download....

I cannot legally make the file available for download I'm afraid

I like to give people an easy installation method for all the mods my dedicated server is using, in one quick .zip-download that contains all the mods. When I added Bob's mods to my server I specifically asked him per PM if that was ok, which he agreed to. Later, I added FARL, which states the license as tbd [to be determined]. I didn't ask the developer for the rights to use this in my zip-Package, because I felt that linking to the forum topic and delivering the file as-is with no changes should be alright.

I don't know the legal precedence for that and I guess it depends on country-specific laws. But I think mirroring mods or adding them to a combined modpack, while still acknowledging the original authors with links to the source (like the original forum post), should be sufficient for every mod not having an actual license agreement.
Should the mod have a license agreement that states that reproduction (mirroring, copying, putting in a modpack) is not allowed, I would refrain from doing that, of course.

[keyboardhack]

I don't know the legal precedence for that and I guess it depends on country-specific laws. But I think mirroring mods or adding them to a combined modpack, while still acknowledging the original authors with links to the source (like the original forum post), should be sufficient for every mod not having an actual license agreement.

According to
https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... le=Modding
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... nse#p49122

Then every mod that doesn't explicitly state its own license has the default license which is Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

[TechedZombie]

So.... In regards to licensing is there any format we need to follow or just clearly state what how our work is to be used/distributed/

[Supercheese]

So.... In regards to licensing is there any format we need to follow or just clearly state what how our work is to be used/distributed/

Optimally you would choose an existing license such as the GNU GPL or one of the Creative Commons Licenses.

[mazetar]

If you are unsure about what licence to use check out this awesome page:
http://choosealicense.com
Should have something for everyone

Ps:
Using github is dangerous, It's so easy to get addicted to pushing code

[Gandalf]

So.... In regards to licensing is there any format we need to follow or just clearly state what how our work is to be used/distributed/

Ideally you should use one of the popular licenses (GPL, MIT, Creative Commons, …) since those were written by lawyers who specialize in international copy right. It makes things a lot easier for both you and others to rely on a well known document.
All common licenses are available as simple text files. You simply copy that file into the same folder where your lua source code is (typically the file is named “LICENSE”).

Additionally you can add a comment at the top of each of your source files where you state the license and usually add a link to the license file on the web. This is not strictly necessary but it makes things easier for people who want to use only a small part of your code.
Here's an example of how a typical source file header comment looks:

Code: Select all

-- This file is part of <project name> - a mod for Factorio (http://www.factorio.com/)
-- @author <your name or pseudonym>
-- @license GPL v3 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt)

[Blu3wolf]

Its probably also worth noting that Creative Commons do not recommend the use of their licenses for Software, either. Its not prohibited, but they are written with more physical things in mind.

[Impatient]

nicely written.

and yes, i fully support the call for using a version control system, preferably git, when one develops something. if you are a newcomer to modding and programming, you might not have the resources to explore git at the same time. version control might seem complicated and obsucre. but somewhen, and better sooner than later, you have to get into version control. as written before, you yourself, besides everyone else, will profit hughely by doing so. preferably get into version control, before you publish the first version of your mod. at the latest you will value it after the inevitable first bug report.

[Hellaciouss]

Pardon my ignorance but I have a few questions.

For me, I just mod for fun, all this licencing crap to me is confusing and seems dumb (to me). I just like to do random stuff, I don't expect to ever get payed for it. I do it to add things into the game I feel should be in the game, or make balancing adjustments. I then openly share those changes with people who might think it's cool. Why should someone like me care what licence to use or even care about licensing? It seems like a huge headache that I'd rather avoid.

Secondly, GitHub. This also seems like a huge headache to me. It looks like a bunch of extra stuff I have to do that I'd also like to avoid. I do this for fun, not to be super serious about all the etiquette super serious modders follow. Why should someone like me care about it? Why should I go through all the extra headaches when I can just make changes to the code on my computer and eventually upload the updated mod with a readme of what was changed?

Just to demonstrate, this is confusing as hell to me and it's the first page I'm greeted with upon making a GitHub:



or (since the image doesn't seem to want to show)

http://m.imgur.com/zRt293H

Erm, yeah, not new-user friendly at all.

[kiba]

Pardon my ignorance but I have a few questions.

For me, I just mod for fun, all this licencing crap to me is confusing and seems dumb (to me). I just like to do random stuff, I don't expect to ever get payed for it. I do it to add things into the game I feel should be in the game, or make balancing adjustments. I then openly share those changes with people who might think it's cool. Why should someone like me care what licence to use or even care about licensing? It seems like a huge headache that I'd rather avoid.

