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Another enb emulator?


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I found another EnB emulator site today. I don't know much about it yet, but on this page LINK REMOVED They say their launcher is a 'revised net-7 launcher' so it's possible they may be leeching data from us.

The devs at EnBemu work their butts off (literally. How many of them have sutures on their cheeks we may never know) to make this emulator a great place for us to fly around and blow things up in. It would really suck if someone is stealing all their efforts.

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The group to which you're referring is largely comprised of ex-staff members of ours. They took our source code, they took our content, and they're trying their hand at running an emulator project. Needless to say, I am not fond of them, nor their methods. Their "revised" launcher is actually our launcher with a modified file or two; I actually think the only thing they changed was the default server values.

What really bothers me most of all is that they take donations, based on work done here at Net-7. Realistically though, it's just not worth getting too riled up about. There really isn't anything we can or would do to stop them that wouldn't be a huge waste of our efforts, so we just turn the other cheek.

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Yeah I totally agree. In fact I don't even like there link being posted as it draws attention to them. My goal is to pretend they do not exist and continue on.

Thanks,

David

I agree in fact I think the link should be deleted from the original post.

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Yeah I totally agree. In fact I don't even like there link being posted as it draws attention to them. My goal is to pretend they do not exist and continue on.

Thanks,

David

Actually, I immediately made this topic invisible when I came across it last night for that reason, but upon further thought, I figured that it's not worth trying to hide. Beside that, I don't think our community is about to flock to their server, which is, in terms of code, where ours was months ago.

I'll leave it to Thelia to delete the links if he or she thinks it's a good idea; I don't want to make it look as though we like to tamper with posts to our liking, lol.

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I actually think its a good thing that other people started servers... hear me out... their servers (there are two of them as the original group splintered) prove that the code is truly open source and imo their servers just make you appreciate this one even more... so I think you made the right call by not hiding this... running a server like this is death hard so anyone that wants should go for it and gl... I wish you the best... but will most probably see you back here soon enough :D

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I was going to remove the links, but someone else already did.

Anyway, I sort of agree with avani about it being a good thing that there's interest in the game outside enbemu, but it sucks they had to rip off the hard work of the devs here to do it.

Months behind us or not, I have no desire to leave this server for theirs. This is the original team that brought EnB back, and I appreciate it immensely. My place is here.

And I'd like to apologise for opening this topic in the first place. I talked to some people in-game after I found that site, and none of them had ever heard of it, so I thought it was a new thing.

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* checks to see if he is wearing the flame-retardant underoos *

OK. Toe-steppin' time. :D

While I fully don't agree with that other group's methods - and can certainly empathize with the fine devs here who have put in unreal amounts of time and labour to make this project a reality...

...I do have to wonder what exactly is Net-7's position on the intellectual property status of the following:

1. The EnB Client and assets (IP which still belongs to EA, if I am not mistaken)

2. The Net-7 Launcher (IP which I am lead to believe is open-source, but source code does not appear to have been made plainly available for others so interested in modifying it, per most open source agreements)

3. The server code for EnB-Emulator and database schema)(IP that is the result of several years of work of many people who are not necessarily related to the current Net-7 Entertainment team: also understood to be open source, but made available only in versions that are noticeably out of date.

Again, I can empathize with whatever degree of animus that may exist with the Devs and that other group that has lead to clamping down on the code...

...but it would be really nice if we could see a clearly worded statement, pinned to the top of the general forums by the leadership as to whether or not this project remains open source - and if so, if there are plans to adhere more to the spirit of the open source agreement (be it any particular version of GPL, BSD, or something similar... or if all the source code after that last publicly available server code/database dump from ST3/early ST4 is now closed source/proprietary code?

Let me re-iterate that I believe (to the limits of my limited knowledge of the event) that what that other group did was certainly evil-spirited and perhaps unethical bordering on criminal -

- but bottling up what was understood to have been open source code seems a bit heavy-handed, and perhaps something that should be reconsidered (unless of course, the goal is to close the source of this code - which may have thorny issues of legality all of its own).

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As an aside - noticed that Thelia's OP was edited by David.

I must raise a note of concern here, as Thelia had indicated her desire to remove the links her/him-self.

To any outside observers or those ignorant of the topic, it might appear as if the mods are summarily editing/deleting posts that they disagree with.

Might I suggest permitting Thelia to edit her post as she saw fit to do originally?

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I actually think its a good thing that other people started servers... hear me out... their servers (there are two of them as the original group splintered) prove that the code is truly open source and imo their servers just make you appreciate this one even more... so I think you made the right call by not hiding this... running a server like this is death hard so anyone that wants should go for it and gl... I wish you the best... but will most probably see you back here soon enough :D

I would point out the soource code "was" open source till the splinter. The content at that point had already been "closed" and it took a team member with access to the private databases to get the current content (at the time of the splinter) This project has decided to no longer share any server source work past the point the rift occured. You can verify this with the SVN change histories (I had this pointed out to me by one of the folks on the development team). This was done so the "other" effort could not benefit from the continung improvements the folks committed to developing for this efort have made. I think that is the saddest result of this other effort. So everyone should realize this is no longer an "open source" project. From a content view it has been closed for some time and now from a server code perspective it is also now a closed project.

