[poll] Want we a fork with different name in serverlist ?

[Festus1965]

Want we allow a fork with different name in the minetest-server-list ?

Yes ?
* it is a fork, still main most minetest code (but why then not the others ?)
* sure, they take all the crap gamer (proofed in watching them, the servers they get in) collected there, protect our servers

No ?
* it is a fork, so someone decide to make changes in code, change name - why he should still be in out list paid by our people (=out with the parasite)
* as also need to use our list, make gamer separating in more and more diff apps, mean loading wrong (forked) app, but not able to manage all parts of this service ? Do all (client, server, list) or die as other miss-leaded apps.
* whatever the protocol is same, the license might be similar - but it is not minetest named
* they can use the less mts, which are still open and learn to play real and decide to change to minetest app
* if forks stay, the coordinated work on the source code will get nearly impossible, as like now with change to 5.0 - they have to copy all again, or otherwise some day sure nothing fix together anymore (need guidelines ?)

more facts to decide;
sure I will offer them when I see some in the postings - so we might reload the poll enlarged with more arguments in 30 days

other discussion now and there posted pros and cons: source: https://github.com/minetest/master-server/issues/32:

It should be clarified if 3rd party applications that were forked from any of the Minetest releases should be allowed on the official Minetest server list or if there should be usage guidelines or technical solutions to prevent forks being listed.

Cons:
* Forks "steal" players from other servers because most of them are more popular than Minetest, especially on mobile
* Forks are not Minetest, but it is the Minetest server list
* Forks are not Minetest, but players expect Minetest and not some altered somewhat compatible other software based on Minetest
* There could be licensing issues with the forks
* Preconfiguring and hosting an own serverlist server is easy and forks can and should do that

Pros:
* They centralize (most) mobile gamers on their own servers and mobile gamers are not that much liked by some Minetest server hosters.
* Do nothing because a fork can simply announce itself as normal Minetest server anyways

* I am not sure about some statistics showed us last time, as they are against all the information we got before (to detect a client) - so how to use them as facts ?
* We have no proof about if there are a lot of bots in it, the behavior of them on some servers are stange, and show no any sign of understood the game ...
* Would it be a lost, if a) to forbid the servers and b) still block this name123 gamer ? And if yes, how can we convict them to use original ?
...

we need to find a solution,
Multicraft started already with own app, using our servers
now Multicraft places own named servers in this minetest server list
what will come next, if we don't stand the core ? mean code and name ?

this poll is for the devs, admins also gamer ... it is the question if minetest keeps minetest ... as if all is allowed, maybe we might not know anymore what we play anywhere ... and at the end minetest is not sen anymore between all this ...

[TalkLounge]

Definitely NOT.
That would be the same if the first search result at google would always redirect to the bing page for the entered search term. Google would ban bing, too.

In the minetest server list should be only servers that promote minetest
More information about this topic

[MoNTE48]

Well, any such restriction can be bypassed with 2 lines of code :) It is useless

[twoelk]

Well, any such restriction can be bypassed with 2 lines of code :) It is useless

not really helpfull except if you really want to generate more distrust of forks.

Sadly at the moment I fear it would be better if the "minetest-servers" would only allow trusted clients with the only reason being because minetest needs trusted clients/players to rule out cheating. This is a design flaw of the minetest engine. This needs to be fixed anyways wether forks exist or not.

Once the server does not need to trust the client anymore and has truly full controll of everything a client can do/see at all times, then I would absolutely vote for "anything can join a server as long as it keeps to the strict protocoll of information flow and the server keeps full control of all possible actions of a client" from a technical point of view. This does of course not apply to restrictions to only allow a certain type of players so that a certain sort of gameplay can be achieved. If I plan a server for master builders or a defined studygroup or schoolclass or maybe hardcore furries or fans of LOTR then of course I may restrict access to my server - but this has not much to do with the type of client my players might prefer to use.

