Borrowing Code without Credit

[Deome]

Finally taking this to these forums, and others, as I have tried to resolve the issue with both Cairenn and Philgo68 without success.

Philgo68's Master Merchant addon borrows a number of features originally published in DataDaedra. Philgo68 claims that he borrowed the code from Millus Roster, an unpublished addon my friend Millus wrote (in his own words, using a number of things from DD, with my blessing). I myself have used code from Millus Roster, with Millus's blessing, and inclusion of Millus's license as he requires. However, among the numerous people Philgo68 thanks on MM's page, neither I nor Millus are mentioned, and his Master Merchant addon does not include Millus's license nor my own (which are identical).

To add insult to injury, many of the people Philgo68 thanks on Master Merchant's page frequently disparage me, and my addons, in guild and public channels. Those guilds promote Master Merchant, and either ignore or insult my own.

So far, I've documented the following features, and their lines of code, as lifted from DataDaedra without permission or credit:

Stats To Chat
Save Posting Prices

I have worked tirelessly over the past year on my addons, and I am absolutely fed up with hearing people state that Master Merchant is "better" because it includes my features--features that were further developed beyond Millus Roster and published long before Master Merchant was released--and that DataDaedra is "incompatible" with Master Merchant because Philgo68 doesn't know how to include our (Millus's and my) LibGuildHistory, which we wrote specifically to solve any issues of compatibility with history addons. Quite frankly, I do not believe Philgo68 could have been completely unaware that they were in DataDaedra. I'm further infuriated that Philgo68 refuses to credit either me OR Millus, nor use the license we share.

I wouldn't be so irate had there been some acknowledgement of indebtedness on Philgo68's part in a timely fashion, nor if he wasn't thanking so many people who I've seen badmouthing me and my addons publicly. But now I want those borrowed features removed from Master Merchant, or Master Merchant removed from ESOUI altogether. Otherwise, what's he going to steal next so that people can say "Yeah, but MM has that too!"?

[TheHawaiiYankee]

Just chiming in to say that if there was borrowing of code (which it seems highly unlikely that there wasn't) Deome should definitely be credited. He has put a lot of time and work into his add-on to have it mocked by players who think its inferior. I do respect Phil in every sense just as much as Deome, but even I get a bit peeved when people call me out on using DataDaedra because I prefer it when they have no clue that without it their add-on might not even exist.

[Philgo68]

The Master Merchant page does indeed credit Millus for the small bit of Stat to Chat code I used from his addon, "Thanks to Mattmillus for some of the Stats to Chat code."

Matt's Copyright:

-- Copyright (c) 2014 Matthew Miller (Mattmillus)
--
-- Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
-- obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation
-- files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without
-- restriction, including without limitation the rights to use,
-- copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
-- copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
-- Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following
-- conditions:
--
-- The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
-- included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

I did not consider a handful of fairly standard lines of code a "substantial portion" of the addon, so I didn't feel the need to include his Copyright. Additionally, this code has it's roots in the ESO source anyway:
(http://esodata.uesp.net/100010/src/l...er.lua.html#31)


I have no control over what other say or don't say about your addons, so please don't lay that at my feet.


I can't say I've looked too deeply into the GuildLibHistory library, but it seems like it doesn't return information until it's brought all the guild history in from the server, while the scanning MM, and SK before it do, is as shallow as possible to return an offline sales report ASAP to the user on login.

God Bless,

Philgo

[QuadroTony]

Originally Posted by Deome Considering how much you've stolen from Millus Roster and my own mods, I'm surprised that Millus doesn't have any credits on MM's page.

the only one thing why MM are so popular and DD no - because you was "closed-developer":
- you didnt post on this forum in comment of your addon for a long time
- ppl reported an errors after every your update, you never answered.
- so they all choose addons without errors and with support

[Deome]

Originally Posted by QuadroTony the only one thing why MM are so popular and DD no - because you was "closed-developer": - you didnt post on this forum in comment of your addon for a long time - ppl reported an errors after every your update, you never answered. - so they all choose addons without errors and with support

My addons are fully supported. I posted long ago that I can either waste my life responding to comments, or I can work on making my addons better. I don't read the comments because, frankly, they're filled with trolls like you. Can't tell you how many people have wondered why I keep working when you leave such awful comments.

Second of all, I know for a fact that the reason MM has become so popular is that many people have promoted it while at the same time disparaging my addons. Everyone Philgo68 thanks is now on my ignore list because I have screenshots of most of them badmouthing my addons in public and guild channels.

