FTB - Curse Update

[Jadedcat]

But... Then people without accounts... I don't... Whatever

Umm if you don't have a minecraft account... why would we be supporting you downloading and using our packs?

 

[Not_Steve]

Umm if you don't have a minecraft account... why would we be supporting you downloading and using our packs?

I didn't realize that the curse launcher was only for installing the mods and not actually launching minecraft whoops

 

[Aziroshin]

tl;dr: Go for the bold statements. This post is kind of the same stuff I've already written in my previous post, just worded out a little bit differently to (hopefully) clear up misunderstandings.

Um what? Please explain what exactly you are objecting

I voiced my stance that I'd object it if the Curse partnership resulted in dropping GNU ecosystem support (also pretty much always called called "Linux support". There are other freedom centered alternatives, mostly GNU-centric, but let's be realistic: GNU/Linux is the only one that has a chance of making Curse. Inc's list).

The problem with taking this position is that Minecraft is not free or open-source, nor are many of the mods, including ones used in FTB. There are even various mods which are open-source but not "free". Some mods even rather hypocritically state that you can't even disassemble them, despite that having been required to mod Minecraft to begin with. There are also mods released under licenses such as MIT or BSD, which doesn't exactly follow the same political standpoint of "free" software to some people. It's certainly possible to run a server of just mods with the license you prefer, but you're still always going to be running proprietary Mojang software.

Being "free" software is less relevant to me, personally. I don't plan to re-release anyone's software, I just want to be able to modify it for my own use. BuildCraft has an open license, but when they didn't accept changes I submitted for quartz pipes and some other visual improvements (like making pipes physically connect to tanks), I just used my own changes in my own game. Things that aren't open-source are still fairly easy to modify as long as they're written in Java. I've had to disassemble old versions of mods (from like during Minecraft's beta phase) to fix bugs that made them not work properly in newer launchers not running from .minecraft. I think this is perfectly acceptable.

I never released the source to most of my own mods primarily because I never got the time to clean up and label the source. I tossed Endermanage up on Github, at least, and there's the stuff I submitted for BuildCraft, but there's not been much demand for source so I never made it any kind of priority. I think it's probably the case for a lot of other people, too. But the license I applied to mine specifically states you can decompile them for personal use, until I can offer anything different.

Don't get me wrong, when it comes to things like third-party launchers, I feel they should at least be open-source, because my login credentials are at stake. I've personally used customized versions of both the Technic and FTB launchers, such as before FTB allowed you to specify the Java version you wanted to run the game with, or to set Java options in the Technic launcher since they refuse to add that functionality. There's still others like Magic Launcher though which aren't even open-source to my knowledge, but I've used it in the past. I'm not saying I wouldn't use Curse's new launcher if it's closed-source, but that certainly makes it less flexible.

Anyhow, if you've looked through the thread then you've probably noticed that I've questioned various things about the Curse/FTB partnership, so don't think that I completely oppose your position or anything. But I personally just don't feel that being "free" software plays a very important role when the software required to use any of it isn't free itself. We break that license all the time to make mods, it's just that Mojang is a cool enough company to embrace that community to some degree.

I think there has been a bit of a misunderstanding.
I have not even been calling for an open sourcing of the Curse launcher, even though it'd of course be amazing if that happened.
However, despite me being an idealist, I am also not failing at facing reality. I also don't picture the world in black and white.

What I said was about supporting free, open environments such as the GNU ecosystem. Even if the software itself is closed source, by supporting at least one such environment it contributes to giving people more of a choice when it comes to what kind of software runs their computer. It also does its share to lower the bar for people to adopt a freedom-centered operating environment for their computer, which will provide mind-share, potential resources (more programmers and financial contributions) and weight to that environment (political power to defend itself whenever personal freedom and rights are affected in the digital parts of society, as software such as open source is usually one of the first things to feel the negative effects of such - and also one of the most powerful tools, when it comes to software, which is very powerful and ever increasingly so in our civilization, to protect oneself against such).

