Thanks Alloc, we all "appreciate" you nuking a major MP management mod.

[bobross]

@Alloc - you told us to start a new thread and @ you in it if we wanted you to read it, so here is mine.

I'm going to include the text that I see if I look at your recent posts page in your profile, because it makes the point better than I ever could:

I never thought I would ever do this ... but:
I strongly advise against using CPM!

As for why:

• I haven't checked in detail,
  

Sir, if you haven't checked in detail, then I suggest you shouldn't have opened your mouth until you HAD checked in detail. You're an employee of the company, your words have FAR more weight than the average poster, or even high-profile modder, could ever have. You have single-handedly destroyed a tool that was actively used and developed because YOU object, personally, to something about it, and couldn't be bothered to reach out to Prisma to discuss it with him FIRST. If you DID reach out to him to discuss it first, you damned well should've said so in the original post, along with any comments he made indicating he wasn't receptive - something I find extremely hard to believe would've been the case.

Again, whether you were speaking for yourself or The Pimps, your comments bear the official seal of disapproval whether they should or not. If you have a concern regarding licensing of your own work being violated, or your own work not being attributed by another, then the proper response is a private message, not a public shutdown.

I like and use your tools to manage my server, and I'm relatively new to using Prisma's CPM. It would appear I won't have much chance to continue using it moving forward because you chose to slap him down out of a clear blue sky. Your points may be valid, but that is completely beside the point. They read very much like you put no thought into presentation or reception by others, nor did you consider the consequences to the community as a whole when you chose your approach.

Speaking as someone who is a manager in IT, if one of my people had pulled this sort of stunt, they sure as hell would've had a nice long chat with me. I can hope someone's having it with you, and personally feel you should apologize to the community and Prisma for taking the route you chose. It's not that your concerns are unjustified, it's that you handled them in what could be the worst way possible.

Respectfully,

A random amateur server admin.

 

[Roland]

Alloc asked for further questions to be addressed to him in a separate thread so he could respond without derailing other threads. In that sense this thread doesn’t need to be reported but thanks to those who were concerned. Alloc is perfectly capable of defending his position but I do think bobross is grossly misrepresenting Alloc’s entire statement in that quote. The profile page cuts off the entire statement so I encourage any curious reader to go here to read the entire quote and not just the part bobross chose to share. Reading the entire post does give a more accurate view of what Alloc’s stance is and is definitely not what bobross is representing it to be. I get why he did it. It’s clever to take advantage of where the snippet happened to cut off the post. It’s just not truthful. But at least now everyone can follow the link and read the whole quote in context. (As well as a couple of clarifying follow up posts)

 

[Guppycur]

tldr; Alloc didn't like that the code was obfuscated and clearly had his (allocs) code in it as well, and merely posted that it was dangerous to run obfuscated code from a 3rd party source.

 

[xyth]

Right, and I still wholeheartedly stand by my comments that its very risky to load obfuscated code, and its very bad form to take someones code and not credit that person for their work.

 

[StompyNZ]

Oh please, don't make Prisma to be the victim here.

He was perfectly happy to screw over people using botman when he had a disagreement with Smeg, and decided to accuse me of stealing his code at the same time then obfuscated his code so that Smeg and I couldn't 'steal' his code anymore.

The solution is simple. If prisma wants to advertise his mods here then just don't obfuscate them... its not some top secret project worth millions we are talking about here. As you said he provides it for 'free' so why not also help others to learn from his code ?

 

[Obsessive Compulsive]

Hey, developer of ServerTools here. I can confirm Botman steals their code. They stole Prisma's code because I saw it and spoke with him before it ever existed in Botman. We were passing ideas and methods back and forth in private. In fact, the exact same errors from the original releases were copied and pasted directly in to Botman's code. I've read it and can confirm without a doubt it is stolen code with no credits given to the authors. That is the Botman way of things. Botman also uses a bunch of Servertools code and it is also copied and pasted. It has the exact same spelling errors from the original releases of those tools in the phrases still and 90% of the code is exactly the same as the original. You modified the randomness of a gimme command and refined one or two tools you stole. Almost all of them are exactly the same or changed by adding some more randomness to it. Nothing else was done. Where are the credits Smegz?

You just do not like Prisma.

