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Balthizarlucien

So... This pissed me off

16 posts in this topic

Was looking around for a mechanical power mod that didn't use electricity in it, just gears and such when I found VintageCraft. It is essentially an easy mode form of terrafirmacraft that was made up of stolen and badly implemented code from early TFC as well as ideas pulled STRAIGHT from the suggestion forums here. Does this piss off anyone else even a little?

I saw at least two of my own ideas inplemented there as well as several others I recognize but the world in which they were implemented was stupid easy to survive in as well as progress in as most of the difficult bits of TFC were stripped away.

I know that the mod is using TFC code but the author claims to be following the gpl. Does anyone know the legality well enough to confirm their claim or defend our beloved developers against this intellectual theft?

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I had a closer look at his GitHub repo and i have to say his code looks much different then TFC.

And even though many in game things look very similar, or even same, the game play is totally different.

 

His project is GPL just like TFC, so you can't call it intellectual theft, he also has a few direct links to TFC stating that his project is based off of many things that can be found in TFC, which satisfies the GPL license. Besides, as far as i can see, there is no copy/paste TFC code in his project, which even if he did have, would be ok because his mod is also licensed under GPL.

 

Correct me if i'm wrong, but as far as the ideas on this forum go, that "anyone" can find and read, like his 3D fire pit(which looks great imo) , are public domain. That's how Minecraft was born, from Dwarf Fortress, right?

 

And when it comes to GPL license, i am allowed to fork(copy) the TFC project, add anything i like, delete anything i don't like, name it CraftFirmaTerra, and release it as a new project. As long as my new project is also GPL, and i do not hide any information how this project came to life, so anyone can do the same with my new project and go with, e.g. FirmaCraftTerra, it's all good :)

That's how XviD was born from DivX, and many many other open source projects out there that we like and use.

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Emris pretty much nailed it right on the head. And even if they were somehow violating the license, the Minecraft modding community is pretty backwards when it comes to intellectual property. http://stopmodreposts.org/ had to become a thing because there are so many websites out there who are technically illegally redistributing mods, and making ad revenue off of doing it. But there's this really weird mentality with Minecraft modding that a lot of people truly believe that mods are the property "of the community." Too many times I see mod devs getting harassed because they decided to abandon a project. And god forbid they decide to keep the rights to their work and not switch it to open source when they decide to abandon it, then the pitchforks really come out. Not that it matters, because if the idea was popular enough, somebody's already ran the mod through a decompiler and is working on continuing and redistributing it without the original author's permission. And a lot of times, the justification for doing so is because "Minecraft mods started by running Minecraft through a decompiler." It's sad, but that's just the way it is and there's really not much that can be done about it. Issuing something like a DMCA is an expensive nightmare, especially since the whole ballgame changes if one party isn't located in the US.

 

Suggestion posts on the forum are also public domain. Unless you're going deep into code specifics there's really no way to prove that they stole your idea, and not that they didn't just think of it themselves. The fact that the suggestions forum is to the point where our number one moderation issue is getting rid of duplicate suggestions shows that a lot of ideas really aren't that original, and somebody else has probably thought of it too.

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I came across it 5 or 6 months ago and was not impressed.  It's all part of a dimwitted pattern I see on the Internet.  People who put mods together in a "Mod Pack" get tons of praise, while the original mod developers barely get a nod. The sense of entitlement people have these days is absolutely mindblowing. 

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There is a hell of a lot more work in creating a good mod pack than just putting mods together. The majority of the super popular mod packs have extensive configuration changes and scripts that the mod pack author had to create to get everything to play nicely. A lot of mod pack authors also work directly with mod devs to get extra configuration options added for balancing. I worked on creating a mod pack a few years ago, and even with a team of 4 people it took us about 6 months before we finally had something playable. And then all it takes is for one of the mods in the pack to update and suddenly you have to start over because that update broke something, and your mod pack loses popularity because it's no longer using the "latest and greatest" mods.

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Their wiki says

 

"Vanilla Minecraft is slowly loosing the challenging aspects of survival and resource gathering and while TerraFirmaCraft is a fantastic alternative with it's strong focus on survival, the direction it's authors are taking diverge strongly from what we believe minecraft should be."

 

TFC is too hardcore for "them" :D

 

Regardless, I also agree some aspects and mechanics are taken from TFC but somewhat differently implemented. Vintagecraft also has a lot less features than TFC so i doubt i will play it. The one aspect that seems nice is world generation and compatibility with MC 1.8.

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The author is taking inspiration from a lot of different mods, among them TFC. It is a WIP mod that they have been developing in an open beta.

I applaud the dev. They would like to play the game a certain way and rather then moaning about it they started building a mod they want to play.

The code is their own, they give credit to their inspiration. It is certainly well within the contexts of the respective licenses.

So what really pisses me off is people crapping on this person.

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Well I am glad to here that the code is different and the gameplay is much different. As for the ideas being poached from here, kitty is right. The saying in Hollywood is that there are no new ideas and that is most likely the case here. As far as my annoyance busan, I was mostly annoyed at the fact of what looked like code poaching. Legal or not code poaching is bad form imho.

Good on him for rewriting his project from scratch and I applause the effort.

