Why is CM closed source?

[Kesserline]

You do understand that Beyond is like from 2008 ?
That this is JUST a gamemode ? What kind of shitty profit for 4(?) years-worth of work ?

It's their property, why would you have a word to make on what they should do about they have ?

Can I get access to your PC ? To your house ? Come on bro, I will tweak it. Eh man, please. I will tweak it and enhance it. C'm'on ! Please bro.

[Khlorghaal]

Very well said Noah

if for profit someday

I doubt that would be feasible with the IP its based off of, and the fact its free is probably the only reason why the lawyers so far have been friendly.

Would also require a new engine, because I'm sure Byond has its own licensing.
And if we're talking about creating an ss13 remake on its own engine.... wew theres probably been like 6? teams who have tried and ended up in development hell. SS13 is such an absurdly feature rich game that eventhough individual features are simple, the quantity just requires a lot of labor.
The only feasible way to remake SS13 without a budget would be to transpile the DM code, which would result in some sort of strange abomination.
This is its own extensive seperate topic.

Beyond is like from 2008 ?
It's their property, why would you have a word to make on what they should do about they have ?

Hahahaha you mean 2002. Byond is an abomination that is based off HTTP requests with freakish internet explorer intraoperation. The fact it works seamlessly on Win10 is amazing.

I don't expect non-developers to understand the imperative of open source, explaining that here is a waste of time. This question is directed at the staff.



So far I'm neutral on the matter, the favor being as mentioned in the OP, people forking would potentially dilute the playerbase, which would be highly detrimental. But theres no evidence that would actually happen.

Spooky's response is basely edictive, and Lordington's response conveys no useful information. This is a huge turnoff to me as an applying developer.

[Sneakyr]

The way I see it, the only real point of contention is whether there's any mileage in the "whatever fork CM left off of had (x) license and they just used a loophole" thing.
If you don't think there's any mileage there, then who cares? It's their code and they can do whatever they want with it. If they want to keep it "hostage", are "afraid someone could do it better", or just aren't interested in whatever benefits (see Noah's post), that's their business.

If you DO think there's mileage in that argument, then this entire operation is probably violating some IP law anyway.

I don't expect non-developers to understand the imperative of open source, explaining that here is a waste of time. This question is directed at the staff.

You seem to be laboring under the impressions that open source is inherently always good ("imperative"), that there is no point fleshing out your point so that even a non-developer observer could understand it, and that the developers/staff will willingly change it. The only way I could ever see the code being open source is if a new host forced it to be so or at least used their sway as host to influence it heavily in that direction.

I'm just posting here because it's an opportunity to stretch my mental legs, so to speak. I don't care one way or another whether CM goes open source or remains how it is.

[Khlorghaal]

I've never disputed the rights of the developers to their product, such is obvious. I'm asking what the motive is.
What are the benefits of it being closed source? What are the detriments of making it open source? And I don't mean

because

or

It makes things better.

SS13 has long been a community project, open source is in its nature. Its really strange to me that CM goes against that without much justification. There are many obvious of benefits of open source, especially on something with such an intelligent and dedicated community.

[Rohesie]

You do understand that Beyond is like from 2008 ?
That this is JUST a gamemode ? What kind of shitty profit for 4(?) years-worth of work ?

It's their property, why would you have a word to make on what they should do about they have ?

Can I get access to your PC ? To your house ? Come on bro, I will tweak it. Eh man, please. I will tweak it and enhance it. C'm'on ! Please bro.

You are comparing information (which can be copied without loss of the original) to objects (which imply in the owner losing access to theirs).

A good alternative would be:
"Can I get a PC like yours? Can I use your house design for mine? I will even add stuff of my own!"

There are points in favor of closed-source, but that one is definitely not one.

It's mainly to keep the playerbase in one place, as they could migrate to a fork server if they disliked the code changes or administration, and for the devs and heads to retain a sense of ownership to a project they've invested so much time and effort.

[Sneakyr]

I've never disputed the rights of the developers to their product, such is obvious. I'm asking what the motive is.
What are the benefits of it being closed source? What are the detriments of making it open source? And I don't mean or
SS13 has long been a community project, open source is in its nature. Its really strange to me that CM goes against that without much justification. There are many obvious of benefits of open source, especially on something with such an intelligent and dedicated community.

