Open source initiative

Well in this collective sense, then I agree with this entirely.

Many in the scene work on projects that most of us downright adore and can't stop playing, only to get the announcement that they no longer have the drive to work on it anymore. By that, I'm referring to many here that are behind well known hacks or are essentially famous in the community.

I often think, "All this hack needs is some of this added in or tweaked quickly and it'll be perfect for me." However, what I want in someone elses work doesn't ever go past a suggestion, except in the case of Tiddles who incorporated a good amount of things into S3C that I've suggested over time and for my favorite game too. But it becomes aggravating when you love someone's work and wish you could add something to it for your own enjoyment to get more out of it, but they couldn't care less about your opinion or least of all your needs.

I say this because I recently PM'd two people here who I'll say are among the best at what they do and have a high standing here. I contacted each of them with suggestion(s) for one of their older hacks that they quit on or left unfinished. To no surprise to me, they both ignored my question(s) and I strongly assume they also "unread" my PM to make it look like they never read it. Smart.

Anyway, most of all the hacks put out on Retro can use tweaking or adding to for their benefit, as well as for our enjoyment and appreciation there of. I would like to actually add to some works what their authors never thought of or fix the slew of bugs that people never bother fixing in their Sonic 1 and 2 hacks, which is inexcusable and annoying. I'm sorry that you can't take a few minutes of your time to go back and fix the spike bug (among others). No, I will not just deal with it. Put some integrity in your work and quit being lazy. People here obviously care about the hacks they're provided with and the hackers couldn't care less if they missed a couple things. Well I do, and if I want to fix something then I can and should be able to. If you want to act like L0st, then get lost.

 

I believe that Sonic hacks should be open source in general, but I also believe in respecting when another hacker does not want their content that they put time and effort into creating to be made public for anyone to use and edit however they want. I have released the source code for Knuckles' Emerald Hunt, but the public source does not include some of the music at the request of the authors.

I also make it a general rule to put the source code of new SADX and SA2 mods on my GitHub account, but nobody really cares about that.

 

What does that have to do with what I said...? I didn't say you weren't allowed to voice your views, and acting as if my disagreeing with you is somehow on the same level as that is downright insulting.

It seems like it to me, considering you push the point that 'you hack Sonic, so you shouldn't defend your code'. Not to mention this line:

Sounds to me like you're saying that the group at large should milk other people's work for all its worth, even against their will.

It's a necessary evil of any ROM-hacking group. There's no way around it (besides outright quitting, anyway). How is it a bad thing that we don't force the same evil on everyone else? Cool, it makes me a hypocrite. I'm more concerned with the fact I illegally break copyright law every day. At least it's only the one entity I'm doing it to, rather than every hacker here.

Correct me if I'm wrong, because I really don't want this to be true, but between these messages...

...you're telling us that, in order to morally-redeem ourselves, we should actively upset other hackers by exploiting their work for the greater good? Somehow I think that would make us even more morally-bankrupt than you make us out to be. That last line in particular has a lot of dangerous implications: I believe in mutual respect, but you'll only respect someone's wishes if they have the same views as you? Now, that is elitist.

I consider myself a pretty 'open source' guy: I've written more guides than I have hacks, I've given away sound drivers, made hundreds of commits to the Git disassemblies, and contributed to open-source tools and two open-source hacks. I'm well-aware of the benefits of giving away assets, and I think the benefits of sharing these things should be made known. But I don't think we stand for the same thing, here. As I've pointed out above, you don't seem to just be in it to recommend people share more of their work. You're actively denouncing people who don't, suggesting we do downright-heartless things to them, and then blame them for bringing it on themselves. You wouldn't just be hurting people who don't give back at all: you'd be hurting those who do, but just don't give back 'enough'.

 

I exclusively choose what happens to what I do.

If I don't want to share my work, that's my prerogative. It's not so much a matter of plagiarism as much as it is control over the work I've done. I want to have final executive say in what happens to that.

I have made information public, helped others, and worked with others, but that was at my descretion. I have nothing to owe to anyone.

