What is BWF?

[tom_savage]

My apologies FC. I hope there's something you can do to protect your code legally. I realize you can't charge them for damages done, because you're not allowed to sell your mod--but I do believe there are legal actions you can take to prevent them from getting to use ANY small collection of your code, making life hell for those trying to replicate it.

[FlowerChild]

I'm not going to get tied up in legal bullshit man. I've never gone after anyone for that, nor do I want to devote that much time and energy to fighting something like this...even if I could.

There's just no long term benefit in it for me or anyone else really. I'll just keep doing what I do, and enjoy, once this has a chance to settle in a bit.

[cpw]

Hello flowerchild. I am not here to defend the author of BWF. In my opinion it is misguided, but I do not control the actions of others..
I am here to take issue with your repeated accusation that I ripped off modloader. I take quite serious offence to the notion. FML started as a new refresh on porting the mod loader API to the server, as it had been identified that there were serious flaws in NOT supporting the server. Developments since that time have vindicated that. FML shares no code in common with modloader except that necessary to make mod loader mods function, namely the classes ModLoader and BaseMod. Note that their implementation is different, only the method signatures are the same..

The quest for base edit free code is one I have championed, as I believe it is the only way to guarantee that mods can survive into the future. The API is coming, and your approach is going to suffer with each and every new release of minecraft. I am trying to build a platform upon which modders can ease into the API as their time permits.

Anyway, I don't wish to start a battle with you, but please understand, the game is undergoing great upheaval, even RTH will not escape unscathed..

[FlowerChild]

I never intended to imply you ripped off the code man. It comes down to more ripping off Risu's position within the community, which is more of a conceptual thing.

I've also questioned the reasons for which this was done, and why it was done when it was.

Also, I've had SlowPoke himself tell me point blank that FML was created specifically because Risu said no to the inclusion of ML in the FTB mod-pack, so I am unlikely to believe other justifications for it.

[cpw]

Slowpoke is wrong. FML was born before the FTB project had really evolved. Its all on github. The migration to the client side from the server was motivated by the possibility of a truly open source platform. Of course FTB was a direct benefactor of that but it was only one of several factors in that decision - probably most important was that I saw the activity for 1.3 and realised that having differing mod loading technologies on client and server was absurd.

I never intended to replace Risugami, and I still have a lot of respect for his actions 2 years ago. However, his API is incredibly minimalistic, and I wanted to provide a more comprehensive loading experience, with capabilities that are only now starting to be really understood. The upcoming render changes are going to be another round in the ongoing cat and mouse that is being a mod loader. I hope you will come to understand that FML is meant for the good of the modding community..

[FlowerChild]

Actually, cpw, given our previous interactions, I don't doubt your motives, and I don't think I've ever said anything negative about you personally.

The other Forge team members, and prominent members of the community associated with Forge on the other hand are a different story in this.

When SlowPoke says something like the above to me, I take it at face value. My immediate response to that (and this was weeks ago before this whole BWF thing happened) was:

"How is that different from Technic?"

Also, Searge's shameless promotion of FML in the ML thread when it was in the process of being updated with the last vMC release was entirely in poor taste and is at the root of my conflict with him right now (in addition to him trying to basically strong-arm me on keeping silent on my honest opinions of Forge).

Now, with Lex acting as the public face behind this BWF thing, I don't think I need to provide further explanation of how that looks.

So, your intentions may very well be good, and I don't even doubt that, just as I'm sure a heck of a lot of Forge mod authors (probably even the majority) have good intentions.

However, the company you are keeping is beginning to look very bad indeed man, and I'm not exactly in the position right now to pull punches in describing what is going on. My apologies to you if that is leaving you caught in the middle of what has evolved into a very nasty situation.

[cpw]

On slowpoke, he is mistaken about the birth if FML. Otherwise I have found him to be quite honourable.
On searge, he has a very specific reason to want widespread FML adoption, it gives him capabilities he has long sought. I am glad of and welcome his advocacy, however, I do agree that publicizing his advocacy on Risu's thread may have had a gloatful element to it. But searge is human as we all are.
I have no comment on lex and your claimed advocacy of BWF. I haven't seen the footage to which you have taken such ire, and wish to stay out of it. On one specific point you are mistaken though, no hook was added to forge for BWF that I am aware and lex and I consult extensively. Amusingly a whole FML feature is added for you however- the capability to refuse to load in the presence of undesirable mods. It is only partially implemented for lack of customers but would finish it if one came along ;)
Anyway it is late and I shall take my leave again for now..

