Plugins - Split from Community Manager, changing the guard

Jahmen · **Posted:** Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:03 am

Mowog Wrote

Quote:

Chogon, thanks for making the very best of a challenging position! The Myst community is nothing if not passionate, and when you mix that passion with our diversity, there's no telling what you're going to get from week to week. Some of us are optimistic and some are pessimistic; but whatever we happen to be, we're passionate about either extreme, and you've had to deal with that for a long time now. You've done an excellent job, and we'll miss those blue posts!

Looking forward to the future of Cyan, the Community, and Everything Myst,

Mowog - Expressed well what I would say and so I quote it.

RAWA - WELCOME! Perhaps it will be on your watch that MORE - Open Source Uru will happen and how exciting will that be huh?

I remain "Cautiously Optomistic" about CYAN and those working to make the effort to bring Open Source or MORE about. Any hints as to what the issues are holding it up from becoming a reality? Cryptic comes up alot about CYAN and so any way to make a clear statement about where things truly stand and why? Where does CYAN stand as to Opens Soure Uru or MORE? Which does CYAN/ RAND want to have happen? Can you confirm CYAN still needs to acquirie "pluggin's" a former employee has and wants compensation for and reportly required to get Open Source Uru Live up again? Have you had time to read and keep up with the threads here on issues from CYAN Legal licesning of fan created content dealing with fan "Copy Rights & Profits" to acquiring the "pluggin's"? CYAN wanting to host the servers again for MORE or Open Source? Any facts or up-dates you can share? :oops:

OK OK SORRY I got excited and carried away. :oops:

Eleri · **Posted:** Thu Dec 10, 2009 8:10 am

So, Chogon... since you're working on bringing old Cyan stuff to new platforms, when will we get Myst for the Droid?

Nalates · **Posted:** Fri Dec 11, 2009 7:23 pm

Jahmen wrote:

[…]
Can you confirm CYAN still needs to acquirie "pluggin's" a former employee has and wants compensation for and reportly required to get Open Source Uru Live up again?
[…]

Where did this idea come from?

Jerle · **Posted:** Fri Dec 11, 2009 9:42 pm

Eh, I'm always a day (month) late and a dollar short but yay RAWA!

Jahmen · **Posted:** Sat Dec 12, 2009 12:58 pm

Nalates Wrote:

Quote:

Where did this idea come from?

Nalates, it was mentioned in a thread I read too far back to for me to try to find and guess at which site/forum/thread or when exactly. I thought it was common knowledge at one time that some 3rd party code and plug in's had been used for Uru that CYAN needed to re-acquire or License of. Perhaps I misunderstood the post but the gist was to something of the such and maybe RAWA will post to confirm or deny any validity to any of it.

Nalates, here is what I was getting at. Thanx kaelisebonrai and Leonardo

kaelisebonrai Posted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 1:18 pm — Post subject:

Quote:

I believe it was something posted by Chogon, regarding Cyan requiring changes to the code that only an unnamed "former employee" could make, and it was later posted by Chogon that the changes were not of a technical nature.

Leonardo Posted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 1:27 pm — Post subject:

Quote:

I agree with kaelisebonrai, I don't remember anything about a Licence, a plugin or code to re-acquire, but I do remember Chogon saying that a former Cyan empoyee had to make some changes that only he could make.
Here Chogon's post: http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 546#294546

kaelisebonrai · **Joined:** Sun Jan 20, 2008 2:14 pm **Posts:** 902

I believe it was something posted by Chogon, regarding Cyan requiring changes to the code that only an unnamed "former employee" could make, and it was later posted by Chogon that the changes were not of a technical nature.

Leonardo · **Posted:** Sat Dec 12, 2009 1:27 pm

I agree with kaelisebonrai, I don't remember anything about a Licence, a plugin or code to re-acquire, but I do remember Chogon saying that a former Cyan empoyee had to make some changes that only he could make.
Here Chogon's post: http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 546#294546

JWPlatt · **Posted:** Sat Dec 12, 2009 4:13 pm

Jahmen wrote:

CYAN still needs to acquirie "pluggin's" a former employee has and wants compensation for

In any case, the insult above is a gross mischaracterization. This is what Nalates was calling out.

Jahmen · **Posted:** Tue Dec 15, 2009 2:04 pm

Insult? Mischaracterization?

Nalates quoted Jahmen Wrote:

[…]
Can you confirm CYAN still needs to acquirie "pluggin's" a former employee has and wants compensation for and reportly required to get Open Source Uru Live up again?
[…]

Where did this idea come from?

JWPlatt Quotes, Jahmen wrote:

Quote:

CYAN still needs to acquirie "pluggin's" a former employee has and wants compensation for

In any case, the insult above is a gross mischaracterization. This is what Nalates was calling out.

I well know Nalates can call out and speak well enough for herself and if you want to quote me, then please quote all of it to show context JW.

Sheesh! Gimmie me a break! Perhaps when you frame it as a statement instead of a question I asked for some clarification on.

Nalates · **Posted:** Tue Dec 15, 2009 7:07 pm

We both are wondering where you got the idea Cyan was being held up by someone wanting money. JWP found it insulting.