From the way you've written your post, it seems you might at least partially agree that free, decentrally controlled software is worthy of support, and might be one of our better choices to build the software part of our civilization upon.

Every piece of software that only runs on Windows or Mac OS contributes to not just locking users in centrally, corporate controlled systems, but also to shaping the completely computer system driven civilization of the future into that direction. There are small examples of that already available, such as how Apple tends to police its virtual markets, hardening the barriers for their users to go beyond the company's world view, or the world view of those that happen to have fruitful business relationships with them, or what the law happens to be in countries important to their business success (let's not even get started on software patents).

So, if the Curse partnership happens to retain compatibility with the GNU ecosystem, I am okay with it, even if the software in question is closed source.

===============================================

Now, I feel this post has been even a little bit less concise than the last one. It also feels a little bit out of shape and loud, all things I didn't really want. Maybe it's because of the boldly remarked statements, which are only so to provide some kind of tl;dr. Sorry for the mess. I still hope the complementary explanations might help in understanding better what I am trying to convey.

 

[FyberOptic]

I think there has been a bit of a misunderstanding.
I have not even been calling for an open sourcing of the Curse launcher, even though it'd of course be amazing if that happened.
However, despite me being an idealist, I am also not failing at facing reality. I also don't picture the world in black and white.

Yeah I realize that I misinterpreted your point. I like your attitude about it though. It's more often that I see "CLOSED-SOURCE IS THE DEVIL, I REFUSE TO USE IT" rather than "I prefer free software, but I'll use proprietary software when it suits me."

Honestly though I think even the cross-platform nature of Minecraft only happened due to Notch having experience with Java and deciding to write the game in what he was familiar with, not necessarily because he intended to support multiple platforms from the start. He's a Windows guy, after all. LWJGL just makes cross-platform easy to do by including the binary libraries necessary for each major OS (which is why I also like using it). But I think we can all be glad of the choice of language he made, otherwise I doubt this modding community would exist as it does today!

From the way you've written your post, it seems you might at least partially agree that free, decentrally controlled software is worthy of support, and might be one of our better choices to build the software part of our civilization upon.

I would agree in various cases, but I don't think there's a lot to worry about here in that respect. We heard recently that Technic plans to revamp its launcher soon, with lots of new features to cater to pack creators. Meanwhile, ATLauncher is coming along strong, hosting both the Mindcrack and Yogscast packs now. There's still enough legitimate competition against FTB/Curse for them to do what's in peoples' (and modders') best interest. They'll either pull it off and be like the Valve of Minecraft mods, or they'll end up being like EA's Origin. Either way, like with those services, you'll still be able to find much of the same content outside of those platforms to install manually. I don't think we'll see a lot of launcher-exclusive mods or anything silly like that.

It also feels a little bit out of shape and loud, all things I didn't really want.

It's fine, I never took you as being angry or anything.

 

[Dorque]

But I think we can all be glad of the choice of language he made

I don't know about that. I've often bemoaned the use of Java to write Minecraft because while it has advantages, it was never really designed for gaming or any really complex application and a lot of Minecraft's problems, modded or otherwise, are a direct result of that.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

[FyberOptic]

I don't know about that. I've often bemoaned the use of Java to write Minecraft because while it has advantages, it was never really designed for gaming or any really complex application and a lot of Minecraft's problems, modded or otherwise, are a direct result of that.

In terms of performance I'd completely agree. Java is a lot faster than it used to be but it will never compete with native code.

But disassembling Java is light years easier than disassembling something like C, and that's even still true despite Minecraft being obfuscated. If you want an example of how much harder it is to mod a regular binary executable, look at Minecraft Pocket Edition. Progress across version updates is significantly slower, modding capabilities are greatly reduced, patching is tricky, and cross-platform/CPU support of mods is basically non-existent since it requires different binaries. Java also splits things up into separate class files, hundreds of them in Minecraft's case, which can be disassembled and modified individually if necessary, which is how Minecraft modding began. They were able to identify the important stuff, trace it back to other important stuff, and largely ignore parts that didn't matter. One massive binary is a nightmare to disassemble. MCPE's binary is around 10MB, if I recall. I've disassembled code before, but that's not something even I want to get into. I commend the guys who even bother.