The benefits often quoted are a prevention of powergaming and an ability to make tighter decisions and have an overall better ability to focus on certain development paths and updates.

The reason I brought up the rights of the developers to their product is because my personal guess is that it's purely personal preference, and that personal preference is either weighted immensely in favor of the pros of closed source (however few they may or may not be) or weighted towards closed source itself.

[Nickvr628]

The benefits often quoted are a prevention of powergaming and an ability to make tighter decisions and have an overall better ability to focus on certain development paths and updates.

But with open source you can still have all of these. Sever side confit files allow for secret values and stuff that is not visible to the players, and the devs can still work on development paths and updates. The main difference is that other people can contribute as well, and when devs neglect something for whatever reason, the community can step in and fix it.

[Casany]

I think your going off the assumption that everything the people in power do is done because they want to make the game the best it can be. But that’s not true.

Take it like this. A company and game are working well together, they have all the dialogue for the game finished and everything’s smooth. Then, a new company comes in and throws out all the dialogue. Many people ask why, many think there’s something wrong with it. But there isnt, they never even read the dialogue. It’s a power play.

What I’m saying is that being closed source probably isn’t because they want to make the game the best it can be, it’s more likely they just want to keep and hold power and stop others from gaining any.

[Khlorghaal]

Trying to be objective here, my analysis + the useful discussion so far:

Closed // Open

Keeps the playerbase on a single server. // Someone must first create a strongly competitive fork for the playerbase to fragment, there is no hard evidence this would happen.

Allows keeping secret mechanics. // Secret mechanics allow for hoarding their use, disadvantaging players that don't know about them.

Some players don't like knowing how a game works internally. // Some are the opposite.
(allegory of the cave lol)

Powergaming would result in a meta playstyle. // Every popular competitive game is open with its internal mechanics. Proper balancing prevents this issue.

Complaints of neglected bugs. // The bugs might continue to be neglected even when open source.

Authoritarian design is favorable when the designers are competent. // Designer competency is unknowable if the mechanics are closed.

Closed:
The developer team is self-reported to be well-staffed and doesn't have a need for public PRs.
The developers are open to feature requests and seem to work well with the community.

Open:
No need for a staff application process. Contributors can come and go casually.
No risk or need to worry over nondisclosure.
People may spot flaws the developers missed.

[Sir Lordington]

Well, with closed source you can have a coordinated and curated development team with a more focused vision, as opposed to having to maintain a repo with constant PRs being submitted, many of which are not up to standard or do not mesh with the vision of the people in charge of development, which often ends with drama of the "reeee goddamn nazi repo maintainers didnt merge my pr fucking dictator fascists" kind. Just take a gander around /tg/ or Bay to see what I'm talking about.

Are there benefits to open source? Yes, many have been listed here. Are there disadvantages? Absolutely. Open source is messy and the dev team clearly believes that closed source works better for what they're trying to do. You can send suggestions or become part of the dev team. It's not stopping community members from contributing, you just cannot contribute in the same way or to the same extent as easily.

[Nicboone]

closed source is also good contextually- open source for many games on something like steam would be the ability to mod an existing title. Which is where we came from.

A mod, of a mod, of a mod, may be a little excessive. More than one CM server would cause issues to the game, and to ss13. Closed source is best for everyone for now, because as others mentioned, its better for development outside of a commitee.

[Sneakyr]

But with open source you can still have all of these. Sever side confit files allow for secret values and stuff that is not visible to the players, and the devs can still work on development paths and updates. The main difference is that other people can contribute as well, and when devs neglect something for whatever reason, the community can step in and fix it.

Don't tell me that.
I said what was quoted, not what I believed the reason was.

[Khlorghaal]

... focused ... constant PRs being submitted... "reeee goddamn nazi repo maintainers didnt merge my pr fucking dictator fascists"

Ah thanks for elaborating, your first post makes sense now.

I started this thread because I applied as a dev, and doing volunteer work for closed source projects always makes me uncomfortable. Also I want to know the reasoning for the dev team requiring commitment before I offer commitment.

[Nicboone]

Ah thanks for elaborating, your first post makes sense now.