Your rants and targeting of a fellow modder while stealing his work is pathetic. i will make sure to put you down and your project every chance I get just as you have been doing to Prisma. When someone from the exact same community you reside in is being targeted, you should help them as best you can, not steal their work and toss them under the bus but again... this is the Botman way of things is it not?

 

[bobross]

Alloc asked for further questions to be addressed to him in a separate thread so he could respond without derailing other threads. In that sense this thread doesn’t need to be reported but thanks to those who were concerned. Alloc is perfectly capable of defending his position but I do think bobross is grossly misrepresenting Alloc’s entire statement in that quote. The profile page cuts off the entire statement so I encourage any curious reader to go here to read the entire quote and not just the part bobross chose to share. Reading the entire post does give a more accurate view of what Alloc’s stance is and is definitely not what bobross is representing it to be. I get why he did it. It’s clever to take advantage of where the snippet happened to cut off the post. It’s just not truthful. But at least now everyone can follow the link and read the whole quote in context. (As well as a couple of clarifying follow up posts)

I will accept the validity of me not including a link to the full post in my original, but grossly misrepresenting is - in my opinion - EXACTLY what Alloc did. He did not investigate in detail, he did not contact the mod developer to discuss the issue (or if he did, he made no effort to indicate such), and instead chose to go into someone else's thread, a long-running thread that was used to announce updates for two separate but related mods, and chuck one of them in front of a bus. That's irresponsible behavior from a community member, but it's far, far worse when it comes from a dev and he should damned well recognize that fact.

I did not "grossly misrepresent" Alloc's statement, Roland. What I did was call him out on unprofessional behavior by a dev and challenged him to apologize for mishandling it. I in fact did not indicate that I had an opinion either way on whether he was right or wrong, and I don't know how much clearer I can be than "Your points may be valid, but that is completely beside the point." He could've been absolutely right in every particular and Prisma could've been the fount of all that is bad and evil in the gaming community, and Alloc STILL would've been in the wrong, because he handled it the wrong way.

[SIZE=15.68px]Sure his explanatory post moderates some of it - and therefore it should've been included in the original post, but it wasn't. And the post STILL should not have been made without attempts to rectify it before denouncing someone else's work to the community from the pulpit of Officialdom.[/SIZE]

 

[Roland]

Your opinion still stands. It was not moderated in any way. My goal was to provide the full context for your remarks which I did. People, who care, can make their own decision about whether they agree or disagree with your stance now based on the full transcript. I think you’re overblowing it and I definitely think Prisma over reacted and I think it all could have been better handled privately. That’s my opinion having read everything and talking to others. But that doesn’t negate your opinion. 
 

I think it is a sad occurrence in any case. I liked Prisma and felt he was a great member of the community. If he stays away forever he will be missed. 
 

Cheers

 

[Tin]

(Just my opinion)

Its just silly to think they wouldn't advise against using any program, that DOES have direct access to a person(s) network and Computer(s) connected to it. 

Isn't the advice against using programs like these, nothing more than them saying "they will not be held responsible", if anything does happen, if people choose to decide on use it?

*Not saying the author of the Tool will ofc*

All of you getting fo-offended over this, is just making it more than what it actually is. Its also makes people question, and start to 'wonder' even more, on why certain people are getting overly bent about something, that on the surface, is sound advice for a company to do.

(again imo)  

 

[Aurelius]

I will accept the validity of me not including a link to the full post in my original, but grossly misrepresenting is - in my opinion - EXACTLY what Alloc did. He did not investigate in detail...

Wrong. Go back and re-read what he posted about "not checking in detail." Hint - it's the licensing...

It's clear you don't understand the risks Alloc and others are pointing out, and it's also clear that you are idealoging for whatever reasons.

I'm 100% in agreement with Alloc and Xyth on this.

When Prisma's code injects a rootkit onto your server, just remember - you were warned.

-A

 

[Guppycur]

This is still going on?  

...alloc, warned against the dangers of installing obfuscated code on your PC.

Alloc has zero personal stake in the myriad of server mods other than his own, which Prisma freely lifted and used, and has not publicly (afaik) taken a side in whatever silly "Prisma vs xyz" wars that are being dragged into this.

Running code you don't have access to for a game mod is silly.  Period.  Personal feelings about the various authors doesn't change that.  It's dangerous *and* isn't very "community" oriented.

It's also highly ironic that code stealing is the topic for some, when code has been "borrowed" from and by every participant.  

