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Fork discussion at SMF
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Nao

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #15, on August 17th, 2011, 12:11 AM »
A quick one though... (I'm late IRL so I'll be gone after this.)
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=446856.msg3137769#msg3137769

Thanks for the thumb up. :D However, Angelina, the code you see on Wedge.org is *not* running Wedge. It's specified in the FAQ. But lucky for you, it is true that the resizing code that is in Wedge, is taken from the code I wrote for Noisen.com (the website that served as the starting point for the Wedge.org website, NOT for the Wedge project.) So, yes, Wedge.org pretty much already demoes that for you.
I improved it, nevertheless, like I always like to do -- made it even shorter, slightly faster, and a bit more dependable.

Still, the font size is too small in Wedge.org when viewing it on a smartphone. And avatars are still on the side. Font size changing is done in Wedge (it only takes one line of code), but I'm also planning to move avatars and userboxes to the vertical flow, i.e. above the posts themselves. The point here is that topics should be very readable on smartphones, out of the box. I can't take bets for the other forum pages, though -- my focus was on topic pages really.

PS: permission to reproduce this post on sm.org if need be.

Arantor

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #16, on August 17th, 2011, 01:28 AM »
Just read the reply from Motoko as well, nothing short of what I would expect from him, pointing out that as we're not open source, we shouldn't be being discussed there...

In some ways I wish the board hadn't even been created because then the defence of 'we don't discuss competition' would at least have been honest, as opposed to what we have currently which is 'we allow discussion of specific competition but not Wedge because they're hardasses who won't let us use their work.' Think about that for a moment. No-one stopped to ask why we're not open source, as ever, never let the facts get in the way of a good rant.
Posted: August 17th, 2011, 12:20 AM

Mind you, they have made a list of forks and Wedge is present on it, but unlinked. This, I guess, is at least the most credible and honest demonstration I've seen yet to their apparent commitment to friendly competition.

Still doesn't change much though. It feels like there is an attempted guilt trip going on.
When we unite against a common enemy that attacks our ethos, it nurtures group solidarity. Trolls are sensational, yes, but we keep everyone honest. | Game Memorial

AngelinaBelle

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I'm an SMF doc writer.

Arantor

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #18, on August 17th, 2011, 01:46 AM »
I didn't say there was. I just said that from where I'm standing, it does feel like it - even if there actually isn't and it is totally unbiased and sticking totally to the facts, though that statement about a cordial invitation felt rather loaded...
Posted: August 17th, 2011, 01:44 AM

OK, here's a thought.

Do you, AngelinaBelle, personally and without any representation on behalf of the SMF team, understand why it is that we're so upset generally as to work on Wedge, and why we are so against using BSD at this time?

(And no, the Wedge licence is not "unclear". It is the original SMF licence, with the names changed. Oh, and a clause to prevent two specific jackasses from using the software, because they have demonstrated admirably that they are unpleasant to ever deal with.)

AngelinaBelle

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #19, on August 17th, 2011, 03:07 PM »
Sorry if the invitation felt loaded. It would have been rude, since you were musing about an open license, to have left you out. Perhaps it is rude to make an invitation with conditions, and incorrect to term it "cordial". Were I Miss Manners, I surely would have done better.

Arantor

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #20, on August 17th, 2011, 03:15 PM »
I was musing about going CC instead of BSD. But as I have said more than once here, we will go BSD (or possibly CC) once we are ready.

There's never been any question that we're going to go to a true open source licence at some point, as has been said REPEATEDLY.[1]

In other words, we'll go BSD when we're ready and when it means that the team can't just ransack all our ideas and effort like they have done so many times before.

After all, this is the same team that wanted to take the SimpleDesk project over without even actually asking me first, how do you think I feel about that, exactly? Given that SD now equates to something 1/5 the size of SMF, that's an awful lot of code ownership I'd be giving up for their benefit.[2]
 1. Small wonder I'm really fucking pissed off because it seems that more than one person in the team seems to have selective reading difficulties because they can only read what they want to see, not what's actually written.
 2. The fact that I made it clear that they're welcome to do with SD as we did with Wedge was curiously overlooked, especially given the fact that otherwise it would actually pretty much compel me to become an NPO member if I wanted any say in how what I'd spent 6 months, often dawn till dusk, working on. Somehow I don't think so.
Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #21, on August 17th, 2011, 04:15 PM »
One thing I want to add. I have been advised that the stated intent of the forks board and the wording of the rules posts was not to wind us up, but that it was an honest attempt to encourage open source work.

I have been advised this by someone who is currently on the team, who is not involved in the public discussions on either side and who has shown me more willing to listen to my concerns and actually see where I'm coming from, even if they do not agree, they at least take the time to see it from my point of view.