[FlowerChild]

Amusingly a whole FML feature is added for you however- the capability to refuse to load in the presence of undesirable mods. It is only partially implemented for lack of customers but would finish it if one came along ;)

Just as an aside though, I never really wanted that feature, as I think we both know it's effectively useless given how easy it would be to disable something like that.

I appreciate the effort, but it's really not a practical solution to this kind of thing, hence why I don't think it'll have many customers ;)

[FlowerChild]

On slowpoke, he is mistaken about the birth if FML. Otherwise I have found him to be quite honourable.

Aside from the other night, I've actually gotten along fine with SlowPoke, so I'm not sure why he popped in and suddenly claimed I didn't like him.

I will say though that I always had the impression that he was trying to pull a con job on me whenever we spoke, kinda like talking to a used car salesman, but that's neither here nor there.

Given I can see his hand in all this BWF thing though, I don't think we'll be having a civil conversation again anytime soon.

[Battosay]

Pffft .... That's just sad. And lame.
And very mature for someone called FlowerAdult ...
After listening some parts of the twitch video, I don't see how the Forge guys can try to pretend that they have nothing to do with it ...
C'mon, when you're helping someone anally rape a modder, at least grab your balls and assume.

[nukularpower]

I just wanted to chime in and say that I find this whole situation disgusting. A wholesale ripoff like this is bad enough, but for Lex to be so publicly putting his face on it is mind blowing to me, as if he's going out of his way to justify everything FC has always said about Forge. They say it's not using BTW code, but how can that possibly be true when things like hardcore beds were hard-enabled in that stream? Maybe it's going to be changed over before any public relaase, but I would bet a lot of money that that early version had direct code reuse, at least for some portion of it. And it's obviously untrue that Lex is uninvolved - he might not be making the mod, but he is clearly at least moral support: On top of the stream shenanigans, FlowerAdult told me himself in IRC that Lex even came up with that name.

Like I said, this whole thing reeks, and it makes me feel bad for supporting Forge. I'm not sure what can possibly be done about it besides just moving on, but I guess there is room for an official API after all. At any rate, that rant posted on the Technic forum certainly seems fully justified.

For whatever it's worth, and I'm kinda fishing here, but FA also said that Flowerchild likely knows who he is and that he regards himself as a genius coder. Personally, I'm betting on this guy http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/158 ... -diamonds/, who has said he loves BTW on his own stream many times, now streams playing Forge mods, was on the BWF stream as a player despite having kinda come out of nowhere, has recently put out 2 quick mods, and who obviously isn't above public trolling, given that mod I linked there. Also, the very first reply to that thread is.. who? Mattabase. Feel free to delete this if a call-out is inappropriate, but the fact that whoever it is is using an "alt for an alt" is one of the weakest things about this whole mess to me - at least have the balls to stand up for what you're doing.

[CreeperCommando]

I. Am. Appalled! Seriously? This whole bloody mess has proven two things. Popularity defining ethics follows the principle 'the victorious is he who writes the history'.
Also that intellectual property seems nil-valued when it comes to semantics about the medium that it's presented in.....
Writing the same intellectual design only in another format is pretty blatant copying, and if people denies it this being copying on the grounds of 'not being copyright violation' I know. A scam that is harder to pull of isn't less of a scam simply because of that...
I only hope that these self-justifying brats stay clear from any academic carriers as they'd instantly become those who steal others research.
I feel for FC, I've always loved science and the concept of learning about the universe, and sadly it is this kind of thinking (also the other extreme of trying to milk any intellectual property out to it's bare bones) that is one of the worst kind of poison in any scientific study. What I'm getting at is that I view game-designing as pretty much in that group (if anything, closely associated with psychology), and this BS Flower Adulterous pulling is thus the lowest of low.

[Mason11987]

It's silly that someone would make an alt if they really didn't think it was an issue to do a clone.

[nukularpower]

response to removed post edited away - ignore

[Graphite]

Pointing fingers at people is hardly constructive. If you have proof, then by all means, post it, but let's not turn all this into a witch-hunt.

[nukularpower]

Well, I think there is a fair bit of evidence for my suspicion above, but point taken.

[SterlingRed]

This recent blow up makes me sad. Nothing to do with the argument itself or he said this and i said that sort of thing. (For the record I entirely agree with FC and I'm very impressed with the way this has been handled. Respect man. Not a lot of people can take hits like this and keep chugging along.)

I'm just sad about the state of the minecraft community. I know division always comes with more people involved, but differences in opinion and modders directions and API choices can coexist without this back handed slease.
The fact that the sleasy side commands the major 'public outlets' so to speak makes it worse and nearly impossible to give a new player a fair opportunity to make a decision on his/her own about what mods and play styles suit him/her the most. New players are brainwashed from day one and inundated by forge content that many of them don't even know alternatives exist. And once sucked into the forge they only leave after experiencing the disaster that it is and looking for something else. Often this results in players 'wasting' a large amount of their play time on unbalanced crap. I bet its even costing mojang players.