...it's only prisma that's hiding it.

 

[Guest]

I in fact did not indicate that I had an opinion either way on whether he was right or wrong

Then why comment?

 

[StompyNZ]

Hey, developer of ServerTools here. I can confirm Botman steals their code. They stole Prisma's code because I saw it and spoke with him before it ever existed in Botman. We were passing ideas and methods back and forth in private. In fact, the exact same errors from the original releases were copied and pasted directly in to Botman's code. I've read it and can confirm without a doubt it is stolen code with no credits given to the authors. That is the Botman way of things. Botman also uses a bunch of Servertools code and it is also copied and pasted. It has the exact same spelling errors from the original releases of those tools in the phrases still and 90% of the code is exactly the same as the original. You modified the randomness of a gimme command and refined one or two tools you stole. Almost all of them are exactly the same or changed by adding some more randomness to it. Nothing else was done. Where are the credits Smegz?

You just do not like Prisma.

Your rants and targeting of a fellow modder while stealing his work is pathetic. i will make sure to put you down and your project every chance I get just as you have been doing to Prisma. When someone from the exact same community you reside in is being targeted, you should help them as best you can, not steal their work and toss them under the bus but again... this is the Botman way of things is it not?

Oh really? How about before you go throwing accusations of stealing you consider I have zero reason to even look at his code let alone steal it. I have a strong dislike of Prisma exactly because of such baseless accusations, if you keep this line of attack then ill give you the same.

 

[stallionsden]

Alloc asked for further questions to be addressed to him in a separate thread so he could respond without derailing other threads. In that sense this thread doesn’t need to be reported but thanks to those who were concerned. Alloc is perfectly capable of defending his position but I do think bobross is grossly misrepresenting Alloc’s entire statement in that quote. The profile page cuts off the entire statement so I encourage any curious reader to go here to read the entire quote and not just the part bobross chose to share. Reading the entire post does give a more accurate view of what Alloc’s stance is and is definitely not what bobross is representing it to be. I get why he did it. It’s clever to take advantage of where the snippet happened to cut off the post. It’s just not truthful. But at least now everyone can follow the link and read the whole quote in context. (As well as a couple of clarifying follow up posts)

yeh a few people seem to have this issue. not getting the full scope of what has been said and then go off on a tangent unfairly accusing the one party of wrong doing or only getting a small part of the whole picture.

in the end this is tfp game if they find a mod or something wrong it would only be on a save problem type base. Most modders live by an etiquette here and acknowledge use of and permission etc of work by others.

 

[stallionsden]

Hey, developer of ServerTools here. I can confirm Botman steals their code. They stole Prisma's code because I saw it and spoke with him before it ever existed in Botman. We were passing ideas and methods back and forth in private. In fact, the exact same errors from the original releases were copied and pasted directly in to Botman's code. I've read it and can confirm without a doubt it is stolen code with no credits given to the authors. That is the Botman way of things. Botman also uses a bunch of Servertools code and it is also copied and pasted. It has the exact same spelling errors from the original releases of those tools in the phrases still and 90% of the code is exactly the same as the original. You modified the randomness of a gimme command and refined one or two tools you stole. Almost all of them are exactly the same or changed by adding some more randomness to it. Nothing else was done. Where are the credits Smegz?

You just do not like Prisma.

Your rants and targeting of a fellow modder while stealing his work is pathetic. i will make sure to put you down and your project every chance I get just as you have been doing to Prisma. When someone from the exact same community you reside in is being targeted, you should help them as best you can, not steal their work and toss them under the bus but again... this is the Botman way of things is it not?

lmao knowing the creator your words fall on deaf ears. StompyNZ is one of the great modders and at no stage has any of his work been stealing that of others. I will go out on a limb here and state your made up cabaffle is an attempt to derail others great work.

your comment makes me believe that some truth has been hit by alloc and ya attempting to turn it around for what it is... I can confirm your opinion has no truth or substance and thus anything you say from here on with is null and void. As for you being a developer of server tools please let me know which tools these are so i never waste my time with such horrid and faulty work.

 

 

[Roland]

I’m going to go ahead and close this thread at this point because I don’t see anything productive other than a bunch of gossip and accusations. 
 

The OP directed his statement to Alloc and Alloc can still answer even if the thread is closed. 