Now, this person assures me that it was done in good faith to encourage open source, and I believe them. Said person has expressed a distinct interest for the mudslinging to end - on both sides, not just from us - and made sure as best they can that this is the purpose in which this was carried out, and I respect that.


So, I'm calling for a line to be drawn in the sand on this point. I recognise that the team have made an honest attempt for them to actually accept forks as not being competition in the original sense of the word, but as stablemates from which they can learn things, and that the forks can learn something from it. We've learned a great deal about SMF in this process, some of it rather good when you think about it.

I recognise that the way it came about wasn't intended as a dig at us, but that it came across that way because we're biased. I also recognise the fact that they have been civil towards us, if not entirely respectful in appearance, and I would urge any members thinking of posting to consider very carefully what your motives are in doing so.

As has been noticed, this is a step forwards for SMF. It's not a huge step, it's not as big as I would have liked, but it IS a step forward, even if it was a bit of a stumble. Please don't try and undo their work on this, because it does have the potential to go somewhere.

The team do not understand why we are so reticent at giving back. I doubt they ever will understand, but that's not our problem. I also doubt we fully understand their view, I am advised that the general view is that they did nothing wrong to deserve being forked - but that view IS changing, and for the better. It must be, since they're not treating forks like dissidents. We are being singled out but not because it's us - it's because we have taken the bold step of stepping back on the licence, and like it or not, the old SMF licence isn't open source - and they're honestly trying to encourage actually open licensed creations.

I am given to understand that when we become BSD or similar, we will be treated equally, and I want to believe, but for all the crap going on about it, I would ask the people concerned to take a moment to understand why we don't want to give back. We feel we already paid any 'debt' in advance, and now you're asking us to pay again. We will give back to anyone who wants what we've done, but only when we're ready to do so.

Dismal Shadow

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Aaron

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #23, on August 17th, 2011, 05:53 PM »
Very pleased to read this, Pete. :) I really do hope it all works out.
"The entire British Empire was built on cups of tea … and if you think I'm going to war without one, mate, you're mistaken."

AngelinaBelle

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Nao

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #25, on August 17th, 2011, 08:46 PM »
Okay... So I'll read and answers these posts in order, and merge all of my double-posts. Hopefully I'm not too redundant.
Quote from Arantor on August 16th, 2011, 07:42 PM
Technically Wedge has the *old* licence, not BSD.
We never said it in public, though. We said it countless times in the private boards, but I forgot to mention the exact license choice when I wrote the FAQs.

So, yes, Wedge has a license that is 95% the old SMF license. It also adds a special clause (informally called our 'hall of shame').
Quote
Just one more thing: they knew full well neither of us could post over there anyway, which does make it a farce;
Well, I suppose it shouldn't stop other Wedge Friends from discussing it over there and answering questions. I completely trust they'll do their best. Wedge is not Arantor/Nao-centric... Wait, or is it? :lol:
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Nao is post banned, I don't have an account, and if I did, the odds are it would be a shared account which would then be seen as circumventing a ban and subsequently banned in itself.
They never banned the 'SMG Team' account, even though I have access to it (it's a Dragooon+Nao shared account.)
I never used it after I was banned, though... I tend to respect bans, you see. I didn't post at sm.org for fun. It will like an unpaid job for me. If they don't want me to work for them, then why I force them? I'm just using my work for my own self now...
Posted: August 17th, 2011, 08:28 PM
Quote from Jeff Lewis on August 16th, 2011, 08:07 PM
Quote from Arantor on August 16th, 2011, 08:02 PM
So, are they going to unban Nao so he can participate then?
Well, I am clearly not a team member over there but I can certainly poke around and see what's up. Also, sent you guys a PM.
Bah. That's never going to happen... Even with vblamer gone from the team, the forum still has him and Akyhne slacking around. Flame war potential: explosive. Even I am not interested in wasting my time like this.
Posted: August 17th, 2011, 08:30 PM
Quote from Arantor on August 16th, 2011, 08:38 PM
We are using the SMF licence that the team declared was in their view an open source licence, and for us to be decried as not open because of that seems to me to be a double standard.
Still no official answer on that innit...? ::)
Quote
The reason for the switch to BSD was not because 'it's a good idea'. The team didn't exactly have a lot of choice in that discussion and had the choice not been forced on them by the original copyright holders, I doubt the team would have moved to BSD until the next version of SMF.
They never would have. Back in February 2010 everyone said no. Phoenix/Jaelta was born (and died, as all phoenixes do) out of this, as BSD. It was really a legal loophole that forced them to go BSD... But they tried the make the best of it, I'll give them that. I just don't wanna hear things like "the SMF team was very much excited to go BSD". Over their dead body, sure. It happened that way and they learned to live with it.
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Anyway, that's beside the point. The fact is you've made it pretty clear that non open source works are not welcome even when they would completely and in all meaningful ways comply with the licence as stated. The fact that we have chosen not to go to a true open source licence is to protect our investment of time from being abused by a group of people that were more than happy to make use of our contributions all the time we were contributing them but were stonewalling us as soon as the contributions stopped flowing.
And may I point out that, had we not initially said that we weren't going BSD, we would have been linked to in their boards? Is this we get 'thanked' for not deceiving anyone...?
Technically we haven't released anything, and we're still the ones who have to 'prove themselves'.
Reminds me a bit of xantSpell announcing a release, and vBullshit waiting to file a suit, just because they were upset about their ex-star developer trying to give them their change back...
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Never mind that Nao worked on the single most popular mod for SMF in its history.
(And still is, despite me discouraging its use :P)
Posted: August 17th, 2011, 08:38 PM
Quote from Arantor on August 17th, 2011, 01:28 AM
Just read the reply from Motoko as well, nothing short of what I would expect from him, pointing out that as we're not open source, we shouldn't be being discussed there...
He's a pretty funny guy... Oh, and we fought a few months ago about whatever was I don't remember and don't care about. So, you can put him into the "anti-Wedge" category. He probably never even read our feature list... He's just anti-us. I admit I don't give a damn, though. Every time I read one of his posts, he's bitching about something.
Quote
Mind you, they have made a list of forks and Wedge is present on it, but unlinked. This, I guess, is at least the most credible and honest demonstration I've seen yet to their apparent commitment to friendly competition.
At least it shows a small dose of realism.