I started this thread because I applied as a dev, and doing volunteer work for closed source projects always makes me uncomfortable. Also I want to know the reasoning for the dev team requiring commitment before I offer commitment.

trust mostly. I dont think youll be accepted after posting a thread like this though. It makes you looks like your goal is to steal release code publically.

[spookydonut]

Goonstation is closed source go ask them, as probably the oldest code base

[Casany]

Goonstation is closed source go ask them, as probably the oldest code base

Goonstation is a lot different, I think.

They have a whole entire secret metagame going on, as well as many secret chems and adventure zones and things that players have to discover with only hints. CM doesn't have that.

The situations are quite different for the two

[Khlorghaal]

It makes you looks like your goal is to steal release code publically.

Contrarily, I'm seeking justification for it being closed source. The playerbase diffusion is reason enough, as I'm an active player and it would be self-detrimental.

[Davidchan]

Goonstation is closed source go ask them, as probably the oldest code base

Goonstation is entirely its own thing, largely built around community involvement and the closed source nature leading into a number of lore related mysteries that effectively behave as a multiround events or ARGs.

CM is based entirely off baystation code, still uses old baychem and numerous systems from baycode and a smidgen of /tg/code, which are explicitly open source as part of their license.

Further more, Goon Code was publicly released for other communities to examine and make use of mechanics that might benefit them. Doing so has not resulted in the goonbase being divided or splintered, nor has it resulted in any significant hits to their regular population, if anything they got a boost.

[ThesoldierLLJK]

They have a whole entire secret metagame going on, as well as many secret chems and adventure zones and things that players have to discover with only hints. CM doesn't have that.

Unless you're a memeber of Something Awful forums, all the secrets are in a private thread area only members can see.

[Casany]

Unless you're a memeber of Something Awful forums, all the secrets are in a private thread area only members can see.

Which are all outdated according to three old nerds who've told me this

[Build_R_]

Strawman.

The only legitimate reason to keep cm 13 closed source is if the team plans on selling it for profit somedays.

He makes a legitimate point though, making open access because people are demanding access to all of the hard work and effort produced over several years seems ridiculous. Also, as changes have already been made to transform Colonial Marines into CM and avoid Fox's wrath, selling it for profit seems out of the question.

[Brotemis]

Well, with closed source you can have a coordinated and curated development team with a more focused vision, as opposed to having to maintain a repo with constant PRs being submitted, many of which are not up to standard or do not mesh with the vision of the people in charge of development, which often ends with drama of the "reeee goddamn nazi repo maintainers didnt merge my pr fucking dictator fascists" kind. Just take a gander around /tg/ or Bay to see what I'm talking about.

Are there benefits to open source? Yes, many have been listed here. Are there disadvantages? Absolutely. Open source is messy and the dev team clearly believes that closed source works better for what they're trying to do. You can send suggestions or become part of the dev team. It's not stopping community members from contributing, you just cannot contribute in the same way or to the same extent as easily.

I want to point out the first part here. I moved to CM-ss13 in february of this year. I've been part of the TG community since 2012. The level of change from 2012 to early 2018 was not on the scale of early 2018 to now on TG. The major changes I remember were rearranging box station, gateway (and away missions, I made the Wild West away mission with the wish granter), and then new things like teleporting, new maps, lavaland, etc. In all of this, the style of TG hasnt really changed. I served as an admin and a minor coder and mapper at various times as well, though many things did not come to fruition.

Cue to now and I can hardly recognize tgstation anymore from even just earlier this year and I feel like its a change for the worse. The graphics seem to clash with the background, the lighting feels awkward, footprints EVERYWHERE, everyone moves at LIGHTNING speed, faster than even I remember. I still play the ocassional round, but the experience is not the same. If I could change two things, it would be the lighting and the graphical style. It clashes with what should feel like the classic byond experience of goofy SNES style graphics.

The point I'm trying to make is that keeping it closed source does add cohesion to the game and keeps it from going off in all directions, something that TG may very well have a problem with.

[Herac]

In the end if creators want their creation to be closed or open source it's their choice. I feel this has probably been discussed again and again. Though I do understand why you'd want to ask and I don't think there's anything wrong with that Khorl the fact is if you want to join an established project you have to accept that you'll be expected to conform to their way of doing certain things.