 

No. Just... No. I did share stuff for such a long time and I always credited every single people who had help me in my hack during the almost 15 years that it's being worked, but as opposite of what I did, most from the stuff I shared were put in other projects but people persisted in use them without to at least to tell to the public I was the author or that I applied effort on the minutes, days or even the weeks I applied to create such thing. Not that I care about this too much, but if the sources or contents gets to be publics as you suggested in the main topic, at least the creators from some of the contents would be considered, in theory. But this doesn't happen in practice. So, that's why I think it's better to the people to share their work as open source only if they feel they have to do this. The more protected it is, the better it is.

 

I did not ignore your PM:



I went to Finland on the 5th of May to meet Natsumi for three weeks. I had only just got back on the 26th on Friday. I saw your PM and thought it would be an absolute delightful surprise for you, if I gave you a private ROM with the fixes in place that you suggested. I applied all but one of your suggestions, and then called it a night when I headed off to bed about midnight.

You closed the conversation before I had the chance to even see it =S

I don't ignore people, I know exactly how that feels. I remember the days of being blatently ignored by others like Tweaker. Knowing how that feels, you know that by ignoring people, all you can expect to achieve is a negative response and viewpoint. Don't get me wrong, I know you weren't to know that I was away in Finland, and I understand that. But you really shouldn't just assume the worst of something =(

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My verdict on source code is this:

It's MY source code, and I'll do what I want to do with it. Not you guys.

At the end of the day, I am the one with my own source code, the entire situation is in my hands, it's under my control, you do not have the power to make me do with my source code as you desire. Only I have that power. Your morals mean nothing to me, don't waste my time. I will share my code if and when I want to share it, when I am feeling in a good mood and generous, and you will do well to learn that.

 

Having made open source hacks, open source programs, and open source tools, I am very offended by your accusations and harsh language, and therefore I wish for your thread to be thrashed by the Retro staff. Oh, but while I wait for that to happen, I may as well as show you how your attitude is downright toxic.

Me, as a Professional Sonic Hacker™ in fact, do understand. It is quite simple actually; We wish to work on our projects, in secret, without people knowing too much, snooping through our code, or disrupting our work, so we can provide you with entertainment. And in fact, we often do the project to amuse ourselves before amusing you, so we are number 1, right? We wait until our project seems complete enough to us, before making a release, and giving people a full look into what we've accomplished. Then, we expect people to be surprised and interested in our works, critiquing, asking questions, doing videos, whatever. The ecosystem with many people is quite simply, that. Open source hacks don't fit the picture well, unless we are certain we don't want to work on them anymore. However, for many hackers, that point may never really come, they'll either keep working on it lazily, or put it into the "to-do pile". Some people will decide to forget about the project in favour of doing something else, whether it be a hack or some other kind of thing. People don't really have an incentive to release the source, ever. Thats why they don't.

One can only hope~

It could for some hacks. Think like, MegaMix. The hacks been on work for years, with minimal information given out, and they have been slowly building up the game on their spare time. Just imagine what would happen if some of this information got out. Oh wait...

Not often no. Aside from clueless kids with no taste using your code, most people would either do it by themselves, ask someone else to do it, or not bother. The only people who would really benefit, are people who don't quite know everything, but are willing to learn. They may get new ideas, tricks, techniques, and information from seeing open source projects. However, these people aren't too common really.

Few elitists would be doing amazing ASM hacks, and rest would be still be debating over whether its "pallet" or "palette". Just look at SMW community. Its ridiculous.

Are you unaware of linear time perhaps? It would not be where it was in 2005, it would just not be where it is currently.

Do you have access to this alternate timeline? //forums.sonicretro.org/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.png

Not a lot probably. The important pieces of open source and free-to-use stuff already has taken us quite far, what benefit would being able to take code from any hack give us? Repetitive hacks but in a different way. The people who run the show don't need the source codes of the most popular hacks to survive.

Au contraire!

Actually, with the Classics Hub, they actually kinda gave us permission to do whatever with their games. It is illegal sure, but SEGA ain't gonna sue anyone over this.

They aren't gonna sue us for using their disassemblies, surely? Not that they even could.

