Cant i just say "My personal pack is *Insert mod list*"
ANd people can get it?
Mod authors seldom maintain links to old versions of their mod. What's more, even popular mods may have version rollbacks or bad builds.
So it can be impossible to construct the mod pack. You cannot build old versions if resonant rise on your own. They are lost and only my S3 archive had the exact releases for several mods.
Basically, most mod authors leave mod pack maintainers very few options besides redistribution, and in general they have lots to gain and nothing to lose by redistribution. But, bizarrely, they forbid it.
So we end up with stuff like my pack in Limbo as I try to find the time to bribe mod authors into giving me the privilege of paying bandwidth bills for them. On bad days I despair that ill never get perms for the pack I'm finishing despite the fact that it is very clear that lots of people want it and I have worked quite hard on it.
A part of me knows full well that if I posted the modpack right now, the reality is that no one would stop me. Some authors would be mildly irritated, but they'd also not be irritated enough to retain the services of a lawyer and pay for a real C&D to be written. Even less likely would be actual legal action being taken. Surprisingl,y forgecrafter Tahg seems to have done this.
I've resisted that temptation because I'd like very much to engage in a equitable back-and-forth with modmakers. I feel like the testing team we have does a
really good job of stressing and beta-testing mods and we release often enough that we find a lot of bugs and balance issues.