Interestingly enough I think the other project intends to keep their source open and available as well as their content. Of course if they don't have a team to move their efforts forward it won't matter much.

The majority of the player base in this project probably could care less in the end, but its important to note that the initial "truly open vision" that inspired a lot of work that this project now depends has been kicked to the curb. I definitely believe that a persons untimately owns their own work product so I can't make a case for any of the core content or development team doing anything other than what they want with their eforts. I would say however, there is a strong case to be made for the benefits of "open" projects that the current team approach will now preclude.

No one should assume anyone is doing any of these efforts to make some money. In fact should there ever seem to be something identifiable as "revenue" beyond what is required to suppport the essential infrastructure for this effort they set themselves up to be shut down by EA. This sort of reverse engineering effort only can exist legally if remains "educational" and "non-profit" in nature. I'm actually worried that the gradual "closing" of this project also may make it an easier target for legal attacks down the road. Staying totally open has been a key part of the stratgies for keeping other server emulation efforts alive. On even a practical basis if it is left truly open it likely means the source and content is "all over the place" and pretty much impossible to eliminate entirely. Now you definitely could see a scenario where EA walks in, forces the limited number of people that actually have access to the latest coded and content to "cease and desist" and this project is dead in the water.

Since the actual number of folks this project can expect to attract in terms of active player bases will remain low enough (in the context of what EA would consider of interest in business terms) I doubt they'd bother to assign any resource to limit or closing this project down. So my guess is this project will continue to move forward, develop some interesting content, develop more code that approaches the experience E&B provided before it dies and has a reasonable bright future providing some fun gaming for hundreds of players. To everyone that has helped make that happen I say "good job", even though I wished the project remained true to the initial spirit of openness that it once had.

Spacegrrrl

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* checks to see if he is wearing the flame-retardant underoos *

OK. Toe-steppin' time. :D

While I fully don't agree with that other group's methods - and can certainly empathize with the fine devs here who have put in unreal amounts of time and labour to make this project a reality...

...I do have to wonder what exactly is Net-7's position on the intellectual property status of the following:

1. The EnB Client and assets (IP which still belongs to EA, if I am not mistaken)

2. The Net-7 Launcher (IP which I am lead to believe is open-source, but source code does not appear to have been made plainly available for others so interested in modifying it, per most open source agreements)

3. The server code for EnB-Emulator and database schema)(IP that is the result of several years of work of many people who are not necessarily related to the current Net-7 Entertainment team: also understood to be open source, but made available only in versions that are noticeably out of date.

Again, I can empathize with whatever degree of animus that may exist with the Devs and that other group that has lead to clamping down on the code...

...but it would be really nice if we could see a clearly worded statement, pinned to the top of the general forums by the leadership as to whether or not this project remains open source - and if so, if there are plans to adhere more to the spirit of the open source agreement (be it any particular version of GPL, BSD, or something similar... or if all the source code after that last publicly available server code/database dump from ST3/early ST4 is now closed source/proprietary code?

Let me re-iterate that I believe (to the limits of my limited knowledge of the event) that what that other group did was certainly evil-spirited and perhaps unethical bordering on criminal -

- but bottling up what was understood to have been open source code seems a bit heavy-handed, and perhaps something that should be reconsidered (unless of course, the goal is to close the source of this code - which may have thorny issues of legality all of its own).

After some private messages with one of the developers where it became clear this is no longer an open source project (was this ever done under a GPL license I wonder). I specifically asked for a clear statement from the team regarding where they believed the IP boundaries were and specifically that they state they are no longer treating this as an open source project.

Again, I doubt that many folks would care, they just want to play and like that the server is coming along as well as it is, but for a few of us, particularly some of us that have followed this from the earliest days of cracking the keys for the encryption with a large group effort we'd like it clearly stated this is now a "closed" project as for many of us the open nature of the project was key to our support. I wonder if any of the earlier developers, many who have left over time that started this under the impression this was an open project would have opinions on a "closed" project using their "open" contribution without their consent.

Spacegrrrl

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As an aside - noticed that Thelia's OP was edited by David.

I must raise a note of concern here, as Thelia had indicated her desire to remove the links her/him-self.

To any outside observers or those ignorant of the topic, it might appear as if the mods are summarily editing/deleting posts that they disagree with.

Might I suggest permitting Thelia to edit her post as she saw fit to do originally?

I actualy wrote a message to Thelia about it letter them know. We do not just edit posts, but I do not wish to advertize them on here thats all.

To the open source statement, we are basicly just not doing releases untill we get to a good release point. It is still open source.

Thanks,

David

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I actualy wrote a message to Thelia about it letter them know. We do not just edit posts, but I do not wish to advertize them on here thats all.

To the open source statement, we are basicly just not doing releases untill we get to a good release point. It is still open source.