I just miss the days of hmod, initial bukkit development, hippos mods, the other SSP mods. The community used to rally around each others projects and support things. There was the occasional rip off but they were the exception and were shunned by the major modders. Now, the rip offs are functioning like a major game publisher, ripping off the talent of the lower popularity mods or sucking them up for their own gain.
The very system notch dislikes about the gaming industry is what the minecraft community as a whole has become. Its just sad.

[magicjani]

Hello there. Again, I would like to apologise for any mess I may have caused by posting the original starting thread in here and I know your actions against me were probably correct... A guy with 2 posts posting such "heavy" topics may have seemed a bit "off" and I understand that.

I just didn't want that bull* like that would go unnoticed by the community, because I think everyone has the right to know what happened and how discouraging this is to the whole community, not only the modders.

[RezDev]

Personally, I'm betting on this guy

Are you talking about this guy?

EDIT: Putting this here for the record as these posts got moved to another thread:

I just wanted to toss my 2 cents here. I was going to stay out of it completely but my name came up. I have nothing to do with the creation of BWF.

Well then, all apologies for bringing your name up undeservedly. It seemed logical to me at the moment, but on the other hand, I do watch your stream (quite a bit actually, gets me through work nicely) and always thought you are a cool guy, so it was a bit hard to reconcile. Seeing you on that BWF thing was a bit of a shocker though, so I guess I jumped at that. So yeah, sorry!

I will also offer my apologies if my linking your stream video felt like "pointing fingers" or "piling on."

I found your channel through JeetTol and have been watching your BtW series on YouTube. Since the stream of yours I watched was basically 3 hours of "BtW is awesome, check this out," it seemed incongruous that you might be involved, and I wanted to show the community here, as well as FC, that there were others out there who enjoyed BtW for itself.

Again, my apologies if it came across in any other way.

Too both of you, No hard feelings at all. It's a charged topic and I can understand how at a glance it could seem that way. No apologies needed.

[Jeet]

I don't think it's Icy. Though he did make a forge add on so the animals will eat dropped food, but I don't think he went as far to copy the rest of the mod.

[tom_savage]

I'm not going to get tied up in legal bullshit man. I've never gone after anyone for that, nor do I want to devote that much time and energy to fighting something like this...even if I could.

There's just no long term benefit in it for me or anyone else really. I'll just keep doing what I do, and enjoy, once this has a chance to settle in a bit.

Fair enough. Just know that you have a lot of people who care for this mod and its author. I believe anyone who has contributed to these forums for any amount of time feels somewhat invested in this mod, and in you. It's the whole, 'no one beats up my family except for me' mentality. I just wish there were more we could do to help.

On another note, starting a witch hunt for FlowerAdulterous isn't going to do any good. If the guy wants to be known as a coward, he's got it--let him live with it. I guarantee if we DON'T look for him, he'll get fed up with no one caring, and start boasting by his original name. Some people live for the drama.

[FlowerChild]

Thanks for all the support guys, I really do appreciate it.

And yes, let's please not start a witch-hunt about this. I have my own theories on who this probably is, but throwing names around doesn't help anyone here, and will likely result in damage being done to people that had nothing to do with this.

Don't forget: the BTW community is rather large, and extends way beyond those on these forums. Not all of these people are reasonable either, and if a rumor starts that some poor bastard did this when he really didn't, it may wind up causing him taking a lot of hate for nothing.

So, please be responsible about who you suggest may have been involved.

[Eriottosan]

FC, I have to say, I have nothing but respect for how you are handling all of this. It's an absolute shit, yet you are being so restrained and responsible. It would be so easy for you to mouth off about it, and who you think is behind it, yet you aren't, 'cos you understand the possible ramifications of that, and you are encouraging the rest of us to be the same. I don't think there are many people who could honestly say they would behave as admirably and responsibly as you are if they were in your position.

[Ferrus.Manus]

You have my full support on this too, the whole thing stinks. Though I wonder about BTF's future, I have my doubts whether the Flower"Adult" will have the patience to finish this, especially once he hits more complicated parts. Also since he self-proclaimed to be "coding genius" I have very strong doubt about his coding ability, those who proclaim themselves to be geniuses usually aren't very good.

[obl1terat1ion]

You have me on your side too along with tons of other people, it may not seem like it but the mass of people see your side FC. anyway we will all try to help out on IRC and the like. :)