 

[Alloc]

Hi,

first of all sorry for the delayed response, I opened this thread when I was mentioned but didn't want to answer on a weekend ...Simply forgot about it, my fault.

Also, thanks @bobrossfor following my request and not keeping Catalysm's thread busy with this

As for your points: I think it was already pointed out clearly enough that you purposely misquoted my post, I never said I didn't look at that stuff, only at the question about the licensing business. I'm neither a lawyer nor do I care enough about that part to be able to make a precise statement on that subject. All my other points are simple facts though.

Also I did not (so far) demand any action to be taken on the mod itself, I only made a statement that users could see to decide on their own if they wanted to run that mod. Even IF I had shut down advertising the mod on this platform it could have still been continued in other places. The posts made by users after mine made clear, that a lot would have simply ignored those facts, so it wouldn't have changed anything for those. The decision to drop the mod completely was Prisma's alone. IIRC not the first time he did so btw.

And he's actually been giving another reason for people not to start rely on closed source mods/tools: The author can decide at any point in time to just drop support (or even completely remove it), meaning no one can follow up on the work and everyone is screwed the same way. And that will happen sooner or later to any author, even if nothing "bad" happens, just because everyone will at some point lose interest in the game he build stuff for (afaik the Server Tools mod that's currently being run by Obsessive Compulsive is one such example, as I think I recall that being started by dmustanger at some point and taken over because he lost interest in it).

And no, I did not talk to him this time. I have learned enough about his attitude in the past to know it would have made no difference on this part, and his reaction just proves me to be correct. Unless you call someone pulling the "he's German, I'll call him a nazi" card to be reasonable...

As for the primary reason of this whole story: It's not like you said him "taking my code". I would have been sad about that fact if it was just that, but wouldn't have cared further. The reason I made my stuff open and reusable is so people can actually learn from it. We're mostly talking about the obfuscation, and I think a few people in here already gave pretty concise reasons on why that's a bad thing. The thing is: *If* a mod for any game does something bad people will blame the game dev company for it, not the mod author (or at least not only). Such things always fall back on the "platform" that enabled someone to do this crap. I'm not willing to give everyone a green card to be able to hide such stuff on their end.

@Obsessive Compulsive, @StompyNZ and @stallionsden: This wasn't about any other mods so far and especially not about who "stole" what. I actually doubt any of us never looked at other mods when working on their own. Even I did so sometimes, even though I think I can say that I did the first major API mod out there. It's just that we learn from others, and in the end this makes us get better. As long as it's not just ending up mods completely copying (parts of) other mods, thus providing no improvements for the users in the end. Ideally there would be less duplication of features and rather work spit up between modders, but I know that's never easy to get running in a community.

I will reopen this thread as I think it's only fair other being able to respond, but please keep it civil, especially when targeting each other. Think @bobross did a pretty good job at staying on a proper level of discussion here, so please don't start to completely derail it.

 

[stallionsden]

Hi,

first of all sorry for the delayed response, I opened this thread when I was mentioned but didn't want to answer on a weekend ...Simply forgot about it, my fault.

Also, thanks @bobrossfor following my request and not keeping Catalysm's thread busy with this

As for your points: I think it was already pointed out clearly enough that you purposely misquoted my post, I never said I didn't look at that stuff, only at the question about the licensing business. I'm neither a lawyer nor do I care enough about that part to be able to make a precise statement on that subject. All my other points are simple facts though.

Also I did not (so far) demand any action to be taken on the mod itself, I only made a statement that users could see to decide on their own if they wanted to run that mod. Even IF I had shut down advertising the mod on this platform it could have still been continued in other places. The posts made by users after mine made clear, that a lot would have simply ignored those facts, so it wouldn't have changed anything for those. The decision to drop the mod completely was Prisma's alone. IIRC not the first time he did so btw.

And he's actually been giving another reason for people not to start rely on closed source mods/tools: The author can decide at any point in time to just drop support (or even completely remove it), meaning no one can follow up on the work and everyone is screwed the same way. And that will happen sooner or later to any author, even if nothing "bad" happens, just because everyone will at some point lose interest in the game he build stuff for (afaik the Server Tools mod that's currently being run by Obsessive Compulsive is one such example, as I think I recall that being started by dmustanger at some point and taken over because he lost interest in it).

