DRM in mods

Started by NoImageAvailable, March 05, 2017, 12:11:45 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Do you approve of allowing modders to include DRM in their mods?

Yes
9 (11.8%)
No
56 (73.7%)
No opinion
7 (9.2%)
Other (please elaborate in post)
4 (5.3%)

Total Members Voted: 76

O Negative

The chronology of which mod came out first doesn't make a difference, in my opinion. Both mods open up possibilities due to each one adding something the base game does not have. That argument can't be used in favor for one mod over the other; especially not just because one came out first. I respect your opinion, skully, but I couldn't disagree with you more on this issue. As a mod author, you have every right to say "I really don't want my mod/content used in this way." Especially when there is obviously an existing notion that your [Thirite's] mod is the one that opened up the possibility of a morally reprehensible act. That's not dictating how another person plays their game, it's protecting the integrity of your content.

That's my two cents on this issue.

nethrez1m

#16
For the clarity sake: from what i've seen in the assembly of the "other" mod, it contains age checks (at least the version posted in LL forums). It should have not allowed child abuse.
So i'm still puzzled how did Thirite get those gifs he's talking about.

Lennbolt7

Quote from: nethrez1m on March 07, 2017, 02:19:10 PM
For the clarity sake: from what i've seen in the assembly of the "other" mod, it contains age checks (at least the version posted in LL forums). It should have not allowed child abuse.
So i'm still puzzled how did Thirite get those gifs he's talking about.
If that's true then the age check doesn't work or someone modified/removed it. I wonder why someone would modify it and then give those gifs to Thrite though?

skullywag

Quote from: O Negative on March 07, 2017, 01:52:22 PM
The chronology of which mod came out first doesn't make a difference, in my opinion. Both mods open up possibilities due to each one adding something the base game does not have. That argument can't be used in favor for one mod over the other; especially not just because one came out first. I respect your opinion, skully, but I couldn't disagree with you more on this issue. As a mod author, you have every right to say "I really don't want my mod/content used in this way." Especially when there is obviously an existing notion that your [Thirite's] mod is the one that opened up the possibility of a morally reprehensible act. That's not dictating how another person plays their game, it's protecting the integrity of your content.

That's my two cents on this issue.

Its an unforseen interaction between 2 mods. Yes the timing doesnt matter but it was added for effect. My point is this is not the way to handle this situation. Was the modder of the other mod contacted? Was the code that allowed the interaction addressed in a non malicious way. No, it was not. Do you disagree with that? Now we are hearing that the other mod has checks in it (it does) so now are in a situation where a modder reacted too quickly and in a crappy way for possibly a bug in 1 of the mods....how awesome is that? There is no excuse for the type of code that was used. It should NEVER be added to any mod.
Skullywag modded to death.
I'd never met an iterator I liked....until Zhentar saved me.
Why Unity5, WHY do you forsake me?

Celestial

Just regarding the DRM part where you mentioned it limits so that you have to download it through adfly or something. I'm pretty sure that is against the rule
Quote:    "-Your Mods must be distributed for free, period. Neither you, nor any other person or party, may sell them to anyone, commercially exploit them in any way, or charge anyone for receiving or using them without prior written consent from Ludeon. Commercial exploitation includes but is not limited to in-game advertising, other advertising or marketing for any company, product or service."

skullywag

Quote from: ericchen1248 on March 08, 2017, 03:48:48 AM
Just regarding the DRM part where you mentioned it limits so that you have to download it through adfly or something. I'm pretty sure that is against the rule
Quote:    "-Your Mods must be distributed for free, period. Neither you, nor any other person or party, may sell them to anyone, commercially exploit them in any way, or charge anyone for receiving or using them without prior written consent from Ludeon. Commercial exploitation includes but is not limited to in-game advertising, other advertising or marketing for any company, product or service."

Think that was in reference to a minecraft mod.
Skullywag modded to death.
I'd never met an iterator I liked....until Zhentar saved me.
Why Unity5, WHY do you forsake me?

medsal15

Quote from: skullywag on March 08, 2017, 04:01:06 AM
Quote from: ericchen1248 on March 08, 2017, 03:48:48 AM
Just regarding the DRM part where you mentioned it limits so that you have to download it through adfly or something. I'm pretty sure that is against the rule
Quote:    "-Your Mods must be distributed for free, period. Neither you, nor any other person or party, may sell them to anyone, commercially exploit them in any way, or charge anyone for receiving or using them without prior written consent from Ludeon. Commercial exploitation includes but is not limited to in-game advertising, other advertising or marketing for any company, product or service."

Think that was in reference to a minecraft mod.
Actually it's in the EULA

skullywag

Quote from: medsal15 on March 08, 2017, 04:10:02 AM
Quote from: skullywag on March 08, 2017, 04:01:06 AM
Quote from: ericchen1248 on March 08, 2017, 03:48:48 AM
Just regarding the DRM part where you mentioned it limits so that you have to download it through adfly or something. I'm pretty sure that is against the rule
Quote:    "-Your Mods must be distributed for free, period. Neither you, nor any other person or party, may sell them to anyone, commercially exploit them in any way, or charge anyone for receiving or using them without prior written consent from Ludeon. Commercial exploitation includes but is not limited to in-game advertising, other advertising or marketing for any company, product or service."