[MoNTE48]

I mean something else. A problem with players containing 123 names has nothing to do with me. MultiCraft never possessed and will not possess such functionality!
I had in mind what to do by checking which name the game sends out does not make sense. The clones will simply stop changing this parameter. This will have no effect. The serverlist will think that this is a real minetest 0.4.17, although in reality it will not be true.

[sorcerykid]

Well not all forks of minetest are bad....

My server runs on the S3 Engine, which is highly customized fork of Minetest 0.4.14. I forked Minetest so I could add the features I need to make my vision of the the Just Test Tribute game possible.

The entire concept of Minetest is that it's open source AND fully modifiable. Your vision of Minetest seems to be some kind of centralized, totalitarian authority. As long as a server is not sending fake stats to the server list and is not promoting some kind of illegal activity, then it should be listed.

[Linuxdirk]

The entire concept of Minetest is that it's open source AND fully modifiable. Your vision of Minetest seems to be some kind of centralized, totalitarian authority. As long as a server is not sending fake stats to the server list and is not promoting some kind of illegal activity, then it should be listed.

Other than the server list or the CDB Minetest is not a centralized, totalitarian authority (they’re not, but it’s still easier to clone, fork and run Minetest than doing so with the server list or the CDB – because those are preconfigured in every user’s Minetest).

To me it is still wrong to allow random forks to parasitize the Minetest infrastructure like MultiCraft does.

[sorcerykid]

Other than the server list or the CDB Minetest is not a centralized, totalitarian authority

You misread. I said this person's vision of Minetest seems to be, at least with respect to the server list.

Look at the first post. It comes across almost exactly like the whole Net Neutrality debacle. Instead of openness and freedom, we need to have strict guidelines on what and how people can share with the world.

For the non-American users, here's the gist of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality

Also the forums are owned and operated by a single person too (we know this from past experience). But that's beside the point :P

[ShadMOrdre]

Festus1965,

I recently had a similar thought pattern. How best to "disable" the android users / android forks / forks in general / whitelist a specific version of MT. All these are somewhat desirable for server owners to better control the traffic. Controlling traffic is less about what fork or what platform a player is using, and more about providing my server with security.

Back in my Opensim days, hosting a server was only as secure as the user connecting to it. It didn't matter the client, or the compiled hack. If the user didn't maintain a certain level of administration on their own PC, then all the rest was really irrelevant. If a player connects to my server from a virus infected device, all my workarounds to ensure that my user base was using the correct client software to connect to my server, were essentially made moot.

Even if my server runs top of the line AV software, and viruses have no vector, I still have to contend with the open source nature of the software in question. If ANYONE can download the source, and compile the source, I really have no REAL way of securing anything using said software. Why? Simple. Anyone can recode. This is a vulnerability of OS apps that we all accept. You have to accept this. It is the very nature of the topic you created.

Forking MT will not solve this. Working WITH the dev team, instead of complaining when your ideas are shot down, will still get you somewhere further along the path, than complaining, irritating, and pissing people off.

Perhaps an alternative server list, maintained not by one, but a community of server ops that are willing to work together to address some of this. The android app will come directed to a specific server, looking for the default server list. You can point the client to ANY server, from which you can host a community supported server list, where servers are perhaps vetted, and clients can be pointed to from within the various worlds, keeping the server list at least a little less public.

Forking is not the answer, when other, better solutions are available.

Shad

[Festus1965]

A problem with players containing 123 names has nothing to do with me.

Most interesting wrote of him/her for me yet. And how this makes it easier for me, going step 2

And after reading the stats again after 30.06. I maybe offer also servers for maybe
??? Freeminer, MobileCraft and Freecraft if MultiCraft sill is allowed in there - so we should be fair then to all forks as this vote is not about only MultiCraft.