And finally, I'm fine with other folks using my addons, so long as they credit them.

"Closed Developer" my aching ass--how closely did you work with Khaibit, Millus, or even Focus? Just because TS3 is a better medium for collaboration that ESOUI, which I make an effort to check and participate in once a week. You're 90% of the reason I don't bother with the comments pages anymore.

[Deome]

Originally Posted by Philgo68 The Master Merchant page does indeed credit Millus for the small bit of Stat to Chat code I used from his addon, "Thanks to Mattmillus for some of the Stats to Chat code." Matt's Copyright: -- Copyright (c) 2014 Matthew Miller (Mattmillus) -- -- Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person -- obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation -- files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without -- restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, -- copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell -- copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the -- Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following -- conditions: -- -- The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be -- included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. I did not consider a handful of fairly standard lines of code a "substantial portion" of the addon, so I didn't feel the need to include his Copyright. Additionally, this code has it's roots in the ESO source anyway: (http://esodata.uesp.net/100010/src/l...er.lua.html#31) I have no control over what other say or don't say about your addons, so please don't lay that at my feet. I can't say I've looked too deeply into the GuildLibHistory library, but it seems like it doesn't return information until it's brought all the guild history in from the server, while the scanning MM, and SK before it do, is as shallow as possible to return an offline sales report ASAP to the user on login. God Bless, Philgo

For starters, I couldn't care less what you consider a substantial portion; your addon is just Millus Roster pasted on top of Shopkeeper, and without Millus's features you wouldn't have anything more to offer than what Shopkeeper did. How dare you say that you don't consider all that you stole out of his addon "substantial"? Have you even talked to him? Did he give you the Millus Roster addon, or did you just get it through your Rawl'kha Mafia connection? And don't think I didn't notice that you also use the "Great Deals" code lifted out of Millus Roster. Did you remember to thank him for that too, when you were adding thanks to MM's page after my post? How much more are you gonna ride his coattails?

Second, damn right I'm going to lay the badmouthing at your door. You thank most of the worst offenders on MM's page, and your buddy QuadraTony here is one of them. Getting other people to do your dirty work is rather cowardly. And don't think I didn't notice you telling folks on MM's page not to use "any addons using LibGuildHistory" with your addon; that's just a passive-aggressive way of saying "Don't Use DataDaedra." It's a pity that pages here on ESOUI don't have a history to show you adding credits only after this post or removing things that reflect what I hear folks saying publicly and in guild chat all the time.

Third, I'm not even going to start on how much of Shopkeeper is lifted from my code without credit or permission (though I'll be happy to if you press the point; all the evidence is in the DataDaedra and Shopkeeper archives here on ESOUI). I would have brought it up with Khaibit had he not disappeared, but after Focus asked me to take over a Shopkeeper port I just removed the recent additions that overlapped and borrowed from DataDaedra. You're using it now without permission or credit--but then, you'd know that if you put half the work into developing an addon from scratch like Khaibit and I did.


It doesn't matter too much whether you think taking everything out of Millus Roster is substantial because I published two of those features, using Millus's license and blessing, weeks before you published your copy here on ESOUI. I asked you privately to use his license, since that's where you claim to have lifted code that's nearly identical to my own, and came back to MM's page to find a long list of people thanked on MM's page, Millus not among them. Your addon uses DataDaedra's features, and we have QuadraTony here on this page saying that people want those features in another addon. Don't tell me you didn't lift code from DataDaedra in order to make them work, I *know* how much of Millus Roster broke after Update 5.


All I asked was for a simple acknowledgement and incorporation of Millus's and my license JUST FOR THOSE PARTS in a timely fashion. You blew me off because you don't think all the features you cut and pasted are "substantial." Now I'm asking admins and the developer community here to settle that question.

Again, ironic that the one thing you didn't lift from Millus is the published LibGuildHistory, which we published specifically to AVOID any future conflicts between addons that request history. That, on its face, appears to be just another intentional slight to turn people off from my addons (which QuadraTony has been doing for ages just because I've been sick since December; up until recently, I've had maybe 8 good waking hours in a day to continue to code badass addons, and I wasn't going to waste them trying to placate his whining). And it's more than a little suspicious that you got help from SO many people yet never troubled to ask the one active developer who already has a successful pricing addon for any help or guidance. Almost as if you were avoiding me.

Meanwhile, I've helped a few other people with their addons.

[Corodius]

This is very Discouraging to read, especially that Cairenn has failed to help sort this out.