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I'm not saying making a mod pack isn't work.  I'm learning that myself right now.  My complaint was about the lack of gratitude given to the original mod developer vs what's heaped on certain pack makers.  Seems unfair.  Just a personal observation. 

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Well I am glad to here that the code is different and the gameplay is much different. As for the ideas being poached from here, kitty is right. The saying in Hollywood is that there are no new ideas and that is most likely the case here. As far as my annoyance busan, I was mostly annoyed at the fact of what looked like code poaching. Legal or not code poaching is bad form imho.Good on him for rewriting his project from scratch and I applause the effort.

 

So you posted an libellous accusation against someone and stated "facts". You stated quite directly that he stole code and that it is badly implemented. In fact you did not verify this at all. Two people who are very familiar with the code have spoken against your statement and also pointed out that even if they did steal the code that the licence of TFC is such that legally they can "steal" the code given the licence they are using. I'd suggest rather than give applause the effort you clearly retract your baseless accusation and apologize to said person.

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Hm. A debate.

 

'What looked like code poaching' is an opinion, not a fact.

VintageCraft obviously did take some assets from TFC, vessel sprite is one, and this is a fact because it the exact same sprite. But then, Bunsan said that the license approves, thus perfectly legal and not bad at all(bad wihin my definition).

 

If VintageCraft is stupid easy to survive, I can't imagine vanilla. Not that this brings any argument stronger, but then it's Minecraft. Play how you want to play it. People that can't take on TFC might try VintageCraft, or they who feels like it's no challenge might try MITE. It's their preference.

 

And I think there is no such thing like 'stealing ideas'. Only 'having the same idea but slightly different implementation' exist, hence the duplicate suggestion threads, the copyright infringements of secondary goods, etc. It's good for them to be dedicated to a mod. 

 

If you want to have TFC your own way, which I'm sure everybody does, then feel free to fork it, just like what Emris said. People get angry because they don't understand why something happened. Now, tell us why VintageCraft angers you and we'll try to resolve it.

Edited by Miner239
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You are quoting his second post, which backed off. His OP is unambiguous.

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'What looked like code poaching' is an opinion, not a fact.

 

How about these from the original post?

 

 

It is essentially an easy mode form of terrafirmacraft that was made up of stolen and badly implemented code from early TFC as well as ideas pulled STRAIGHT from the suggestion forums here.I know that the mod is using TFC code but the author claims to be following the gpl. Does anyone know the legality well enough to confirm their claim or defend our beloved developers against this intellectual theft?

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Why still argue about his original post? Balthizarlucien is clearly not pissed off anymore :D

 

We can still discuss the merits and downsides of borrowing ideas into a new project, though.

 

One can ask what the motivation is for a different implementation of a game. I think usually the motivation is purely from the developer him/herself, not specifically targeted for an audience. However, as a community grows around the idea, the audience becomes more important. Anyway, because TFC was the first total conversion mod for minecraft with survival focus, metallurgy and geology, to me it can't be beat. I look for originality in mods/modpacks which is what Vintagecraft mostly lacks at the moment. That's just my opinion.

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The idea of intellectual property has always sort of pissed me off. I think that people claiming that people cant change, or improve on an idea because the 'idea' isn't theirs is ridiculous. So much of our lives, our decisions, and our innovations could not exist without exposure to someone else's ideas, attempting to tie peoples hands, and forbid them from developing something new that's based on something old is outright anti-progress. Don't get me wrong, give credit where credit is due, and definitely take issue with things like people distributing exact copies, or clones with no meaningful changes which are an obvious attempt to exploit ambiguous wording in a license. That's why the copy left type crowd always drew my attention. If the TFC devs put their code and its assets under a GPL license, they are inviting people to modify and redistribute aspects of their code and its assets. I wouldn't discriminate against those mods, and welcome those developers to try their hand at making improvements. They very well might improve on something that I didn't even think to consider. Then I can take that idea, and bring it here where the TFC devs might use it in their mod. What's wrong with informal collaboration?

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I've given this mod a go, and I've noticed a lot of icons that are from TFC. There are a few ideas taken from TFC too, but it far from polished. It feels very early in it's development cycle. It's got potential, and if you read the roadmap I like the way some of it is going. I would expect all the graphics to be swapped out to their own style over time. As far as ideas, some are similar at a high level, but the implementation is quite different. I've not got that far, late copper age, looked at bronze age and what I need to do next, maybe not...not yet.

 

It is far from balanced, TFC feels very balanced, a lot of thought has gone into it and there's enough of everything to get along at a good pace. VC...food is sparse, really sparse, unless you want to wipe out all the local animals you will probably starve. It uses seeds to make food, so you can't replant these seeds to make more food. 5 seeds for 1 loaf, wow. So far in my play through I've found 9 seeds! and I've been on half a health heart and no food for a long time now.There are only 2 crops, so far, and no fish, no seaweed (I'm sure everyone playing TFC eats a lot of seaweed early on). Needs some work here...

 

Building is all about...well I'm not sure, cobblestone requires clay, clay is needed for a lot of other things as well, clay is not common. I've actually run out in the local area, and god forbid you get caught outside at night after day 1.

 

Overall, I might go back to it in 6 months or so. Applaud the work so far, but really, it's not quite there yet.

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