[twoelk]

Freeminer and Minetest are still largely compatible with each other and as such Freeminer-servers where on the server list and could be visited by minetest clients just as Freeminer-clients could visit Minetest-servers. The two servers on setun.net for example are freeminer servers iirc. Quite a few modders where aktive in both projects. I thought this pretty cool. I rather considered Freeminer an experimental branch that could explore areas that Minetest could/would not, simply because minetest had promissed to be more stable and backwards compatible for longer stretches of time and of course the big promise of being able to run on outdated hardware (which is indeed an interesting aspect for me).

The discussions with freeminer devs where often harsh but freeminer in my opinion always was part of the minetest project as whole and minetest benefited from it's existence. Voxelands on the other hand was a fork that wasn't as compatible anymore and yet some ideas travelled back and forth.

I might be an idealist but of the opensource idea what I really like is the "open" part of it. Open in many aspects including open-minded, open-discussions and open-standards. Isn't it for example cool that I can choose between companys exploring different design concepts and yet all offer rolling stock that runs on some standardized tracks? Think of wooden railways or model/toy trains for example.

Something that impressed me in the Second-Life project was that it established an quasi-open standard and allowed others to use it. You could join the servers with third party clients and this also triggered the OpenSim project, which again shared many standards, enough for many clients to work with both systems.

I would like minetest to stay open.
Really open.
Open for anybody to use.
Open to connect people.
Use as much open standards as possible.
Open for the wierdest ideas.
and stay open in as many aspects as possible.
If security is a problem when forks join, then the server has to be fixed, I mean fixed not just shoving problematic issues out of view by making the serverlist exclusive.
If we want minetest to be more popular we will have to come up with more concepts to cope with popularity including mass joining of nooby kids with crappy smartphone clients.

[Linuxdirk]

Something that impressed me in the Second-Life project was that it established an quasi-open standard and allowed others to use it. You could join the servers with third party clients and this also triggered the OpenSim project, which again shared many standards, enough for many clients to work with both systems.

If we were talking about a "OpenVoxel" standard where clients and servers are interchangable as liked and still be compatible: Yes, them I'm all in for a server list having all of the servers in it. But we're talking abut a Minetest servers list, not a Minetest and arbitrary forks servers list.

It's not that it would be hard to use another server list for the fork creators. The server list server is open source and everyone can set up and run an own instance of it and the client allows to change the server list URL (it can be preconfigured by the fork creator if needed). There is no reason in parasitizing the Minetest server list infrastructure for an own fork of Minetest except being lazy.

[sorcerykid]

But we're talking abut a Minetest servers list, not a Minetest and arbitrary forks servers list.

There is no reason in parasitizing the Minetest server list infrastructure for an own fork of Minetest except being lazy.

I hardly think I'm "parasiting the Minetest server list infrastructure" by running a custom fork, nor do I think that should disqualify my server from being published in the server list since most of my players were using genuine Minetest clients anyway.

Also keep in mind there are probably a lot of "arbitrary forks" of Minetest on the server list. They happen to be using the name "Minetest" even though they aren't officially Minetest. For example, Must Test and IhrFussel and LinuxGaming2 are forks with quite a few modifications to the engine. So are they lazy? Are they parasiting Minetest's infrastructure?

[Festus1965]

...So are they lazy? Are they parasiting Minetest's infrastructure?

They are hiding it (nicely), playing on them doesn't feel like not on minetest, and they don't adverb there forked clients (name) in name, text or game ... hmm, they have some respect onto the source minetest

[Festus1965]

You might like so follow, join but even read this now
https://github.com/minetest/master-server/issues/32
I will add these, as double ... above.

[sorcerykid]

They are hiding it (nicely), playing on them doesn't feel like not on minetest,

What does it mean to "feel" like not on Minetest? What about heavily modded servers with custom texture packs? Sorry to say, but I think "feeling" is an arbitrary and subjective assessment.

IhrFussel's Server has sufficiently distanced itself from Minetest in overall features and functionality that it rightfully could be regarded as its own gaming platform. Must Test has vastly re-engineered both the the game and engine to the point that new players are almost required to read the online tutorials before joining. And LinuxGaming2 server is is so divergent from the Minetest code-base, that the server operator has publicly announced that it will likely never be ported to 5.0.

