Drunken Clam

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A question......
« on April 12th, 2011, 09:41 AM »
So, after running my forum for getting on for 12 years, (it started on Wildcat!, then YaBB and has progressed through to SMF 2), I have now closed it, much to the displeasure of my members!

I just got so sick and tired; so sick and tired of all the bitching that has gone on at sm.org over the years. Waiting, (years!), for them to be innovative, to release a product that stood out, miles over all the competition, alas it was not to be. Until Arantor and Nao got together months ago to begin work on Wedge. What a breath of fresh air!

I have been following it's progress, as far as public viewing goes, on arantor.org, noisen.com, bryandeakin.com etc., since it's inception and can honestly say I am REALLY looking forward to its release!

I do intend starting a totally new forum and this forum will be with Wedge.

I have a question though.

I know Wedge cannot be released until SMF becomes an NPO and they release their 'Gold' version, but I have limited knowledge of the licensing issues etc.

So my question is this: During the transfer of SMF to an NPO, which seems to be taking an eternity, and the change of licence making it 'forkable', what is to stop them making further changes to the licence at changeover which would prevent it being forked?? (I really don't trust them!) What would happen to Wedge then??

As I said, my knowledge of licensing is limited so the above question(s) may be total bullshit and make me look a complete wanker!

It may also have been answered somewhere before, but I'm buggered if I can find it! I go to bed at night, wake up in the morning, and there have been a gazzilion posts to catch up on! (and that's just Arantor! ;) )

Ok, that's it.

As an aside, Nao, I have to commend you on your command of the English language, for a Frenchman, you put many of the English speakers postings on sm.org and elsewhere to shame!

Well done both, thanks and keep up the good work!

Nao

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Re: A question......
« Reply #1, on April 12th, 2011, 10:04 AM »
Hi!
Quote from Drunken Clam on April 12th, 2011, 09:41 AM
So, after running my forum for getting on for 12 years, (it started on Wildcat!, then YaBB and has progressed through to SMF 2), I have now closed it, much to the displeasure of my members!
Oh, I can understand them... :P
Quote
I just got so sick and tired; so sick and tired of all the bitching that has gone on at sm.org over the years.
What has it got to do with your users...?
Quote
Waiting, (years!), for them to be innovative, to release a product that stood out, miles over all the competition, alas it was not to be. Until Arantor and Nao got together months ago to begin work on Wedge. What a breath of fresh air!
:)
Quote
I know Wedge cannot be released until SMF becomes an NPO and they release their 'Gold' version, but I have limited knowledge of the licensing issues etc.
We could release it before they do (by using tricks to make it work in the current license), but it's not in anyone's interest. Really not.
Quote
So my question is this: During the transfer of SMF to an NPO, which seems to be taking an eternity, and the change of licence making it 'forkable', what is to stop them making further changes to the licence at changeover which would prevent it being forked?? (I really don't trust them!) What would happen to Wedge then??
First of all -- it's not in the SMF team's interest to change their mind. It has been discussed countless times here and elsewhere. (1) this would mean the death of SMF, because earlier developers agreed to sign a contributor license agreement on the condition that the license is changed to BSD, (2) the SMF team promised this -- and knowing how many times they screwed up in the past, would they change their mind now, it would be clearly by everyone as an attempt to screw us, and thus they'd rather kill their own software than admit they haven't been doing a thing on it in all these years, (3) whatever happens, we WILL release Wedge. If we can release it without breaking their license, we will (packaging Wedge as a super-mod that replaces all of the files with ours... Things like that), and if we can't, well, I'll just hire a lawyer and see what we can do.
Quote
It may also have been answered somewhere before, but I'm buggered if I can find it! I go to bed at night, wake up in the morning, and there have been a gazzilion posts to catch up on! (and that's just Arantor! ;) )
If only he could resume his work on Wedge instead of posting everywhere... :niark:
Quote
As an aside, Nao, I have to commend you on your command of the English language, for a Frenchman, you put many of the English speakers postings on sm.org and elsewhere to shame!
You know, once you learned Japanese, English seems like a peice of cake to master :P
Quote
Well done both, thanks and keep up the good work!
Was wondering when you'd come here eheh. Thanks for your post ;)

MultiformeIngegno

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Drunken Clam

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Re: A question......
« Reply #4, on April 12th, 2011, 11:12 AM »
Quote from Nao/Gilles on April 12th, 2011, 10:04 AM
Quote from Drunken Clam on April 12th, 2011, 09:41 AM
So, after running my forum for getting on for 12 years, (it started on Wildcat!, then YaBB and has progressed through to SMF 2), I have now closed it, much to the displeasure of my members!
Oh, I can understand them... :P
Quote
I just got so sick and tired; so sick and tired of all the bitching that has gone on at sm.org over the years.
What has it got to do with your users...?
Meh - absolutely nothing! To be honest, the forum had become very 'stale'. It was a very specific forum aimed a very specific group of people, (all ex Royal Navy), and we prided ourselves at being one of the more un-politically correct sites, where you could say absolutely anything and not be jumped on for 'hurting someones feelings'. It always made for very lively debate!!. Over the years, many people had drifted away and/or died and like I said, the place just got stale.