 

[ErusPrime]

In terms of performance I'd completely agree. Java is a lot faster than it used to be but it will never compete with native code.

But disassembling Java is light years easier than disassembling something like C, and that's even still true despite Minecraft being obfuscated. If you want an example of how much harder it is to mod a regular binary executable, look at Minecraft Pocket Edition. Progress across version updates is significantly slower, modding capabilities are greatly reduced, patching is tricky, and cross-platform/CPU support of mods is basically non-existent since it requires different binaries. Java also splits things up into separate class files, hundreds of them in Minecraft's case, which can be disassembled and modified individually if necessary, which is how Minecraft modding began. They were able to identify the important stuff, trace it back to other important stuff, and largely ignore parts that didn't matter. One massive binary is a nightmare to disassemble. MCPE's binary is around 10MB, if I recall. I've disassembled code before, but that's not something even I want to get into. I commend the guys who even bother.

The problem with java isn't speed. The problem with java is overhead. Java can do pretty much anything C can do. It just takes a lot more system resources to get it done. If MineCraft was rebuilt in a native language, tools and API's would eventually show up to make it easier. In my opinion, the benefits of rebuilding the engine with the idea of mods (and shaders and physics) in mind would be a huge leap forward for the game. Expensive and time consuming but absolutely worth it.

 

[FyberOptic]

The problem with java isn't speed. The problem with java is overhead. Java can do pretty much anything C can do. It just takes a lot more system resources to get it done. If MineCraft was rebuilt in a native language, tools and API's would eventually show up to make it easier. In my opinion, the benefits of rebuilding the engine with the idea of mods (and shaders and physics) in mind would be a huge leap forward for the game. Expensive and time consuming but absolutely worth it.

Running in a virtual machine as Java does will always restrict speed and introduce the overhead that you mentioned. But unfortunately all of these extra layers is where a lot of development is headed. Unity/.NET/C#/etc is making that kind of approach fairly mainstream these days, dragging along similar concepts to Java like garbage collection into the new age with it.

The Mojang plugin API will almost certainly never provide as much functionality as Forge and direct base class access (thanks to MCP) does. Fortunately for us, Forge will be able to supplement that when it's available. But if Minecraft were written in C++ then mods would most likely remain limited to what ever functionality Mojang decided to open up to us, because as I've mentioned, disassembling and modifying a modern large Windows application is hard. Mods being written in C would likely also throw any cross-platform support out the window. Instead, there's a good chance that the plugin API would actually be done through a scripting language, like many other mainstream games written in C++ do, restricting functionality even further.

I don't have a good computer, and seeing Minecraft swell up from a fairly efficient game to an unplayable beast for me with some of the larger modpacks is certainly annoying. But I'm still glad it's written in the language that it is, because I still honestly don't think this modding community would exist the way we know it without that ability to tap right in to Minecraft's guts so easily.

 

[Uristqwerty]

There is a lot of room for improvement in Mojang, Forge, and mod code, which could greatly reduce overhead from Java.

Rendering performance is mainly affected by Mojang still using OpenGL 1.x (which is slow, regardless of language), though they have expressed an intention to upgrade that once enough users can actually support something better.

For everything else, why not grab the profiler of your choice, and see what it can identify as taking unusually high amounts of memory or CPU time? For example, standing on the Agrarian Skies flat platform map in singleplayer, I see that the top four classes, when measured in bytes allocated per second, are HashMap$Entry, RegularEnumSet, ChunkPosition, and ChunkCoordIntPair. Then, recording stack traces for those allocations (which may interfere with the JVM's optimization, if it optimizes temporary objects off the heap, but should at least suggest common sources), RegularEnumSet is mainly allocated by FML's tickStart and tickEnd, one third of HashMap$Entry comes from SpawnerAnimals (and the other two thirds from various world functions without descriptive names), almost all of ChunkPosition and nearly half of ChunkCoordIntPair allocations also originate in SpawnerAnimals.

