As for the rest of you, great that you're having a discussion. Just, don't hate on Night Wolf. Don't hate on Kondra and don't hate on Mehah - don't hate on anyone!
Bad pressure and stress online is actually a real thing. Hate online is a real thing. Mental health is a real thing.
Keep it civilized is all we're asking of you.
Cheers!
In light of Reckful's death, these words resonate pretty hard on the internet the last few days especially. We've even had an unfortunate case of a death here on OTLand of a guy who arguably had mental health issues which might have contributed greatly to this factor, and shitty behavior online can certainly reflect itself upon a person, especially if they're lacking mental fortitude or attitude to deal with it. There must be a fine line between criticism and straight up bullying or abuse, and sometimes it's a blurry one, so I thank you for not closing this thread right away since there is some blurry stuff.
I think
@Night Wolf 's post comes from a place of motivation and support for
@Mehah , but in doing that, OTCv8 and the idea of it is more presented like some sort of 'enemy' we open-community have to fight against, devaluing the entire original sentiment and making it come across as petty bashing. You need to take this down a notch, and I'll say something the way I see it -
@Mehah is running a nice initiative and it's a project worth getting behind, but that does not mean it can not co-exist with OTCv8.
I can not help but notice some ugly and subtle displays of ego out there, which does no favor for this topic. In some replies, you seem like you feel attacked by some of the posts which clearly had no intention of attacking you.
If this is google translate doing its magic or something, then that's another story, but rest assured no one here is against your work, you have no reason to act so defensive about it. Keep it up!
I do understand though, that threads like this put you in an uncomfortable position of having to say something eventually. Just don't allow provocations to make you paint yourself like a clown for no reason, when people have nothing but respect towards what you're doing.
And
@Night Wolf, you don't need to reiterate this story a hundred times, even you yourself say you feel like you're repeating yourself - that's because you are. I'm sure people are already aware of the situation, and there are things already being done about it, which is the basis upon which this thread was even created on.
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I've been thinking about this situation with OTCv8 quite a bit, the easiest and most impulsive way to think about it is -
@kondra is greedy and his actions are what contributes to the decay of this community. This was my first impulse and without giving it more thought, I rolled with it for a bit, but with the benefit of observing the situation unfold, I came to realize that there is really no reason to bash this guy, and I'd argue now that what he did resulted in a string of actions that may be more valuable to this community than him releasing his code as open source right away.
Kondra, first of all, at a time when lower level code development seemed quite dead in here (especially OTC related), came and showed that there is no need for another client, that a person with some dedication and knowledge is able to make OTC perform just fine. This was quite obvious in hindsight, it's true for pretty much any code, but I think sometimes it takes a demonstration to really let that sink in, and that's what he provided.
This, combined with the fact that it is locked behind a giant paywall, revealed that there is still some knowledgeable developers around here and I love that, I think it acts as a giant motivation factor and an example for any aspiring developer to start pushing themselves even more.
Whether your motivation is to compete and earn, or to be able to use such knowledge to pour into the community, that's up to you. You have the right to make such decisions in any way that suits you. It gave me such a motivation, and doubtless, there are other people around here who feel the same.
Second,
@kondra , nor anyone here, is bound by anything else except morals, to release that code or be a provider of services for you. As predatory as that behavior may be called by those who are in the unfortunate position of wanting these changes really bad, but not being able to pay for them - this is the real world, and the guy comes from a country with a messed up economy.
He found a way to exploit the stale state of the development in this community, as there was a huge demand for something, but no supply, and used his own knowledge to be the sole supplier of that product which clearly, some people are willing to pay a huge load of money for.
This is the way of the free market, of a free world, and the moment any of us fail to consider that, is the moment when you disregard any respect for the fact that you already had level grounds to begin with. You have to realize they are not going to keep themselves level all the time. Opportunism and capitalism are alive and well, and an engine of today's modern world, which is arguably the best it has ever been in the history of our human race. Those trying to deny that and forcing other people to bend to their world view is the pressure nobody here wants, and definitely won't make you more likely to "convert" that person over to your side.
I would like to avoid drawing political parallels here, it's not a place for that.
I find it funny and sad that
Godwin's law already found itself into this thread by page 3.
@Peonso is right. OTC was free for all, including
@kondra. The day that it dropped under MIT license on github was the same day anyone was able to take the code and already commercialize it. If some "moral policeman" within you wanted to stop this, you should've taken that motivation and stepped up.
His morals are the only thing you can hold him accountable for, nothing else, and clearly he is very comfortable with where he stands. Why wouldn't he be? Whether you agree with that, or not, does not oblige him to give a damn, and you can paint him as a villain all you want, but it's not going to change what's happening, in fact, you are probably reinforcing his attitude by constantly insulting him (even subtly), because that just gives him less of a reason to collaborate with such a community.
I don't know the dude, maybe he can clarify, but I'm willing to take a shot in the dark and say - if the only alternative he had was to create otcv8 for free, and never put a paywall on it - he wouldn't have done it at all, because he'd be busy using his knowledge doing something else lucrative that can help him push through in a brutal economy.
Some of you can afford to take the rest of your day off after work, and mess around with code, or hobbies or whatever. Some can't. Some work 2 or 3 jobs. Some have a family reliant on their income, etc. You don't know the entire story, and nobody should have to disclose it to you so that you feel that their actions are justified;-- actions, which were never unlawful or hurtful to anyone to begin with. If they were, that'd be a different thing.
In such endeavors, if a person has a choice, they will probably try to create a reality for themselves where they are doing something they love (for example OT/Tibia stuff), and still earning enough to the point where they can continue pursuing their hobby as their actual main source of revenue.
Should such people be prohibited from still being a part of this "open" community? Should their effort to make a living from something they enjoy be shat on? As far as I know, Kondra released all but 10% of the code otcv8 uses, as well as made every possible effort to ensure that otcv8 is fully usable and largely customizable by the vast majority of its users. He actually made OTC worthy of use.
The rest of the hidden code would only ever be of any use to actual client developers. And the released sources he put out should be more than enough to give any developer worth their salt an idea of how it was achieved.
You crucify
@kondra for for gatekeeping improvements behind paywall, but in fact, if he released that full code tomorrow, I would put my nutsack under a guillotine betting that these same people
would 100% be frothing at the mouth as they implemented the code and ran it on their d'n'r distro with a donation shop crammed to the brims, out to earn that same money which they criticize him for doing. That's the real and saddest hypocrisy here.
Not saying that having a cash shop in your game is bad at some levels, just pointing out the fact that that's exactly what would be happening, yet when kondra found a slightly different way to earn money here (which is a lot less leechless), he's the one being put on heavy blast in numerous threads.
The idea of OTCv8 even existing is out there, is the result of a community within which very little actual developers are left, and the rest is a bunch of leeches much worse than what you're calling Kondra, who can barely implement an action script, waiting to be served the good stuff, for 5+ years straight, with zero motivation or will to learn (or share).
I know that, because I'm the first one who sold numerous useful things to people, and I've never seen it shared anywhere. If you want to debate me on my morals or reasons for doing such things, go ahead.
This was inevitably going to happen, the rot has grown rampant from the inside. This wake up call is exactly what the community needed, because if it succeeds in waking the mass conscience here up, then it will have done a greater thing than releasing otcv8 sources would ever have done on its own.
That's why I commend you
@Mehah for your initiative, because I respect the fact that you are experimenting and learning things, sharing such knowledge with everyone, as so many impactful developers from this community have done in the past, and on the example of your OTCv1.0, it is shown that such conscience can be triggered or woke up, given a potent enough kick (which arguably, kondra may be the one to thank for).