I'm sure many of them will return once I reopen with Wedge, it will still be un-politically correct, but will be open to anyone, not just ex Navy types. I'm currently searching for a suitable domain name.  :niark:
Quote from Nao/Gilles on April 12th, 2011, 10:04 AM
Quote
I know Wedge cannot be released until SMF becomes an NPO and they release their 'Gold' version, but I have limited knowledge of the licensing issues etc.
We could release it before they do (by using tricks to make it work in the current license), but it's not in anyone's interest. Really not.
Agreed.
Quote from Nao/Gilles on April 12th, 2011, 10:04 AM
Quote
So my question is this: During the transfer of SMF to an NPO, which seems to be taking an eternity, and the change of licence making it 'forkable', what is to stop them making further changes to the licence at changeover which would prevent it being forked?? (I really don't trust them!) What would happen to Wedge then??
First of all -- it's not in the SMF team's interest to change their mind. It has been discussed countless times here and elsewhere. (1) this would mean the death of SMF, because earlier developers agreed to sign a contributor license agreement on the condition that the license is changed to BSD, (2) the SMF team promised this -- and knowing how many times they screwed up in the past, would they change their mind now, it would be clearly by everyone as an attempt to screw us, and thus they'd rather kill their own software than admit they haven't been doing a thing on it in all these years, (3) whatever happens, we WILL release Wedge. If we can release it without breaking their license, we will (packaging Wedge as a super-mod that replaces all of the files with ours... Things like that), and if we can't, well, I'll just hire a lawyer and see what we can do.
Thanks for that, totally answered my question!  :cool:
Quote from Nao/Gilles on April 12th, 2011, 10:04 AM
Quote
It may also have been answered somewhere before, but I'm buggered if I can find it! I go to bed at night, wake up in the morning, and there have been a gazzilion posts to catch up on! (and that's just Arantor! ;) )
If only he could resume his work on Wedge instead of posting everywhere... :niark:
:eheh:
Quote from Nao/Gilles on April 12th, 2011, 10:04 AM
Quote
As an aside, Nao, I have to commend you on your command of the English language, for a Frenchman, you put many of the English speakers postings on sm.org and elsewhere to shame!
You know, once you learned Japanese, English seems like a peice of cake to master :P
:lol: - My son is fluent in Japanese and German, my daughter is fluent in French. I really don't know how they got to be so linguistic as I myself only speak English and bollocks!
Quote from Nao/Gilles on April 12th, 2011, 10:04 AM
Quote
Well done both, thanks and keep up the good work!
Was wondering when you'd come here eheh. Thanks for your post ;)
You're very welcome!  :cool:

Nao

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Re: A question......
« Reply #5, on April 12th, 2011, 11:38 AM »
Pete is busy on SimpleDesk these days, to be specific. And since he doesn't have plans to have it in Wedge by default, I don't consider this as WedgeWork :niark:

Being fluent in Japanese is easy: watch Japanese cartoons as a kid, and read about them (in my days, we didn't have the Interwebs to play with.) The sooner you learn a language, the easier it is to master it. I picked up Japanese at age 16 from reading books and such, and never quite got the hang of it. Enough to spend a few years as a professional manga translator, but it really was never my cup of tea. I never even set foot in Japan... And wouldn't!

I learned English at school at age 9 and never lost it. Although I never got the accent either. If you ever get to hear me do my job -- I'm like a talking cliché of a mime complete with beret and baguette. Well, except that you'd rather the mime not speak at all, in this case.

Snape

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Re: A question......
« Reply #6, on April 12th, 2011, 04:55 PM »
Apparently all that is holding up the license (if what is on sm.org is true) is one signature by one guy who's in the middle of a move.  Not sure how a move holds up signing a piece of paper and mailing it on, but one would think that could be resolved in a short period of time.

At this point, I feel the mod community over there is in a holding pattern waiting for the imminent 2.0.  Not many mods are being updated at this point and discussion has pretty much stalled except for the people who still haven't found the emulate option for installing mods that aren't up to the latest version spec.  I'm at the point where I need to upgrade to fix some specific mods, but one pivotal mod (option to replace inline images with links) seemed to magically stop somewhere between RC3 and RC4, so I'm stalled.  It's frustrating.

Arantor

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Re: A question......
« Reply #7, on April 13th, 2011, 04:40 PM »
Quote
one signature by one guy who's in the middle of a move.  Not sure how a move holds up signing a piece of paper and mailing it on, but one would think that could be resolved in a short period of time.
Hmm. Derek was never one of the easiest people to get hold of, and from what little I did see of him, he was pretty pro 'the establishment'.

Now, I remember the last time I moved house, and that was a mess for months with bureaucracy, so I can well believe the delay.

As for the mod community, yes, it is in mostly a holding pattern, on the basis that mods for RC3 don't really need much work for RC4+ normally.
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Nao

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Re: A question......
« Reply #8, on April 13th, 2011, 06:08 PM »
Quote from Arantor on April 13th, 2011, 04:40 PM
Hmm. Derek was never one of the easiest people to get hold of, and from what little I did see of him, he was pretty pro 'the establishment'.
He's the server guy, right? And that indirectly gives him the right to stall Wedge's release? ::)

Arantor

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Re: A question......
« Reply #9, on April 13th, 2011, 06:08 PM »
He's also one of the three LLC members. Thus his signature is needed, and there's been a hint that it also requires resignation from the LLC in the process...

Nao

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Re: A question......
« Reply #10, on April 13th, 2011, 06:12 PM »
<sigh>

If only they just went through the license change without actually waiting for the LLC->NPO transfer... There's really nothing preventing it.

Arantor

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Re: A question......
« Reply #11, on April 13th, 2011, 06:14 PM »
Except the legal ownership of it by the LLC; there's no reason for the LLC itself to make the change. It's complicated and messy and I'm too tired right now to go into the details but the phrase "over someone's dead body" probably comes into it somewhere.

Nao

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Re: A question......
« Reply #12, on April 13th, 2011, 06:16 PM »
Wasn't that "Over Wedge's body"? :P

Arantor

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Nao

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