If they're gonna have a fork board, Wedge is bound to be discussed there -- because it has the longest history, because many ex-SMF teamies are in our team (and those who are still friends with them will push for Wedge to be allowed to be discussed openly), and simply because it is what it is. The SMF team did us a lot of wrongs-- if they don't sympathize with us eventually, they'll only make things worse in the future.
Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #26, on August 17th, 2011, 10:28 PM »
Quote from Arantor on August 17th, 2011, 01:46 AM
Do you, AngelinaBelle, personally and without any representation on behalf of the SMF team, understand why it is that we're so upset generally as to work on Wedge, and why we are so against using BSD at this time?
We didn't work on Wedge because we were upset ;)
We did team up together because we understood each other after we'd both been screwed by both the SMF team and vblamer. You wanted to create your own forum system from scratch, and I wanted to take a shot at forking Wedge, which you eventually agreed to do. So the original goal wasn't even to fork SMF. It was simply to do something together that would be free from the stupid rules at SMF. The fact that it became apparent around the same time that SMF was going to go BSD, was the main thing that convinced us to do a fork instead of our own thing.
A year later, I can confirm it was the right choice, because what we have right now is a state of the art forum system that really stands against the commercial competition. It will probably need an extra year of work to outdo them, but we've left SMF behind, and you can really see the effort we put into Wedge -- it transpires from everywhere, from the first contact to every little detail here and there. We made it our own and it's got its own philosophy. One which happens to be incompatible with SMF because we wanted to explore directions SMF was unlikely to ever take.

Now, if SMF wants to get a piece of Wedge's code, legally and everything, they can just take it from Nightwish's fork. Not that his fork uses any of our code -- but it seems pretty obvious to me that he shares many aspects of our visions, trying to improve the UI and make the forum run faster. He implemented things differently, but if SMF was to follow his lead, I suspect there would be no reason for SMF to want to take from us at all.
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(And no, the Wedge licence is not "unclear".
I admit it was. Not to our Friends, but to the general public it was. It just said it wasn't going to be BSD.
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It is the original SMF licence, with the names changed. Oh, and a clause to prevent two specific jackasses from using the software, because they have demonstrated admirably that they are unpleasant to ever deal with.)
I'm tempted to add a third jackass to the list, but only as a joke... She made a fool of herself enough by now, there's no point in adding insult to injury :lol:
I particularly like the second post. In case any of you didn't follow (and none of you saw our recent PM exchange), she was addressing me and Pete in particular over our refusal to implement threaded view in Wedge. I confirmed to her by PM that I had found ideas that might allow me to implement threaded view and I'd like to try and do that in the future, if only as a test -- and she basically told me to screw myself, it was too late etc... :^^;:
You know -- as if it was an *honor* to have her scream at us constantly on our boards. Sure, we're into that ;)
Quote from AngelinaBelle on August 17th, 2011, 03:07 PM
Sorry if the invitation felt loaded. It would have been rude, since you were musing about an open license, to have left you out. Perhaps it is rude to make an invitation with conditions, and incorrect to term it "cordial". Were I Miss Manners, I surely would have done better.
I think your manners are very nice vis-à-vis your antagonistic position on this topic[1]. Some at SMF would do well to learn from your manners.
Heck, *I* would do well to learn from your manners. But then again, I'm not particularly well known for my people skills. ;)
 1. Sometimes, I'm so full of myself, I'll write complicated sentences. Don't bother.
Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #27, on August 17th, 2011, 10:51 PM »
Quote from Arantor on August 17th, 2011, 04:15 PM
I have been advised this by someone who is currently on the team, who is not involved in the public discussions on either side and who has shown me more willing to listen to my concerns and actually see where I'm coming from, even if they do not agree, they at least take the time to see it from my point of view.
I'd like to believe it's true.