I think many more of us consider it a 'knowledge' and time issue that is a problem. The only money related issue I recall was the individual having to make a living and being busy with life. It may just be a language thing. The sentence a worded implies a money issue.

Some of us tend to be sensitive about mis-characterizations because they seem to grow and spread through the community.

Whilyam · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 1:04 am **Posts:** 4134

I think the source of the confusion needs to be sorted out before accusations get thrown around.

The news that I have seen is that some plug-ins in the code are not able to be licensed to us because other employees had created them, thus owning them. So Cyan needs to strip those out. It has taken more time because Cyan has been re-writing those stripped-out sections instead of just ripping things out.

Paradox · **Posted:** Thu Dec 17, 2009 3:37 am

Whilyam wrote:

I think the source of the confusion needs to be sorted out before accusations get thrown around.

The news that I have seen is that some plug-ins in the code are not able to be licensed to us because other employees had created them, thus owning them. So Cyan needs to strip those out. It has taken more time because Cyan has been re-writing those stripped-out sections instead of just ripping things out.

It would be nice if people wouldn't use "plug-in" and "3rd party code" interchangeably too...

Cyan's code consists of the four parts;

The main backend library "Plasma" which contains 3rd party code in the form of a physics engine (Havok/ODE/PhysX depending on the version), Video code (Bink), and some network and encryption code (which I'm pretty sure is open-source stuff and shouldn't present problems).

The Client application (plClientApp, UruExplorer.exe) which is what you run on your computer to play the game.

The Server application (plServer) which is what the clients connect to and exchange messages with. This includes the Vault Server, which interacts with a database. UU used a MySQL database, MOUL used an Oracle database. It is possible that the Oracle code needs to be removed, but I don't personally think there would be much difference in the database code between UU and MOUL (all the code is doing is talking to a database).

Finally, there is the 3DStudio Max plugin. This runs inside 3DSMax and uses the Plasma library to generate the game files. It's not quite an "export plugin" like PyPRP, since 3DS Max is the entire build process for Plasma content. Cyan has mentioned releasing a compiled version of this plugin as far back as UU, so I don't think there would be any code licensing issues; but because it is a 3DS Max plugin, there may be stuff tied up with Autodesk.

JWPlatt · **Posted:** Thu Dec 17, 2009 4:52 am

Whilyam wrote:

I think the source of the confusion needs to be sorted out before accusations get thrown around.

Well, yes but...

Whilyam wrote:

...some plug-ins in the code are not able to be licensed to us because other employees had created them, thus owning them... Cyan has been re-writing those stripped-out sections instead of just ripping things out.

Neither assumption is supported by the only messages from Cyan upon which the assumptions are based:

Chogon wrote:

the ex-Cyan programmers that were going to help also had greater demands from their 'real' jobs.

http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 887#289887

Chogon wrote:

I am *still* waiting for a particular ex-Cyan person to send me code changes that only he can make.

http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 546#294546

Nothing about creating or owning, even if true. And there's a difference between owning and the rights to use.

Chogon wrote:

It has less to do with something technical and more to do with, well, something else.

http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 550#294550

Nothing about creating or owning, but it makes a rights issue a pretty good guess.

Rand Miller wrote:

We have to go through MOUL with an even finer tooth comb - through source code that in some cases is almost ten years old - and either pull the parts that we cannot release or rewrite them. This is something we planned on doing with spare cycles, and even with the gracious help of former employees. But because of point number one - spare cycles are almost nonexistent.

http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18767

RAWA wrote:

I will also pass on apparent consensus that you (at least those who've written on the topic) are ok with having things that cannot be released ripped out and handed off rather than waiting for them to be rewritten, even if it means it won't work at all when initially provided.

http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 449#308449

Nothing about having rewritten anything so far. The decision to pull or rewrite appears to not have been made, further supported by RAWA's later update.

All it takes is a little work to find the sources (okay, minor pun) and a little care to not extend too far past what has actually been said by authoritative sources (there's that word again).

Anaerin · **Joined:** Wed Nov 08, 2006 10:20 pm **Posts:** 303

I wonder. If (one of) the problem(s) is, for instance, Bink/Smacker video and licensing thereof, that code could be replaced with code from MPlayer or FFMpeg, both of which decode smk movies.

Admittedly, that is just one soluton - I'm pretty sure we'd also need a physics engine in there too, at the least. And OpenAL

ddb174 · **Joined:** Wed Jan 16, 2008 5:27 pm **Posts:** 167

Yeah, amongst the open-source libraries they use are Boost (including Boost Python), and OpenSSL. (Even though these are open-source, Cyan has actually performed copyright infringement with respect to OpenSSL with MOUL :P)

Other things they use the general Plasma library to make is their Ethereal/Wireshark plugin and the VaultManager.

Yeah, Bink isn't really a problem, simply because Uru only has a couple videos, and even Theora (which sucks :P) could be used. h264 could be used, using the open-source x264 library, but there are patent issues, though such an unimportant project as this probably won't attract any unwanted attention anyway.

The physics engine is the real problem. (Avatar customisation is a painful thing that apparently needs to be partially replaced, though considering how bad it is in Uru, I don't know why they had to use a 3rd party library to begin with. I guess just getting it done and out the door.)

Plugins - Split from Community Manager, changing the guard

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