And no, I did not talk to him this time. I have learned enough about his attitude in the past to know it would have made no difference on this part, and his reaction just proves me to be correct. Unless you call someone pulling the "he's German, I'll call him a nazi" card to be reasonable...

As for the primary reason of this whole story: It's not like you said him "taking my code". I would have been sad about that fact if it was just that, but wouldn't have cared further. The reason I made my stuff open and reusable is so people can actually learn from it. We're mostly talking about the obfuscation, and I think a few people in here already gave pretty concise reasons on why that's a bad thing. The thing is: *If* a mod for any game does something bad people will blame the game dev company for it, not the mod author (or at least not only). Such things always fall back on the "platform" that enabled someone to do this crap. I'm not willing to give everyone a green card to be able to hide such stuff on their end.

@Obsessive Compulsive, @StompyNZ and @stallionsden: This wasn't about any other mods so far and especially not about who "stole" what. I actually doubt any of us never looked at other mods when working on their own. Even I did so sometimes, even though I think I can say that I did the first major API mod out there. It's just that we learn from others, and in the end this makes us get better. As long as it's not just ending up mods completely copying (parts of) other mods, thus providing no improvements for the users in the end. Ideally there would be less duplication of features and rather work spit up between modders, but I know that's never easy to get running in a community.

I will reopen this thread as I think it's only fair other being able to respond, but please keep it civil, especially when targeting each other. Think @bobross did a pretty good job at staying on a proper level of discussion here, so please don't start to completely derail it.

Thanks Alloc

Yeh I understand but took exception to the false accusations of a member in regards to another member who is highly appreciated and respected.

 

[KrazyKrampus]

Oh this is fantastic, finding this thread. Looks like a little of pot calling the kettle black. Everyone, and I truly mean everyone in this modding community (including @StompyNZ) I think you need to calm down stop taking open source 'theft' things so personally. I'm not condoning it, since for the record I want to say that I am not impressed with the actions of this Prism fellow either. Obfuscating/encrypting code for no real good reason or benefit to the public goes against the best interest in the community. There's a lot of child's play in the software engineering community, that I know for sure. I can see all points of this issue. Bottom line is, you open something up to the community, and if you especially license it as something that does not require attribution, and then taketh that away from the community, I can't have an honest ounce of respect. Is your pride hurt that much by someone 'stealing code'? I mean let's be real here, the *real* producers are going to be recognized in the community, regardless of what a few want to do to our stuff.

Take the higher road, don't hurt the rest of the community by doing stunts like closing off source and access to a publicly and potentially community supported mod. This goes for open source software in general. If every goddamn open source developer on GitHub decided they were cheated because someone 'stole their work', the open source community would be a pretty lonely place and you wouldn't have a lot of the great tools at your disposal like you do today.

And yeah, I find the response on the issue I raised with your own Server Management mod a little bit, immature. It _is_ an abuse of GitHub to use their resources for serving content and then double-down with this type of response. You say the project is "discontinued" but you are fixing this thing? Wouldn't it be easier to redirect your efforts to work on this new project instead of stripping away the source code to a project where the community can make the improvements?

I can't be the only one who feels this way either. At least, I would hope not. That's not how progress is made on projects, especially those denoted as open source. I'm quite disappointed with the closed mindedness of the "highly respected members" of the mod community that 7 Days has seemed to attract. I love this game and its modding extent and to see some of the senior modders in this community take things so personally with regard to attribution, and then hurt the rest of the community by pulling regressive publicity stunts is disheartening. So while @bobrossmay have taken this out of context, I'm a bit on his side with this matter and I can see his POV above all the others.

 

[KrazyKrampus]

Also for the record, I am also a software engineer myself by trade. There's a reason I don't work at gaming companies that go beyond the scope of simple mobile apps: it's the toxicity that the entire game community brings to the table like that seen in a lot of these childish threads. At a certain point, do people know how to grow up and contribute to the community for the greater good, or are just stuck on their pride and flame wars on the Internet? I mean, it's what, 2020 now? Let's all take the higher road. Really. Let's.

To quote @bobross: "It's not that your concerns are unjustified, it's that you handled them in what could be the worst way possible." this is spot on. And the attitude that needs to cease in a lot of my fellow peers' minds with regards to how to handle personal attacks or pride.

Moderator note: personal attacks are explicitly against forum rules and should be reported.