That's a very lofty assumption there. I am gonna award you 10 idiot points for that comment. Please be more mindful next time.

Maybe. I don't care though.

Please prove your claim. From where I am standing with this reply, I think it actually makes way more sense to do things closed-source than open source.

Go tell that to some FPS modding community or whatever, where that statement has more relevancy or truth behind it.

I will cling to my source as I like. Its my source, I made it. Fuck off trying to leech off of my work please, unless I specifically give you a permission to do so.

Never heard of derivative work that is closed source?

Aaaand here is where you show your true colors; You are an asshole! Damn right I have room to talk about "my" code! I wrote it! Sure, if I just changed few lines around the codebase and said "I wrote this game", then yeah, I'd be an idiot, but by the way I do hacks, most of the code changes are completely original code written by ME, it means I also OWN the code! If you are not happy with that, take it up with the courts. If someone disassembles my hack, and I was particularly pissy about that, I have the right to get angry with the person, or even sue them.

Too bad that humans by nature are possessive, and your shitty little post wont make a difference.

Too bad that you completely fail to see it...

PFFT HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH You think this community is about collaboration, cooperation, or sharing? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA GIMME A BREAK!

So?

OH, so we are the selfish and shortsighted ones now? Really? Look in the mirror mate...

Quite frankly, the way you are in this very post, seems more disgusting and arrogant to me, than everyone who think its "their code" are in this whole community.

Tell that to the thousands of hack who have highly abusable jumpdashes in them.

Wrong.

Wrong.

Yeah, 0.00000001% of hacks sure, rest, no. If someone is really promising and wants help on something, I will give. But you don't see these people often, so the point doesnt hold any weight to me.

Or how about you stop being such an idiot for once.

You seem a tad too optimistic here.

Give the people some secret government information that exposes them for doing something wrong, but could also help terrorists in some way? Surely thats less black and white as you lead on?

That's a very stupid statement you made. I am gonna award you 25 idiot points for that comment. Please be more mindful next time.

Again, you seem far too optimistic for no good reason here.

Well good for the Doom community then.

None of that is really relevant or applicable to Sonic community.

The way you worded your post does not in any way fit in with what you wrote here. In fact, you came down as very insultive and arrogant. You see, I am all for open source hacks. As noted, I've released one myself, and privately have shared sources to most of my hacks to various people. I release open source stuff to encourage people and to show them that they can do so without any bad consequences. The difference between you and me, is that I try to encourage people to do it, and you try to force them by telling them any other way is wrong and immoral.

 

In hindsight, that one line about disassembling others' hacks really threw me off. I thought you seriously wanted a free-for-all. Sorry about that. Not a fan of having words put in my mouth, either. On another note, I think we have different definitions of 'respect'. When I was referring to respecting others' wishes, I meant following them, not just thinking they're okay. I'm all for finding reasons stupid, too. I just don't think it's my call to defy them based on whether I agree or not, which I thought you were going for.

I was talking about reverse-engineering Sega's stuff. As a hacking group, we can't exactly avoid that.

That wasn't sarcasm, if that's what the issue is. I don't know why else that needed reaffirming. I've been aware of this 'bubble' we live in for quite a while.

 

You know how you can get the idea of open source hacks out there? By releasing source code for your own hacks. Everything else is just words.

 

You being opinionated does not make you appear toxic. What does is, you attempting to change how the community works based on flawed logic, and in fact trying to force people to act differently (or at least, to advocate such). The way I handled myself in the response is merely me being rather annoyed about what you said. If that is considered toxic, then it be so, I am a hypocrite, and such.

Your post makes it sound like you are. Remember, I am also not a mind reader, I can only work based on what I am given. I don't know you personally, either.

While yes, we would not be here without disassemblies, what I was mocking is how uncooperative this whole community actually is, and how little we work off of others work in the end.

False. Games are really different between genres. Often genres seem to define how the game is as a whole, in every aspect. Doom is nothing like Sonic 1.

I have personally seen so many great hacks just wither and get no attention, because some other hack that does something that people like took everyones attention at that point. I've seen this happen for 5 years now. I can't exactly give you any objective proof, because its not an objective matter.