[Festus1965]

What does it mean to "feel" like not on Minetest?

I have an base on IhrFussels since long time, and it is still there, but inventory, receipts didn't get me an a thinking of it is not minetest anymore, but so you delivered already some ideas what to look for to say, still or not anymore minetest:
* engine
* mods, he is a good modder
* textures, I play with Vanessa`s, so don't see it on main client, only on the other some time 6 running on my machine to observe other servers but is textures a "sign" of mt ?
* features and functionality
...

and
how long will we wait for 0.4 to move to 5.0 and clean up, so that all play new "base" engine, version - mean server-list only 5.0 and most problems gone ...


I am just watching an amazing video from TL, they (name123) all hack !!! through my double iron door !


PS sorry for less time: last Sunday I was in Emergency as of possible Heart-attack but EKG show sure not, and today after blood test, still perfect values show sure not this direction, also no signs of sugar or diabetics ... I got a muscle fracture just over that area ... but you know sure, that shock got deep ! I need some time - also to readjust about what is important - minetest is even not on that list.

[sorcerykid]

I'm sorry to hear about your medical condition and hope you recover your health very soon.

[Linuxdirk]

We can stop the discussion here.

Core devs are fine with forks parasitizing the Minetest infrastructure to make money.

https://github.com/minetest/master-server/issues/32

[twoelk]

well there is the loophole of "allowed on the list if they behave"
so now we could define a desired behavior :-D
we could ask for all servers joining the list to inform the player in some prominent place that the code base is minetest and that you can use the "official" minetest version for free.
quite a few young players might be shocked when they relize they did not join some sort of minecraft server.

Maybe an information billboard design contest?
A book everybody gets at start with some basic info inside similar to an about screen might also be possible.
How about a new builtin chat-command such as "about" that offers some basic info similar to the status command.
not that everybody might notice such information offers ... but still better than now, where only few servers inform the player of the nature of the server the new player just joined.

[TalkLounge]

Core devs are fine with forks parasitizing the Minetest infrastructure to make money.

Cool. Very cool. So the minetest devs have ignored this poll? Is there still a bit of minetest community left or is there a minetest dictatorship now? Where the devs done all decisions?

Chiantos was right with the post by saying: So I think it is necessary to create a fork that would be controlled by the community and where the choices would be made by the whole community, not by a minority of people.

We as the server owners, pay every month money to run a minetest server. And there's no option to detect fake games. I don't want to support these. I don't want to pay money for hosting a server, because it's my hobby and other people are able to earn money with no effort and profit from my effort.

The only thing we can do is to ban servers which support fake games, but the core devs doesn't want to? Do the get money from monte? Or from others? But than asking for donations...

Minetest without servers will kill the whole minetest project. The core devs should be a bit more democratic!

We need the core devs, because minetest will die without them. I know that, too.

What can we do as minetest community, to handle these fake games better?

[MoNTE48]

Core devs are fine with forks parasitizing the Minetest infrastructure to make money.

Cool. Very cool. So the minetest devs have ignored this poll? Is there still a bit of minetest community left or is there a minetest dictatorship now? Where the devs done all decisions?

Chiantos was right with the post by saying: So I think it is necessary to create a fork that would be controlled by the community and where the choices would be made by the whole community, not by a minority of people.

We as the server owners, pay every month money to run a minetest server. And there's no option to detect fake games. I don't want to support these. I don't want to pay money for hosting a server, because it's my hobby and other people are able to earn money with no effort and profit from my effort.

The only thing we can do is to ban servers which support fake games, but the core devs doesn't want to? Do the get money from monte? Or from others? But than asking for donations...

Minetest without servers will kill the whole minetest project. The core devs should be a bit more democratic!

We need the core devs, because minetest will die without them. I know that, too.

