Plugin Configuration Files Request

[playsia]

Discovery server source files have been available on this github for many years now (6?). Thankyou so much for that!

The included config files (here) are almost all 6 years old. Amongst the many other negative impacts of this, it means a test server for development cannot accurately reflect the current state of Discovery and is in fact full of bugs that have been fixed on a config level a long time ago.

(Example: I just fixed a config problem where bases were not eating Bretonian or Gallic food, no doubt on the official servers this was fixed years ago)

I recently came across this problem with balancemagic.cfg never before having a released config file, which is a pretty big deal. I was told by dd84ai to put in this request, I'd like to also thank dd84ai for their help.

TLDR; Please release/maintain the configuration files for the flhook plugins. I understand some may have sensitive information in them, in some cases this can be solved with a ;snip comment indicating sensitive information has been removed.

[Sally]

As a matter of fact the launcher used by Disco that was released by Laz and the latest release of FLHook are both GPLv3, which means you (and everyone else in this community) is legally entitled to any source code that is present on the up to date compiled release, and the staff has up to 30 days to comply on the request. Let's see how this ends.

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"I suppose many people will continue moving towards careless computing, because there's a sucker born every minute." - RMS

[Kherty]

As a matter of fact the launcher used by Disco that was released by Laz is GPLv3, which means you (and everyone else in this community) is legally entitled to any source code that is currently present on the up to date compiled release, and the staff has up to 30 days to comply on the request. Let's see how this ends.

I bear witness to this reply just in case.

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[Major.]

As a matter of fact the launcher used by Disco that was released by Laz and the latest release of FLHook are both GPLv3, which means you (and everyone else in this community) is legally entitled to any source code that is present on the up to date compiled release, and the staff has up to 30 days to comply on the request. Let's see how this ends.

That is so wrong.

They don't need to do that, if they continue to push their code on a non public git they can do that and all you can do is nothing.

But, they can't forbid you to use any of the GPLv3 code they already made public as long as you don't try to make any profit.

Posting such false facts is literally the worst you could do.

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[Corile]

As a matter of fact the launcher used by Disco that was released by Laz and the latest release of FLHook are both GPLv3, which means you (and everyone else in this community) is legally entitled to any source code that is present on the up to date compiled release, and the staff has up to 30 days to comply on the request. Let's see how this ends.

This doesn't work like that. The code that is on GitHub is licensed as GPLv3. The GPLv3 license applies to the code, not the launcher of the FLHook instance running on the Discovery server. If the Discovery team forked the FLHook from GitHub and added additional features to the source code, then they would be bound by GPL and would be required to release the source code. I doubt that is the case, since the only thing that's different are the config files, and config files are not executable as such, hence not bound by GPLv3. (And possibly, even if it was, you could argue that it is not you who is running FLHook but Discovery servers hosted by the Discovery team, so GPL wouldn't even apply here at all).

Because configuration files can often contain confidential information, if your code is licensed on the GPL, that doesn't necessarily mean that you need to disclose your config files. Config files fall under the definition of a "corresponding source" in GPLv3 which need to only be disclosed when they are required to build, install or run the software under GPL. Since FLHook (from what I gather from the OP) runs just fine, but uses outdated configs, GPLv3's definition of "corresponding source" doesn't apply.

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[Sally]

That is so wrong.

They don't need to do that, if they continue to push their code on a non public git they can do that and all you can do is nothing.

But, they can't forbid you to use any of the GPLv3 code they already made public as long as you don't try to make any profit.

Wrong, GPL doesn't have commercial restrictions, in fact commercial distribution is part of freedom 2 (freedom to redistribute), so long you distribute source code or you grant access to it upon request, you can sell it at whatever price you want.

Posting such false facts is literally the worst you could do.

The irony of saying this while doing exactly that, give the GPL a read sometime.

This doesn't work like that. The code that is on GitHub is licensed as GPLv3. The GPLv3 license applies to the code, not the launcher of the FLHook instance running on the Discovery server. If the Discovery team forked the FLHook from GitHub and added additional features to the source code, then they would be bound by GPL and would be required to release the source code. I doubt that is the case, since the only thing that's different are the config files, and config files are not executable as such, hence not bound by GPLv3. (And possibly, even if it was, you could argue that it is not you who is running FLHook but Discovery servers hosted by the Discovery team, so GPL wouldn't even apply here at all).

Because configuration files can often contain confidential information, if your code is licensed on the GPL, that doesn't necessarily mean that you need to disclose your config files. Config files fall under the definition of a "corresponding source" in GPLv3 which need to only be disclosed when they are required to build, install or run the software under GPL. Since FLHook (from what I gather from the OP) runs just fine, but uses outdated configs, GPLv3's definition of "corresponding source" doesn't apply.

They did add features recently and they did in several instances, the most recent case being the POB rework from a few days ago, and they used a fork from TheStarport which is GPLed to implement such rework, you can check Aingar's profile on Github.

You may not be legally bound to provide configuration files but a template is still necessary to make it work and there are configuration files that are completely missing as pointed out already. The server side issue may be correct, these cases is why AGPL was written, a shame it isn't licensed under AGPL.

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"I suppose many people will continue moving towards careless computing, because there's a sucker born every minute." - RMS

[playsia]

Since FLHook (from what I gather from the OP) runs just fine, but uses outdated configs

I don't think that in good faith I or anyone could say that it runs "just fine". The configuration files and flhook/plugins work together, I have found more than one bug that I needed to fix on a config level for things to work properly. And those are only things that I have noticed! There is likely many many more that I haven't. In addition there are some simply missing, from a quick 2 minutes check: conn.cfg.

I'm not after anything "confidential" and most config files wont have confidential information in them to begin with.

I haven't received any communication, on discord, this forum or otherwise that my request has even been seen, but I hope it has and is being acted on, if that is the case thank you.
Edit: Received word that some real life stuff is getting in the way of the right person(s?) seeing this, this is totally understandable.

[playsia]

Unfortunately there hasn't been any movement on this. Investigation into base_plugin revealed that it attempts to load several variables from base.cfg that are simply not there. Currently the 6 year old released config files are not fit for purpose.

It has been over a month, I'd like to again politely request the config files be released.

[Haste]

I'll look into this once we wrap up the current patch, as it is expected to have quite a lot of FLHook changes packed with it. I feel like it would be a better way to spend our effort to wait that (hopefully short) while to get the configs actually up to date on our end with whatever may be changing, and then pack that all up for third party servers to use.

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[playsia]

Thanks, that makes sense. Looking forward to the patch!