Mekanism: why BuildCraft support will not be included in 1.6

[Aidan]

I hope you all have grown to love Mekanism's universal energy system, the ease of converting energy between systems with my Universal Cable and machine/generator power framework. I have throughly enjoyed integrating BuildCraft, and due to Krapht and many others' hard work, this implementation was rather easy. BuildCraft has seemed to be following along the lines of a proper open-source project, accepting PRs quickly and building upon what SpaceToad's idea was. I have been excited about 1.6 to see what all BuildCraft has to offer for it's supposedly revamped energy system by CovertJaguar.

Looking on GitHub, there are some wonderful improvements - PowerProviders can now be side-based, allowing for easier, more realistic MJ-based mechanisms, and receiveEnergy() can now return rejected energy in order to prevent power loss. One minor catch, however. This update also finalizes the "PowerProvider" class, and removes "IPowerProvider" which previously was used for managing a complete BuildCraft power framework. This means there will be absolutely no flexibility when working with the system, and all power interactions will have to act exactly how CovertJaguar intends for them to work.

CJ has always been a good friend of mine, he's open to suggestions and has helped me many times in the past. I wouldn't have sent two donations of $15 to him otherwise. I don't appreciate his strict closed-source development, but he still accepts input from the community. This change to the BuildCraft power system, however, does the mod no justice that I can see. Not only is he cutting off many possibilities for mods that could potentially integrate with BuildCraft's API, but he is also screwing over developers that already use BuildCraft significantly in their own mods. Mekanism uses custom PowerProviders for managing it's machines, generators, and Universal Cables, without these systems my support for the mod would literally fall apart. Not to mention my great friend King_Lemming's Thermal Expansion, which is entirely built upon the core of BuildCraft's power framework, who will most likely have to completely remodel the way his mod works.

Why would he do such a thing and make it immensely difficult for us developers to work with the "open-source" BuildCraft API? There are several reasons that I can see.

• CovertJaguar intends for BuildCraft-integrated mods to serve primarily as addons. This was the case with IC2 for quite some time until Alblaka smartly loosened on his iron fist on his mod.
• CovertJaguar feels threatened by Thermal Expansion, and he does this major refactor knowing KL will be unable to integrate.
• CovertJaguar intends for BuildCraft to serve as a power network primarily working with his Railcraft and Sengir's Forestry, and he doesn't want to deal with the possible competition of other BC-based mods.

These explanations are what immediately came to mind, and there are several others that I will not list. There's a chance that he actually has another plan in mind for a more flexible API, but this response over IRC when referencing the API kind of threw this aside:

<Calclavia: lol, not very flexible>
<CovertJaguar: its not supposed to be>

What? APIs are not supposed to be flexible? Let's let him explain:

<Calclavia: An API is not supposed to be flexible lol?>
<CovertJaguar: and API is ment to provide an interface into a propriatary system, so that you can interact with that system on its terms>

Ok, so he's basically saying that you can only integrate with BuildCraft if the integration meets his standards. In other words you cannot do complete integration unless you are CJ himself. Uh...

Because of these ridiculous actions and statements I am withdrawing complete BuildCraft support from Mekanism for the next major update. No longer will my any of my content interact in any way with the BuildCraft API.
There is some good news, however. King_Lemming is going to be creating his own, unique version of the BuildCraft power framework, and I have plans to add integration with this the day it is released.

That is all.
-aidancbrady

 

[Shukaro]

It's a shame he wants to take BC this direction, but stuff like this is a reason that other mods step up to the plate and selection and quality as a whole improve.

 

[Aidan]

Yes, exactly, I'm hoping the community will pitch in here as well

 

[Archtikz]

Aidan, jeez. If I was developing BC I think I would get scared by Thermal Expansion too. I'm not a big fan of how their system works anyway. Sad to hear, anyway. 3 Cheers for King_Lemming.

 

[Shirkit]

But that's pathetic. The best part of BuildCraft is that it's really open and so much mods can easily integrate with him. Now BC is at a point where it has a standard for energy production, and he will suddenly use this position to do whatever he wants? That's lame. That's really, really lame (I use Mekanism btw ^^)

 

[Aidan]

This is what I hope as well. If either he comes to his senses or another developer realizes what a horrible mistake all this is I will maintain BC support.

 

[Virgoddess]

I'm not really convinced that airing of dirty laundry and badmouthing of fellow mod creators is really good for the community, to be frank. I'm sure that is a generally unpopular opinion though, so I'll revert back to a corner somewhere.

 

[Aidan]

I'm not really convinced that airing of dirty laundry and badmouthing of fellow mod creators is really good for the community, to be frank. I'm sure that is a generally unpopular opinion though, so I'll revert back to a corner somewhere.

I see where you're coming from, and I in no means intend to stir up controversy. This is just my general opinion on this as a fellow developer who has spent time working with BuildCraft.

 

[WayofTime]

Well, in my opinion, who really is hurt from removing functionality or support between mods? The modders? Not really: it only truly shafts the player base.

