Anyone spending a lot of time browsing through the Mods area would notice that there are a lot of mods that have not been updated for Enraged Koala. It's sad, especially since a number of these were pretty nice and showed a lot of potential. On one or two instances, though the mod hasn't been updated in ages, I noticed someone uploaded either a mod update patch or a patched version (with the minimum changes to make it work with Enraged) in the mod's thread or discussion area. And this has me wondering about permissions. In the Modding Community Rules/Guidelines thread, mollygos wrote: I haven't uploaded a mod update in ages. Is it still impossible for a mod author to change their mind? If so, that's unfortunate. Is there any way to make it possible, aside from re-uploading the mod with new permissions and deleting the old mod? I know there are mod authors out there (myself included) who, originally, had no intention of suddenly stopping development of their mod. Life has a way of forcing us to put things on hold. (And many of us get distracted.) So, it sure would be nice to have the option to go back and change permissions after we've picked them. It'd be nice to be able to change it to "without consent" (or even "with consent"), to allow others to take what we created and do something useful with it, instead of it being entirely forgotten. Though it sounds like it could use some clarification, I definitely agree with this. "Void of permission choices"? Just to clarify: 1) Does the above mean it is permissable for someone to upload a patch or new version to update it for the current Starbound - even if they made a Mod Pack or Assets permission choice other than "without consent"? 2) Does this mean it is permissable to continue development of a mod if nobody can seem to get in contact with the mod author and it is pretty clear that it has been abandoned - even if they made a Mod Pack or Assets permission choice other than "without consent"? But quote, "A VERY LONG TIME" in terms of "hasn't been updated" seems like a very arbitrary thing... What constitutes a very long time? Before concluding that it is abandoned, isn't it necessary to first try to PM (start a Conversation) and contact the mod author? That was not specified in the above. But then... how long must someone wait for a reply? As such, it seems arbitrary and in need of some clarification. It is very, very rare for a mod to mention a license of any sort. Almost 99% of the time they rely on the Mod Permissions choices. I've seen maybe one or two mods that mention a Creative Commons license, to ensure that anyone using their stuff gives credit if they use it. (Which, IMO, may be a bit redudant, since the rules clearly state we must give credit, even if they choose a "without consent" permission option.) Finally: What about the rare case where a mod is very old and they never updated the Mod Permissions area? If they never even made a choice on permissions... what's the rule then?
Only @mollygos would know the answers to these doubts. An best way to do that is to summon her to this side. Otherwise the only people you are encountered to meet are other modders. Even mods don't come to these parts, everyone here is just too civil.
Yo, I've been summoned! We're going to be implementing an EULA which people will need to agree to upon uploading a mod, which should take care of a lot of these issues. I'm sorry it hasn't been done just yet. I feel like these are also things we should talk about in ##starbound-modding. We want to do what's best for everyone, so having a discussion with some of the most active modders would be really useful.