What can we do as minetest community, to handle these fake games better?

Friend, I will repeat it again. 1) MultiCraft removed from Google Play a year ago. 2) MultiCraft did not show and does not show advertising in multiplayer. Only in mainmenu and in single player.
Count, please, how much I personally earned on your server and I will pay you.

[TalkLounge]

Count, please, how much I personally earned on your server and I will pay you.

Boy, you are really funny if I don't have the ability to check if players are playing minetest or a other random money making fork.

MultiCraft removed from Google Play a year ago.

There are very much fake games in the play store. And why should I trust you? Everybody can create a new google account with another name an upload something to the play store. And on IOS your app is still making money. Illegal. But the core devs didn't do anything against it? Hmm, are they paid with your money? Because I don't think they would ignore that you outcast the minetest license. The core devs are they who nag if someone uses a invalid license in WIP Mods, INSTANTLY.

MultiCraft did not show and does not show advertising in multiplayer. Only in mainmenu and in single player.

Too much. Minetest is allowed to ad the software to support the devs and costs like forum & server list. But not you. You did nothing. There's nothing morally reason, why you are allowed to make money with the software of others.

And you didn't answered this post yet. Should that be, because you completely agree with it?

That server owners can detect fake games should be in the interest of the whole minetest community. What server owners do with this information, is in the hands of the server owner. But the should have this information. Google would never pay money to support facebook as an example!

[MoNTE48]

There are very much fake games in the play store. And why should I trust you?

I don’t need your trust, or permission to use open source lawfully.

There's nothing morally reason, why you are allowed to make money with the software of others.

There is nothing morally motivated why Google can make billions of dollars on Linux. This is a purely personal opinion of each person. I respect your opinion, but you must respect the opinion of people who think differently. Where tolerance is, you are German! I was in your country.

And you didn't answered this post yet. Should that be, because you completely agree with it?

Well, I did not see the question. Therefore, I did not give an answer to it :)

That server owners can detect fake games

Fork is not a Fake. Ubuntu is not a fake Debian. LibreOffice is not a fake OpenOffice. MultiCraft is not a fake Minetest.
Providing an API to get the client name is a good idea. But this applies only to new versions (5.1+). Just upgrade your server to Minetest 5.0 and forget about me. I have no plans to update MC. (I'm not saying that I will NEVER update MultiCraft, I say that now I do not want to do this.)

Minetest does not have a developer promotion system. To whom should I donate? I only saw the details only c55 and paramat. Maybe 2-3 more developers somewhere have indicated their data for donation. How do you know if I made it?
I offer the best option - MC requires good developers. Write me, get a job, make a PR and earn good money.

[TalkLounge]

There is nothing morally motivated why Google can make billions of dollars on Linux. This is a purely personal opinion of each person.

You want to compare google with yourself? Google put a lot of effort into android, if that's what you mean. And making money with open source it's not a problem for me. If they effort is justified to the money. You pay every month 100$ to the apple store to publish your multicraft. If you won't earn more than 100$ you wouldn't pay for it. And 100$ are way to much in compare to your work on multicraft.
And google is a company who need to profit and they have huge costs. e.g. YouTube. You don't have these costs.
So this example is very low.

Fork is not a Fake. Ubuntu is not a fake Debian. LibreOffice is not a fake OpenOffice. MultiCraft is not a fake Minetest.

In my opinion, sure.
Does Ubuntu or LibreOffice earn money with their forks? I don't think so. Do you earn money with? Yes
Does Ubuntu or LibreOffice profit from the infrastructure of the 'original' one? I don't think so. Do you use the infrastructure of minetest? Yes
Does Ubuntu or LibreOffice pay their competitors money for develop their own software? I don't think so. Do you pay the core devs to develop your game? Yes
And so on...

Providing an API to get the client name is a good idea

That fake games can change, so they are minetest as well? Really? I am not that stupid.

I have no plans to update MC

You will update if there is no 0.4.x server left, you profit from...