So, from that, I see that most memory allocation in late 1.6.4 (on a skyblock, which significantly reduces the effects of mobs post-spawn, blocks, and tile entities) (also, with a fairly large mod pack, for things which scale with the number of mods) comes from Mojang code, trying to find which chunks should be eligible for mobs to spawn in, and a small part of FML which has to do a lot of defensive copying of EnumSets, since they are mutable (also, a lot of mods creating new EnumSets every frame before passing them to FML, though each individual mod has a miniscule effect compared to the total created).


However, all of that memory overhead is the results of the algorithms chosen, and are not forced by Java (it may be encouraged somewhat by Java though, by what the JRE makes easier, or what looks less ugly using Java's syntax).

 

[eashonk]

Political bla that'll probably only interest people that already share my view anyway:

No, that's not political, it is the idealistic ramblings of youthful naivety. Maybe you should read some Anne Rand. "When the creators of of societies can no longer reap the rewards of their labor, the gears of industry cease to turn." - Atlas Shrugged

Yeah, sure it would be awesome to get everything for free, but if no one got paid for their work, the stuff you got for free would slowly deteriorate into garbage. Also, innovations occur mostly because large companies can afford to do the R&D needed to advance technology. You aren't gonna be able to just download/print anything you want, ever. The people who make the printers themselves want paid, the very things you want to use to get free stuff are not free!! Who's gonna go out and manufacture the plastic pellets needed to run your "everything's free" printer? You think someone just loves making plastic so much that they are gonna give it to you for free? The Star Trek food replicator Utopia you described is simply science fiction.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Maybe you should read some Anne Rand.

Ayn Rand.

 

[Not_Steve]

Ayn Rand.

Honestly I like Anne better

 

[Hambeau]

Honestly I like Anne better

Is that like "Charles Dickens" with 4 n's and a silent q?

(obscure Monty Python reference... "Contractual Obligation" album bookshop sketch for the curious)

 

[Not_Steve]

l
Also about the Curse Forge, to me you will never build a product I will want to use as its ran by Curse. I will never use it and if it comes this far, I will not use Minecraft Forge.

Is there a reason behind this or just thoughtless hate?
The FTB team has, time and time again, done things for the community honestly I can't even believe that someone thinks that they're trying to do anything but make life easier for us

 

[Dorque]

Is there a reason behind this or just thoughtless hate?
The FTB team has, time and time again, done things for the community honestly I can't even believe that someone thinks that they're trying to do anything but make life easier for us

You're mostly right, but he's not talking about what the FTB team is doing or going to do; his concerns are with what Curse is doing or going to do.

And I get it. I won't use anything made by Apple or EA (I still haven't played Mass Effect 3, as much as I loved the first two games to death.) Not to make a comparison there, just that sometimes, you don't approve of a company and you take a stand, and I can respect that.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

[surferconor425]

You're mostly right, but he's not talking about what the FTB team is doing or going to do; his concerns are with what Curse is doing or going to do.

And I get it. I won't use anything made by Apple or EA (I still haven't played Mass Effect 3, as much as I loved the first two games to death.) Not to make a comparison there, just that sometimes, you don't approve of a company and you take a stand, and I can respect that.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

Is there a reason behind this or just thoughtless hate?
The FTB team has, time and time again, done things for the community honestly I can't even believe that someone thinks that they're trying to do anything but make life easier for us

I had deleted my comment as I didn't like how it came across. However now that you have asked I may as well reply. What Dorque said is how I feel. I don't like how Curse run things, they throw ads all over your screen annoy me with the "benefits" of Curse premium. The only benefits I see is not having the supposed "benefits" shoved in my face all the time. They are also always looking for profit (which is obviously what a company is supposed to do) however is it really fair that they will be making money from advertisements people see when coming to download a mod? Shouldn't this be all going to the mod author instead as they took the time and care to make the mod?

