Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Not about OpenMW? Just about Morrowind in general? Have some random babble? Kindly direct it here.
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Thunderforge
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by Thunderforge »

I hope that you'll reconsider, scrawl. OpenMW means a lot of different things to different people, and I definitely believe that there is room for contributors who both are looking for it to be a hallmark of engineering, and for it to be about playing Morrowind. But if that's really what you want, then your presence will be missed.

To the rest of this community, this project is not fully dependent on any one person. A common term in the software dev world is the "bus factor", which is a measure of how many people have to get hit by a bus before the project falls apart. Open source projects on Git (wherever they are hosted) are pretty good about having a high bus factor, and we've got a number of other developers submitting features and bug fixes both big and small. We've always had to deal with the possibility that scrawl (or Zini, or any other dev) would be hit by a bus. I'm optimistic that the project will continue to be healthy, especially as we hit version 1.0 to let the outside world know that we've hit parity with vanilla Morrowind. I hope that scrawl will choose to return some day, but if not, we will still continue on.
Last edited by Thunderforge on 10 Jun 2018, 15:54, edited 5 times in total.
davidcernat
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by davidcernat »

scrawl wrote: 10 Jun 2018, 12:48 No thanks, I'll rather take a break until Microsoft is dead.

The only reason I kept working on OpenMW was because I wanted it to be hallmark of engineering, of collaboration between OSS projects and of free software culture in general. I've long since stopped caring about 'playing morrowind', and if that's the only thing this project is still about (as evidenced by most of the comments in this thread), then there's no need for me to be here anymore. Thanks to drummyfish, werdanith and Chris for being a voice of reason, but it looks like we're the minority.

To be fair, between work and other stuff I haven't had much time to work on anything substantial for OpenMW anyway, but if I did, I'd just make a fork and I'd be sure to make it Linux only to weed out the "free as in free beer" suckers (thanks for the idea, Blue).

So I guess that's a 'bye'. Don't try to win me back because you could hardly say or do anything in earnest at this point.
scrawl, don't make it about what most other people say or think. There are more people in the world than there are seconds in 240 years. Are we going to care about what all of them have to say if they suddenly decide to sign up and post on this forum?

This is your baby. You made this project. It was your sweat and your tears and your toil, it was years from your life, it was you top-to-bottom and end-to-end, and no one can come in and take any of that away. Your opinion on it matters, almost no one else's opinion does.

Beyond that, anyone who tries to split this project off in a direction that's far from your wishes is probably too inept to get anywhere with it. I have less than zero faith in whatever Blue and people like Blue want to do.

Anyone smart enough to do something significant is probably also smart enough to understand they are better off sticking with the main project, or staying fully compatible with it, or at least respecting its wishes to a very significant degree.

But, even so, there's also no minority in this thread. Everyone here who's been here for more than a brief period of time is firmly on Team Scrawl by default. If we forget sometimes about OpenMW being used to make new games, it's because – in current practice – we use it to play Morrowind, instead of the Morrowind-like games we'd like to have. If we don't understand how strongly you feel about moving away from a Microsoft-owned entity, it's because we're still surprised and talking over the implications.

Don't go. We're going to respect your wishes.
Last edited by davidcernat on 10 Jun 2018, 15:17, edited 1 time in total.
Ferk
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Joined: 08 Sep 2013, 20:27

Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by Ferk »

wareya wrote: 10 Jun 2018, 13:57If you want to talk about what's "on GitHub" without specifically elaborating that you're including private stuff, it's going to mean the public stuff.
In that case the statement has no real value. He could just as well have said that most of the code that's publicly available on the world as a whole is open source. Github is no more friendly to open source than any other publicly hosted VCS could be.

I was hoping from him to make a point, so I expected he really meant "most projects on Github" not just the public ones.
It's very rare to have source code public on the Internet for anyone to see and yet make it closed source.
Last edited by Ferk on 10 Jun 2018, 14:49, edited 2 times in total.
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DestinedToDie
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by DestinedToDie »

Maybe I shouldn't have stayed silent. I'm sort of ignorant on this topic so I decided not to speak up, but I'm also on the team of OpenMW being more than just a way to play Morrowind. Having read through this thread, it seems there are just a few people here who are Microsoft-centrists.

I hope development on OpenMW continues on all three platforms.
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wareya
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by wareya »

You can be "on GitHub" without putting your project's source up. Steam, for example. They use github as an issue tracker. And that's ignoring projects with look-don't-touch licenses, and nonfree open licenses (e.g. licenses with noncommercial clauses).
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lysol
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by lysol »

DestinedToDie wrote: 10 Jun 2018, 14:38 Maybe I shouldn't have stayed silent. I'm sort of ignorant on this topic so I decided not to speak up, but I'm also on the team of OpenMW being more than just a way to play Morrowind.
The same reason I didn't say much. Just wanted to quote because I agree.

I have some sort of a distant dream of making a CC-BY-SA licensed role playing game project on the OpenMW engine. Having a free, totally FOSS RPG-based game engine like OpenMW (not just "kind-of" open source) is amazing for a dream like this. I'm just waiting for more free time and the engine to get more evolved.
Last edited by lysol on 10 Jun 2018, 15:14, edited 1 time in total.
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Capostrophic
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by Capostrophic »

I have such a dream too, I think many share it.
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Okulo
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by Okulo »

scrawl wrote: 10 Jun 2018, 12:48The only reason I kept working on OpenMW was because I wanted it to be hallmark of engineering, of collaboration between OSS projects and of free software culture in general.
For what it's worth, Scrawl, I'd like you to know that the work that you and the others have done on OpenMW all these years has inspired me to go into software development. Between my finding OpenMW and now, I have left my job at a laboratory to go back to school and learn application development. I now attend the Amsterdam University of Applied Science to study software engineering and I earn money as a developer during the day.

I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for OpenMW and the work that you and others have done. You guys have literally changed my life. Take that for what it's worth to you.
Last edited by Okulo on 10 Jun 2018, 15:19, edited 1 time in total.
Ferk
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by Ferk »

I do agree as well with scrawl that the intelligent way to go for OpenMW is to become an open source engine for fully open source RPG worlds and open collaboration, a truly community-driven open world, getting away from even Bethesda's content.

In my opinion, sticking with making OpenMW be just an improved engine for Morrowind is a path that might be cursed. Mainly because Morrowind is a game owned by a private company. The moment that there's a spark of community interest rekindled by something like OpenMW I can imagine Bethesda rubbing their hands at the idea of exploiting this reopened mine by releasing a "Morrowind Remastered" (maybe with multiplayer even) that would make OpenMW worthless for all those players whose only wish was a modernized version of Morrowind. Just like how "Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition" (featuring also Linux support) meant a blow in GemRB's engine popularity.

It sometimes saddens me a bit when I see so much support from the mod community to a private IP, so many people spending countless hours for their love to the property of a corporate business who takes the fruit of that work and ties it with licenses and ToS. It's sad when you think about what those modders could have done if instead they had joined forces to make an independent, truly free and open world that could have continued evolving and expanding with no limits for years to come.

Instead, we have a company raping multiple times its own lore with contradictions on each release, streamlining both gameplay and story to make it more commercial.
Ferk
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by Ferk »

wareya wrote: 10 Jun 2018, 14:52You can be "on GitHub" without putting your project's source up.
Yes, that's why I said it's very rare. I didn't say you can't do it.

Did someone seriously expect that a VCS website like Github would have its top most important publicly hosted services be user-facing issue trackers (more like support forums, honestly) rather than actual projects under VCS?
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