I know that many at the SMF team are still friendly to us, and I certainly wouldn't put the blame on them should the situation worsen. But after K@'s departure, there are no people in the BOD who are clearly neutral to us (let's not even ask pro-Wedge.) So I can hardly believe the situation is being examined in an unbiased way.
Quote
Now, this person assures me that it was done in good faith to encourage open source, and I believe them.
But there's a whole world of difference between Wedge's license (which stays "true to the Open Source" spirit, © SMF Team circa 2010), and a closed-source, commercial license, which has never even been something we would have considered.
Just because we're not a friendly fork doesn't mean we're here to fuck with them. What did I say in the FAQ about this, already? Something along the lines of "we didn't choose to go hostile, they did."
Our choice of license was only a reaction to their behavior. If a project manager bans you from his site, strips you of your badges, removes your beta tester accounts (and much later starts to censor your profile and mod page without any valid, clearly stated reason), would you consider them as "friendly" to you? Would you want to give them the benefit of the doubt? I gave SMF the benefit of the doubt 3 years ago.. Then 2 years ago... Then a year ago... Then my ass started to hurt a bit too much.

Now, it's all about one thing: who runs the project now? And do they think about the best way to serve their users, or the best way to serve their own interests.
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So, I'm calling for a line to be drawn in the sand on this point. I recognise that the team have made an honest attempt for them to actually accept forks as not being competition in the original sense of the word, but as stablemates from which they can learn things, and that the forks can learn something from it. We've learned a great deal about SMF in this process, some of it rather good when you think about it.
To me, the only good news regarding the team is that 'someone' resigned yesterday... (And in a manner that still makes me laugh.) At least it'll give the team a chance to make a clean slate and act without his influence.
Quote
I also recognise the fact that they have been civil towards us, if not entirely respectful in appearance, and I would urge any members thinking of posting to consider very carefully what your motives are in doing so.
Does 'going into hiding' count as being civil? :P
Quote
As has been noticed, this is a step forwards for SMF. It's not a huge step, it's not as big as I would have liked, but it IS a step forward, even if it was a bit of a stumble. Please don't try and undo their work on this, because it does have the potential to go somewhere.
I'll grant you that a week ago, I'd have considered the fork board to be science-fiction.
I guess the fact that another fork came out was the main factor that triggered the need for that board.
Quote
The team do not understand why we are so reticent at giving back. I doubt they ever will understand, but that's not our problem.
I feel like I've repeated our position too many times. But then again I suppose it's faster to just repeat everything again, than to point at topics and specific posts I would have to find again first...
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I also doubt we fully understand their view,
I understand the views of those who are on speaking terms with us. (And that's all that matters to me.)
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it's because we have taken the bold step of stepping back on the licence, and like it or not, the old SMF licence isn't open source - and they're honestly trying to encourage actually open licensed creations.
Is that you Pete? :P
Quote
I am given to understand that when we become BSD or similar, we will be treated equally,
(1) I don't think we will. Sorry for being a party pooper. (2) This will never, EVER influence my decision to go BSD. Best that could happen, it won't change anything. Worst that could happen? Staying with the old SMF license just to make a point that I don't care being ostracized at sm.org. Our software will speak for itself, and sm.org is not the center of the world. Even then, people will start discussing over there, and the question of why there is constant censoring will come up again and again.

SMF. Wedge. People. Everyone.
Fight with knowledge -- fight for knowledge.
Ignorance is the worst plague of all.

That will be my final statement for tonight.

Arantor

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #28, on August 18th, 2011, 01:36 AM »
One thing I find interesting. Motoko mentions that the name of Wedge is scattered liberally throughout their board, but not once is it noted that neither myself nor Nao are the ones mentioning it, neither of us could even if the rules permitted it since I don't have an account and Nao is post banned.

PantsManUK

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Re: Fork discussion at SMF
« Reply #29, on August 18th, 2011, 01:17 PM »
Very interesting thread. To borrow a vaguely literary reference, what's happening over there very much reminds me of "he who must not be named" (and the variations thereof) in that series of children's books by J.K Rowling, making them (the Team) the Minister: ...
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