In the absence of a license, people like me assume that you did not give permission to share or modify, update, or distribute your code. Perhaps I am being overly paranoid, but I am a sticker for rules.

And it's very easy to pick a license once you understand what you want. Just stick a boilerplate of copyright text into your source code.

Secondly, GitHub. This also seems like a huge headache to me. It looks like a bunch of extra stuff I have to do that I'd also like to avoid. I do this for fun, not to be super serious about all the etiquette super serious modders follow. Why should someone like me care about it? Why should I go through all the extra headaches when I can just make changes to the code on my computer and eventually upload the updated mod with a readme of what was changed?

First, it is Proper Coding(TM).

Second, git is like a backup of every single modification you ever made to your codebase, ever, making it almost impossible to lose changes. You can also keep track of changes you made to your codebase and why you made those changes, and if necessary, revert changes.

Third, it allowed people to collaborate on code in a scalable way, making it easy to apply changes and resolve conflicting code. You may be fine as a single individual, but not so fine when you need to work with multiple of people.

Fourth, once you learned how to use github and git, it's also second nature. Easy as breathing. Much easier than writing code and debugging it, in fact.

Trust me, They are not headaches.

[Blu3wolf]

Well, without a license, you aren't sharing your work, and it isnt Open.

A license is some form of permission you give others to use your work. An obvious example is when you download a program to use on your computer. Usually there is an End User License Agreement included in the installer, which tells you what you can and cannot do with the software.

If you, the modder, release your work on the forums, and say to people they can do literally whatever they want with it,you have licensed the mod - all rights waived. If you put the mod on your website, automatically all rights are reserved - specifics depending on where you live. If you post it on the forum sans a specific license, forum policy says your work is licensed under a CC-BY-NC 4.0 license.

Licenses are important becuase they give your users an understanding of whats okay to do with your work. They also give users a set of rights so long as they follow the license requirements, which is important for anyone creating derivative work - assuming your license permits that.

[golfmiketango]

Pardon my ignorance but I have a few questions.

For me, I just mod for fun, all this licencing crap to me is confusing and seems dumb (to me). I just like to do random stuff, I don't expect to ever get payed for it. I do it to add things into the game I feel should be in the game, or make balancing adjustments. I then openly share those changes with people who might think it's cool. Why should someone like me care what licence to use or even care about licensing? It seems like a huge headache that I'd rather avoid.

Secondly, GitHub. This also seems like a huge headache to me. It looks like a bunch of extra stuff I have to do that I'd also like to avoid. I do this for fun, not to be super serious about all the etiquette super serious modders follow. Why should someone like me care about it? Why should I go through all the extra headaches when I can just make changes to the code on my computer and eventually upload the updated mod with a readme of what was changed?

Just to demonstrate, this is confusing as hell to me and it's the first page I'm greeted with upon making a GitHub:



or (since the image doesn't seem to want to show)

http://m.imgur.com/zRt293H

Erm, yeah, not new-user friendly at all.

Unfortunately there is only one way to find out if you will enjoy this particular food and that is to try eating it. Sounds like you've already decided that you don't like it, which is fine, you are free to refuse to try whatever you want!

[kiba]

Unfortunately there is only one way to find out if you will enjoy this particular food and that is to try eating it. Sounds like you've already decided that you don't like it, which is fine, you are free to refuse to try whatever you want!

He's willing to learn how to mod factorio than learn how to use git? What the hell, man?

Seriously, learning modding is much harder than learning git and github, especially if you want to do anything particularly interesting. Git and github only looked scary.

Dude has no excuse.

[Supercheese]

Seriously, learning modding is much harder than learning git and github, especially if you want to do anything particularly interesting.

It most certainly is not. Figuring out basic data.lua modding (adding new recipes, items, entities) is far easier than learning any VCS, much less a distributed one like Git.

[kiba]

Seriously, learning modding is much harder than learning git and github, especially if you want to do anything particularly interesting.

It most certainly is not. Figuring out basic data.lua modding (adding new recipes, items, entities) is far easier than learning any VCS, much less a distributed one like Git.

Disputable. Even adding entities was 'difficult' for me as I have to learn to decipher the errors and figure out what I did wrong when the training wheel went off.

Using git day to day is a rather straight forward business. Git diff, git commit, and git status are my most command, along with a git push. And compared to SVN and CVS, they're not even terribly difficult.

Puzzlement and general confusion is part of the overall process of modding, but not for using tools like git.

[Blu3wolf]

Seeing as github desktop let's you mess around with git without seeing a line of code for commands, its pretty easy to get into. Of course you dont learn how git works if you do that, but it works pretty well with github. Right up until the first merge conflict anyway.