I think talking to CJ directly, and discussing your thoughts with him may be a good way to sort this out, not by adding... drama.

 

[KirinDave]

I am not involved in MC modding at the moment, and I don't entirely understand why this is being done and it might be for good reasons... But I also don't understand CovertJaguar's overall motivations, nor any modder who keeps open source and 'proprietary' mods. They are literally discarding many of the tangible, redeemable benefits of being a modder and the positive impact that can have on a person's career in the software industry for the dubious notion of "control", which is of course totally nonsense.

There is a clear line that marks off the respect the community owes its dedicated modders. It ends when the modders start to abuse that influence in ways that are unbecoming and negatively impact lots of other modders. Looking at the changes provided, it seems like Covert has stepped over this line. He's hardly the first (e.g., Calclavia certainly did it with his re-licensing of MFFS even if you pretend it's a cold-room rewrite), and he probably won't be the last.

But BC is a pillar of the mod ecosystem precisely because it's been open and friendly to extension. Taking that way means it has to stand solely on the benefit of its content. And right now that content is sorely lacking. Its engines are no longer the meta-standard for power balance, its auto-mining facilities are no longer the gold standard, and many of its previous afforded facilities are being replaced by options that appear for all the world to be of superior design and performance.

So what is Buildcraft and even Railcraft's position in the ecosystem if it's no longer nicely ensconced as the core of the power network? I dunno if you've noticed, but IC2 is basically "that mod that enables gregtech, gravisuite and maybe MFFS2" these days. That'd be a terrible outcome for Buildcraft given how much it has offered to the community, but even worse would be to put that in past tense.

 

[Aidan]

Well, in my opinion, who really is hurt from removing functionality or support between mods? The modders? Not really: it only truly shafts the player base.

I think talking to CJ directly, and discussing your thoughts with him may be a good way to sort this out, not by adding... drama.

I would not have started this thread if my thoughts hadn't already been shot down by CovertJaguar without proper explanation.

 

[CovertJaguar]

Gratz, you've taken an issue of semantics in an alpha branch of a proposed API update that isn't even 24 hours old and turned it into a community wide flame war. I hope you feel proud.

 

[KirinDave]

Gratz, you taken an issue of semantics in an alpha branch of a proposed API update and turned it into a community wide flame war. I hope you feel proud.

It is sort of a consistent theme that proposed BC/RC changes freak out the community. Such is the price of your success. The mods you maintain are pivotal to every modpack FTB maintains, and people care about it.

 

[Shirkit]

Well, in that case, I totally remove my comment. I feel bad by not following up the prior discussion in GitHub.

 

[Aidan]

Gratz, you've taken an issue of semantics in an alpha branch of a proposed API update that isn't even 24 hours old and turned it into a community wide flame war. I hope you feel proud.

I feel fairly proud as well that I have taken my thoughts on this to the community after you blatantly denied mine and many others' appeals to this addition. Once again, this thread exists only in order to dissuade you from merging this into the upcoming update.

 

[CovertJaguar]

I feel fairly proud as well that I have taken my thoughts on this to the community after you blatantly denied mine and many others' appeals to this addition. Once again, this thread exists only in order to dissuade you from merging this into the upcoming update.

Actually it does the opposite, bullying is not the answer.

 

[Stephen Baynham]

Gratz, you've taken an issue of semantics in an alpha branch of a proposed API update that isn't even 24 hours old and turned it into a community wide flame war. I hope you feel proud.

You are walking back the status of this change pretty hard from when it was discussed with you in #buildcraft, and later on the buildcraft github issue tracker. Earlier it was a done deal, now it is not? If you stand behind this change, stand behind it, don't pretend like you weren't saying the issue is closed less than an hour ago, don't pretend as though aidancbrady (and many others) didn't try to settle this with you earlier. And don't pretend that alerting to the community to a real thing you're doing is "bullying". If Buildcraft's development cannot survive the community looking at it, then maybe you've made some poor decisions.

 

[Aidan]

Actually it does the opposite, bullying is not the answer.

Please describe exactly what part of my post would be considered "bullying." I start off by complimenting you and expressing how you have been a friend of mine, and the only reason I describe your responses with criticism is due to your stubbornness when I attempted to explain to you WHY this change was a bad idea. Stephen is completely right, why are just you now suggesting this is only temporary? I certainly didn't get this assumption when talking with you over IRC.

 

[Virgoddess]

I feel fairly proud as well that I have taken my thoughts on this to the community after you blatantly denied mine and many others' appeals to this addition. Once again, this thread exists only in order to dissuade you from merging this into the upcoming update.

That.....that's unfortunate.

CJ and any mod maker for that matter has the absolute right to do what he wishes with his mod (or mods that he's committed to maintaining). There are better ways to go about discussing proposed changes that you don't agree with. This whole thread was in poor taste.

 

[KirinDave]

Actually it does the opposite, bullying is not the answer.

Perhaps you might want to explain the concrete benefits to the community, since the drawbacks have been so clearly elucidated. Don't hold back. A whole lot of people in this thread are happy to drone on about any number of CS topics at length.