I have, for a while now been avoiding using anything that Curse makes. As Feed The Beast (FTB) is integrating into Curses servers and using their launcher stuff I will sadly avoid them as well. This is the same with Minecraft Forge, as they are moving download stuff to CurseForge I will not use it. I'm going to make the most of the FTB modpacks and try to complete a game on every modpack before they move. I appreciate slowpoke is trying to do the best for the minecraft community, which is good that he is trying. This, in my opinion, is a bad idea.

 

[Eyamaz]

I had deleted my comment as I didn't like how it came across. However now that you have asked I may as well reply. What Dorque said is how I feel. I don't like how Curse run things, they throw ads all over your screen annoy me with the "benefits" of Curse premium. The only benefits I see is not having the supposed "benefits" shoved in my face all the time. They are also always looking for profit (which is obviously what a company is supposed to do) however is it really fair that they will be making money from advertisements people see when coming to download a mod? Shouldn't this be all going to the mod author instead as they took the time and care to make the mod?

I have, for a while now been avoiding using anything that Curse makes. As Feed The Beast (FTB) is integrating into Curses servers and using their launcher stuff I will sadly avoid them as well. This is the same with Minecraft Forge, as they are moving download stuff to CurseForge I will not use it. I'm going to make the most of the FTB modpacks and try to complete a game on every modpack before they move. I appreciate slowpoke is trying to do the best for the minecraft community, which is good that he is trying. This, in my opinion, is a bad idea.

You realize mod authors can opt to get paid depending on the number of downloads of their mod on Curse Forge? Moving our modpacks there means those downloads will also factor into that. Do you know how Curse affords to back the credits sent to modders? Curse Premium and those adverts that are "shoved down your face."

Please, before you blatantly come down on something, understand it first.

 

[PhilHibbs]

...is it really fair that they will be making money from advertisements people see when coming to download a mod? Shouldn't this be all going to the mod author instead as they took the time and care to make the mod?

Sure, you could go to the individual mod maker, and use their adf.ly link or click their donate button, and make your own mod pack and have problems logging in to servers because of different mod versions and configs. But if you want to use an organized system to download a whole set of mods and their configs all at once, who's going to run that infrastructure? Who's going to pay for it? The FTB team have tried to keep the infrastructure running and have done really well for a year and a half, but they've decided that they can't go on in the same way any more. What's your solution? "Keep giving me free stuff please" is a really compelling concept but doesn't seem to be working as a strategy.

 

[surferconor425]

You realize mod authors can opt to get paid depending on the number of downloads of their mod on Curse Forge? Moving our modpacks there means those downloads will also factor into that. Do you know how Curse affords to back the credits sent to modders? Curse Premium and those adverts that are "shoved down your face."

Please, before you blatantly come down on something, understand it first.

I actually watched the Q & A stream Slowpoke did and already know that you can opt in to get paid. However, I said that all of the money from ads and stuff should go to the mod author if they want the money. I have got to say that this curse forge will have its benefits such as everything being more organised and FTB being able to focus on their main priority, modpacks without working on your infrastructure. Maybe I'm just so used to the current way of modding that I don't want to let it go. But still none of those benefits will convince me to use it and at the end of the day me not using it isn't going to affect anyone unless masses of people don't use it so I don't see what the problem is. I also don't like arguments so please don't turn this into one.

 

[PhilHibbs]

...at the end of the day me not using it isn't going to affect anyone unless masses of people don't use it so I don't see what the problem is. I also don't like arguments so please don't turn this into one.

Sorry if I came over a bit strong as well. I get it, you have reservations about Curse, and I respect the fact that you are sticking to your principles despite the loss that it will cause you. I am personally boycotting Nestlé, Kraft, and Amazon, the latter of which is really difficult.