For my own part I don't want to imagine what CM would look like if a hundred different coders, mappers and spriters all working without a common plan were the main source of updates.

Whatever the reasoning you've got to respect the CM team has the right to own what they create.

[Recounted]

Questions like these were answered the general community meeting we had yesterday. There should be a video up soon if anyone is looking for answers for anything similar to these.

[NoahKirchner]

Well, with closed source you can have a coordinated and curated development team with a more focused vision, as opposed to having to maintain a repo with constant PRs being submitted, many of which are not up to standard or do not mesh with the vision of the people in charge of development, which often ends with drama of the "reeee goddamn nazi repo maintainers didnt merge my pr fucking dictator fascists" kind. Just take a gander around /tg/ or Bay to see what I'm talking about.

Are there benefits to open source? Yes, many have been listed here. Are there disadvantages? Absolutely. Open source is messy and the dev team clearly believes that closed source works better for what they're trying to do. You can send suggestions or become part of the dev team. It's not stopping community members from contributing, you just cannot contribute in the same way or to the same extent as easily.

You can still maintain a dev team and have very high standards for merging as an open source project. Hell, if you want, you can deny all PRs aside those from devs to maintain the vision and keep development moving largely the same way as it is now, the key difference being that you can port features from other codebases to enhance the CM experience. Take the discord bot for example, as far as I understand NGGJamie is busy with college (hence his stepping down from senior position before being host), and the decision to make a bot is entirely up to him according to the community meeting last night. There are a lot of discord bots already made by other SS13 servers that could be ported and used on the CM discord in like a day instead of having to take the time to develop a bot from scratch. CM's real strength is its sprites and atmosphere, a lot of the code that it uses which is impressive is rather niche and other servers have no real reason to port it.

This would, though, allow CM to quickly modernize its backend code and probably streamline the process of getting things like multiple game mods up and running or to port a ticket system so that ahelps no longer get lost in the flood, or even to react more quickly to byond-side bugs by piggybacking off of the progress in another server, opening your source code doesn't mean that all of a sudden your game is community developed. You could, like I said earlier, deny every single PR that isn't by a dev and still have a secret dev chat to coordinate large updates. You can hide important variable like damage variables behind a server side config file and find a way to make CM run, look and play better.

Goonstation is closed source go ask them, as probably the oldest code base

Goon also now only hits like 30 players max and their coders are fucking wizards. Not to detract from the CM coders but I am of the belief that gooncoders are not human. Also do note that if goon didn't release their code SS13 would probably be dead by now.

closed source is also good contextually- open source for many games on something like steam would be the ability to mod an existing title. Which is where we came from.

A mod, of a mod, of a mod, may be a little excessive. More than one CM server would cause issues to the game, and to ss13. Closed source is best for everyone for now, because as others mentioned, its better for development outside of a commitee.

I doubt that any fork of CM that didn't drastically change the game would be succesful unless the CM administration in the next few months does something absolutely insane. Think about all of the hate that paradise gets, for example, the reason that nobody's forked paradise and made a better paradise is because they don't already have an established staff team or reputation. I'm moderately certain that the same would happen for CM, it's got a very large pop and an established codebase with money in reserve, an established and active dev team, a cemented moderation team and a sense of direction. Anything that would kill CM open source would kill CM closed source as well.

In the end if creators want their creation to be closed or open source it's their choice. I feel this has probably been discussed again and again. Though I do understand why you'd want to ask and I don't think there's anything wrong with that Khorl the fact is if you want to join an established project you have to accept that you'll be expected to conform to their way of doing certain things.

For my own part I don't want to imagine what CM would look like if a hundred different coders, mappers and spriters all working without a common plan were the main source of updates.

Whatever the reasoning you've got to respect the CM team has the right to own what they create.

CM wouldn't look like a hodge-podge of different developers because the maintainer still has the ability to merge things, if they wanted to they could deny every single pull request by everyone who isn't a dev, or not allow them to submit pull requests in the first place.

--

That said I do agree that in the end it's up to the devs, and I really don't expect them to ever go open source, I just strongly believe that open source is objectively better in almost every way to closed source for a niche server like CM but it will never happen.