Think that was in reference to a minecraft mod.
Actually it's in the EULA

no, I mean the adfly bit, no one has done that or suggested we do that for Rimworld, the use case was for minecraft, where it was done.
Skullywag modded to death.
I'd never met an iterator I liked....until Zhentar saved me.
Why Unity5, WHY do you forsake me?

RawCode

minecraft mods usually distributed with adfly (and similar) wrappers, but have zero enforcement on link usage, and have zero ways to get information about method, that was used to get mod's jar.
yes you can call home and ask info about specific IP but this does not works today, especially server side (obviously mod downloaded from other source and then put on server).

also minecraft mods are somewhat rare to ship opensource and unobfuscated, people tend to obfuscate minecraft mods to somewhat restrict rebranding and embedding.


Derp

#24
Quote from: skullywag on March 08, 2017, 03:11:22 AM
Quote from: O Negative on March 07, 2017, 01:52:22 PM
The chronology of which mod came out first doesn't make a difference, in my opinion. Both mods open up possibilities due to each one adding something the base game does not have. That argument can't be used in favor for one mod over the other; especially not just because one came out first. I respect your opinion, skully, but I couldn't disagree with you more on this issue. As a mod author, you have every right to say "I really don't want my mod/content used in this way." Especially when there is obviously an existing notion that your [Thirite's] mod is the one that opened up the possibility of a morally reprehensible act. That's not dictating how another person plays their game, it's protecting the integrity of your content.

That's my two cents on this issue.

Its an unforseen interaction between 2 mods. Yes the timing doesnt matter but it was added for effect. My point is this is not the way to handle this situation. Was the modder of the other mod contacted? Was the code that allowed the interaction addressed in a non malicious way. No, it was not. Do you disagree with that? Now we are hearing that the other mod has checks in it (it does) so now are in a situation where a modder reacted too quickly and in a crappy way for possibly a bug in 1 of the mods....how awesome is that? There is no excuse for the type of code that was used. It should NEVER be added to any mod.

If I'm reading the thread right, the malware in question is no longer present in the mod.  So while adding it was rash and ill-considered, it was then reconsidered and reverted.  Which is okay.  People need room to make mistakes.

In the future, it would have been more acceptable to pop up a window to express your self-righteous indignation to the player, or to set a global variable called snowflake, and disable your own code if snowflake gets triggered.  Disabling others' code or crashing the whole game - for ANY reason - falls somewhere between dickish and illegal.

[ETA] Looking at the mod thread, it's possible the behavior wasn't removed.  In which case, you mods and admins get to answer the fun question of what to do with a mod that deliberately crashes the game when certain conditions are met.

Jaxxa

It depends on what is meant by DRM and the specifics of the implementation.
In General I think that ideally modding should be as open as possibly as this will help the community, being able to look at how someone else is doing something can be really helpful for learning new things. This is incidentally one of my issues with paid mods, once people start getting money for mods they will be less likely to openly share how they are doing things.

I view a mod deliberately Freezing / Crashing / Infinitely Loading or similar malware type operations as unacceptable.

I don't think that having your mod work with another mod in any way condones the content of that other mod. Where would that stop? A mod adds rape or torture into the game could my Shields mod that can be used to protect pawns that have done those things be me advocating for that because my mod is not disabling itself it that mod is installed? Obviously Not.

However I think that it a mod creator wants to make a moral stand in their mod they should be allowed to restrict what their mod can be used with. I think this should take the form of their mod disabling itself and showing a Message on screen or in the log informing the player of why this has happened. Obviously this could be bypassed probably rather easily, but then that is happening because of someone else's code modifications. And if it is forbidden in the licence the modified mod could be taken down from official locations. I would not advocate those steps but I support the mod creators right to take them.

Facepunch

There definitely isn't one answer to all cases, but in general, I believe that mods should be as open as possible in how they work. In every scenario I can think of off the top of my head, adding some malicious code into your mod to make it conflict with another mod is incredibly immature.
Rimworld has one of the best modding communities I've seen, for the most part we take care of eachother, and help one another out wherever possible. To allow something like DRM for mods would definitely not be beneficial to the vast majority of people who enjoy what we have here in the community.
Obviously the best way to resolve a conflict between your mod and another is to get in contact with the author of the other mod, and fix the issue.

Aristocat

I think only users end up harmed with such things. If my game freezes and I have no idea what causes it that would been driven me crazy. Maybe you should have tried hack battle with that guy known as 4chan.

milon

Off topic posts have been split into their own thread
Children & Ethics

This thread is for discussing DRM & other questionable validation in mods.