Thanks,

David

No check-in in 94 days seems pretty "closed". But I hope there is some refresh at some point planned.

Spacegrrrl

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You need to work out a way for an admin to edit posts without looking like a complete fool ;)

We can edit posts without putting the "Edited by" line; we choose not to because we want to be transparent about everything we do.

Anyway,

We made our source freely available with the understanding that we all want EnB back and that everything we do should be for the benefit of the community. Regardless of whether this was naive of us or not, these people broke that implicit agreement of trust and community unity because they disagreed with how this project is run and, rather than trying to affect their desired change from within the project, took our privately-held data. The content was being withheld to discourage cheating already, but these guys forced us to stop releasing the source code in real time by trying to "compete" with us, or what have you. All we are trying to do is protect our work and the EnB community.

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We can edit posts without putting the "Edited by" line; we choose not to because we want to be transparent about everything we do.

Anyway,

We made our source freely available with the understanding that we all want EnB back and that everything we do should be for the benefit of the community. Regardless of whether this was naive of us or not, these people broke that implicit agreement of trust and community unity because they disagreed with how this project is run and, rather than trying to affect their desired change from within the project, took our privately-held data. The content was being withheld to discourage cheating already, but these guys forced us to stop releasing the source code in real time by trying to "compete" with us, or what have you. All we are trying to do is protect our work and the EnB community.

How does stoping the release of the server source "protect" the community? This project has been the work of a lot of folks, some no longer active in the project. Has everyone that contributed to the server code agreed to closing the project to "protect" the community? I expect not.

I don't even know where to begin to explain how what you are doing now violates the spirit (and possibly even the license that the initial development was shared under) of an open source project and how this is now inconsistent with the intentions of this project when it was begun.

So I would also point out that at the time the folks that "took" "your" data were actually part of your team and could probably make the case they has much right to is as you claim to. Basically somehow or other there were some personal issues that caused someone that was once "you" to pick up their toys and leave. This isn't a case of someone "stealing" anything. It was a dispute about how to better the future of the project that for whatever reason couldn't be resolved. In the end I think whoever stays the most "open" and "inclusive" of the greater community will win in the end (if there is anything you could call 'winning").

Spacegrrrl

Edited by spacegrrrl
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I actualy wrote a message to Thelia about it letter them know. We do not just edit posts, but I do not wish to advertize them on here thats all.

To the open source statement, we are basicly just not doing releases untill we get to a good release point. It is still open source.

Thanks,

David

/agree with david. If you'll look to my above post, I said I 'was going to' delete the links, but someone else (that someone being david) had already done so. So it's not like anyone prevented me from doing it. By the time I came back to look at the post I made, there were already several more posts under it, so it was likely with the forum's best interests in mind (i.e., not wanting to advertise for another server or start a flame war) that the links were removed before I got there. My original intent, however, was to warn people not to use 'the other guys', not to advertise. They suck.

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How does stoping the release of the server source "protect" the community? This project has been the work of a lot of folks, some no longer active in the project. Has everyone that contributed to the server code agreed to closing the project to "protect" the community? I expect not.

Spacegrrrl

We don't want splinter projects all over the place being started by people who just want personal control over development. This would lead to the community fracturing into smaller pieces, which would drop the amount of active players, harming the playing experience. We already have a very limited number of active players and less players there are, the less people there are to interact with, the less donations there are, the less hardware we can afford, and so on, and so forth. Splitting up the community harms the community.

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We don't want splinter projects all over the place being started by people who just want personal control over development. This would lead to the community fracturing into smaller pieces, which would drop the amount of active players, harming the playing experience. We already have a very limited number of active players and less players there are, the less people there are to interact with, the less donations there are, the less hardware we can afford, and so on, and so forth. Splitting up the community harms the community.

Using your logic no open source project could ever succeed because all those other interested developers "splinter" the effort. This is just a case of some folks not knowing how to play well with others and having "control" issues. My case to prove my point are the other server emulator projects that have been very successful by being very OPEN. How on earth do they continue to grow and be healthy if you have to close the project? I have pointed this out repeatedly and I have yet to see anyone refute my point? How do they succeed and stay open? Anyone??

Spacegrrrl

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So I would also point out that at the time the folks that "took" "your" data were actually part of your team and could probably make the case they has much right to is as you claim to. Basically somehow or other there were some personal issues that caused someone that was once "you" to pick up their toys and leave. This isn't a case of someone "stealing" anything. It was a dispute about how to better the future of the project that for whatever reason couldn't be resolved. In the end I think whoever stays the most "open" and "inclusive" of the greater community will win in the end (if there is anything you could call 'winning").

Spacegrrrl

We don't want to "win" anything; we just want to revive Earth & Beyond.

The person who took our code, our content, our work, had very little to do with its creation. I try to keep a cool head, but this is really testing my patience. If you're convinced Net-7 is some kind of evil code-hoarding collection of conspiring insiders, then I'm not going to bash my head against a wall to argue.

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