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FTB - Curse Update

My concerns remain what they've always been, that Curse seems to be gaining an undue amount of influence over PC gaming fanbases. Practically every fan community I've ever been a part of has, to greater or lesser extent, become controlled by Curse.

That's my 2c, for the moment. Although I do have to say that (although I'm totally aware it's unrelated to FTB) I was kind of unamused to get Curse spam email the other day.
 
Dorque said:
My concerns remain what they've always been, that Curse seems to be gaining an undue amount of influence over PC gaming fanbases. Practically every fan community I've ever been a part of has, to greater or lesser extent, become controlled by Curse.

That's my 2c, for the moment. Although I do have to say that (although I'm totally aware it's unrelated to FTB) I was kind of unamused to get Curse spam email the other day.
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What's the spam email? :(
 
Kaelten said:
What's the spam email? :(
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Surprisingly enough, I seem to have held onto it. I'll inbox you the full text but the takeaway was that I found it a little disheartening to receive it when my last use of a Curse product (not counting the official MC forums) was about, oh, eight years ago. I can only assume it went out to everyone with an email on file, and my definition of spam is pretty broad so take it all with a grain of salt.

I do wish you could tell us what Curse's angle is with FTB. That's what I keep coming back to. My degree's in business, I know the score, and I really can't imagine that with everything Curse is putting into this that they're expecting enough additional Premium memberships to make up the investment.

I know you can't tell us, I won't ask you to, but I won't say it's not bugging me all the same.

Anyway. I'm waiting to see what happens. I'm just, because I understand business and I've been around the block a few times, wary. It's no reflection on you, or even on Curse, because they're just playing the great game.
 
Dorque said:
Surprisingly enough, I seem to have held onto it. I'll inbox you the full text but the takeaway was that I found it a little disheartening to receive it when my last use of a Curse product (not counting the official MC forums) was about, oh, eight years ago. I can only assume it went out to everyone with an email on file, and my definition of spam is pretty broad so take it all with a grain of salt.

I do wish you could tell us what Curse's angle is with FTB. That's what I keep coming back to. My degree's in business, I know the score, and I really can't imagine that with everything Curse is putting into this that they're expecting enough additional Premium memberships to make up the investment.

I know you can't tell us, I won't ask you to, but I won't say it's not bugging me all the same.

Anyway. I'm waiting to see what happens. I'm just, because I understand business and I've been around the block a few times, wary. It's no reflection on you, or even on Curse, because they're just playing the great game.
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I agree with this myself. I am asking myself the same question here but I cant help but to wonder what restrictions we will have. I must say though I am curious to see the final product and want to see my options in the future. It would be bad for me though, if I will not be able to use the new launcher while recording. Since I run a youtube channel as well to support my new modpack. Although I have a really early beginner fan base right now(15 subscribers), this would kill what I already have cooking. I know I dont really have much of a voice on here as I am new here. I do however hope that current functionality will not change much. The current functions are awesome. To lose this, would mean to look elsewhere or gather the permissions myself to host everything from my website, which would be a big overhead and I would be a bit more bogged down with everything. I also know that its either curse or the whole thing falls under the pressure. No FTB, no modpacks, and minus all the already accumulated permissions that are already centralized.

This is why I will wait till everything is fleshed out first hand and see what new stuff comes from this cause either way we will figure something out cause this is what we all want.
 
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It sounds like we may just have to wait for the modding community to do what the corporate entities can't/won't deliver....wait a minute, are we in a dream inside a dream? Is this the Matrix or Inception we're watching here?

I honestly believe Mojang should just embrace and standardize the mods, license them, and distribute them. That way, we get only the best mods, that actually work by themselves or with one another right out of the box, the developers get paid, Mojang maintains product integrity and control, the community isn't taken advantage of or disappointed by opportunistic 3rd parties.

-Also, before anyone reiterates the dead mantra "Mojang has always stated that they do not support mods, and they will not allow anyone to make money directly off them, blah blah blah." Just look at what Mojang is doing on the xbox and ps versions. You buy skins, texture packs, capes, etc. What's the big deal for them to say, "Ok, people obviously want this stuff, it is based on something we made, let's take it back, still allow 3rd party mods, but if you want paid for your work, get licensed, follow the rules."
 
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The following is mainly targeted at Kaelten, and perhaps the FTB team. The two titles in bold are for the casual reader. ;)

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

First off: I am a highly political proponent of free (as in liberty) computer systems that are devoid of centralized third party control (such as corporate control) as much as possible. To me, free software (and hopefully at some point, with the advent of more stable and cheaper 3D printing methods, open hardware) are ingredients of considerable weight to a free future in an increasingly computer-centered world.

Every piece of software or hardware that is only compatible with systems that do not meet that paradigm is supporting a future ridden with corporate control, thus thwarting a future where people are not being increasingly restricted and controlled by powerful organizations, as it supports the growth of these systems and at the same time throttles the spread and development of free platforms by depraving them of mind and resource share, as people wanting to use that particular software or hardware of course being in favour of swinging towards the supported, restricted platform instead.

Thus, providing compatibility with at least one free software ecosystem is about more than just customer satisfaction. It is about what future you believe in, and throwing your weight where your believes are, even if it might not fit schemes for perfect profit maximization. Of course, if the decision makers in a company do not even remotely believe in individual freedom and decentralization of control, that avenue of persuasion is lost on that company I suppose. Whether that's the case for Curse. Inc or not, at this time I know too little to tell. I am sure you (Kaelten) are infinitely more qualified to make such an assessment.

What might be more interesting to people that don't necessarily share my view, but have an interest in FTB adoption and less community fragmentation:

I am running a whitelisted "FTB" server which is part of a fanserver project. The FTB server is not seeing that much influx, and is out of playerbase interest going to have a now ATLauncher-based pack for at least the next few months, but it is a handful of users. I am also not unlikely to be involved in future endeavours when it comes to modded Minecraft, be it server or video-wise.

I may not be a big voice in that matter, but if I don't add it in, it'll be one voice less.

Should FTB decide to move to a platform that excludes the free (as in libre) software world, I will definitely give that critical weight in my future decisions when it comes to any undertaking including the FTB - or then, Curse Launcher.

FTB is compatible to the free computer world today. I am not standing by and swallowing it silently when freedom is threatened to lose any ground. And believe it or not, games do matter, as they are a major factor for platform adoption and support for a substantial user base.
 
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Aziroshin said:
Should FTB decide to move to a platform that excludes the free (as in libre) software world, I will definitely give that critical weight in my future decisions when it comes to any undertaking including the FTB - or then, Curse Launcher.
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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.
 
Aziroshin said:
~ stuff
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Um what? Please explain what exactly you are objecting .[DOUBLEPOST=1398279829][/DOUBLEPOST]
FyberOptic said:
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.
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The new client will never ask for your Minecraft login details. Ever.
 
Jadedcat said:
The new client will never ask for your Minecraft login details. Ever.
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Ah right, I forgot, it's just supposed to supplement the official Mojang launcher.

I don't think the official Mojang launcher is even free/open-source. Just some of the associated libraries.
 
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