Philgo, it doesn't matter what you consider a "Substantial" contribution, if you used even a small amount of code then you *MUST* include the required License. No Ifs, Ands or Buts. It is not a question of if you want to, it is a Legal Requirement.

On your point QuadroTony, Deome is an extremely engaged Developer and I have spoken to him myself a number of times. Just because he does not speak where you hang out, does not mean he is not active.

On a purely personal Note, I agree with Deome on why he keeps quiet in those certain areas.

[@AlphaLemming]

Originally Posted by Corodius Just because he does not speak where you hang out, does not mean he is not active. On a purely personal Note, I agree with Deome on why he keeps quiet in those certain areas.

/signed
There seems to be a very different understanding for engagment and support for people using addons.

[Deome]

Originally Posted by Corodius This is very Discouraging to read, especially that Cairenn has failed to help sort this out. Philgo, it doesn't matter what you consider a "Substantial" contribution, if you used even a small amount of code then you *MUST* include the required License. No Ifs, Ands or Buts. It is not a question of if you want to, it is a Legal Requirement. On your point QuadroTony, Deome is an extremely engaged Developer and I have spoken to him myself a number of times. Just because he does not speak where you hang out, does not mean he is not active. On a purely personal Note, I agree with Deome on why he keeps quiet in those certain areas.

Thank you.

[Deome]

Originally Posted by @AlphaLemming /signed There seems to be a very different understanding for engagment and support for people using addons.

Yes, and right now I'm rather concerned that we only have one admin who's rather silent on this whole affair. Even Philgo states that he never heard from Cairenn. With Seerah gone and Wykkyd retiring...well, frankly I'm worried about the future of this site.


Just to be clear, I publish my @lias on the NA server for a reason--if one of my addons is causing issues, I do what I can to provide support (while spending in-game time sitting at the bank). I log in here on ESOUI about once a week, more so if I'm not currently working on a project.

[Area51]

oy :/ My advice: move on or take more serious action... but stop reposting and dragging out the same stuff over and over or people will just start ignoring you.

Originally Posted by Deome Yes, and right now I'm rather concerned that we only have one admin who's rather silent on this whole affair. Even Philgo states that he never heard from Cairenn. With Seerah gone and Wykkyd retiring...well, frankly I'm worried about the future of this site. Just to be clear, I publish my @lias on the NA server for a reason--if one of my addons is causing issues, I do what I can to provide support (while spending in-game time sitting at the bank). I log in here on ESOUI about once a week, more so if I'm not currently working on a project.

[Deome]

Originally Posted by Area51 oy :/ My advice: move on or take more serious action... but stop reposting and dragging out the same stuff over and over or people will just start ignoring you.

Considering Philgo has now cannibalized my goddamn roster features in ddSK, I think I will take more serious action. Legal action.

[Baertram]

The one thing is:
If he took your source code without credit and if this lead to ppl ignoring your addon, or talking bad about it, this is simply unfair and he should excuse himself.

I won't and can't judge this, and I know this is about "he did it or not, no matter why or what benefits or negative stuff resulted because he did it", but in my opinion:
What does it change afterwards? This is a non-commercial game.
There are several addons doing quite the same and noone complained (officialy).
I know it is hard work to code the stuff and it is simply against the rules.
If you can track what damage has been taken and if you know how to fix this, go ahead.

Otherwise I'd say: Move on and have fun (thats the point where I always stick too with the game ). Don't use his addons, put him to ignore lists and do your thing.

Don't get me wrong. I don't say what he did was ok and everyone should do it! (if he copied code without telling ppl where he took it).
But it makes no difference anymore for today, isn't it?
If you want him to remove his addon ppl just will remember you as the guy destroying an addon they liked, instead of the guy that initially coded some stuff the addon used without giving the credits :-(

Ppl use your addon or they don't. It depends on what they prefer and how they play.
You can't force them to use your addon then. You can't blame the people that just want to play and get more comfort. They only download an addon and sometimes some ppl say thank you to the author, most don't say a word, except for when the addon is outdated or it is not working like they think it should. Then they'll jump your face

I'd say you take your steps but keep in mind that ppl will remember you are the guy that overreacts.

@Philgo
If you took the code, no matter how much, and it wasn't yours, be a man and say so and say sorry.

[l3x0r]

Originally Posted by Baertram The one thing is: If he took your source code without credit and if this lead to ppl ignoring your addon, or talking bad about it, this is simply unfair and he should excuse himself. I won't and can't judge this, and I know this is about "he did it or not, no matter why or what benefits or negative stuff resulted because he did it", but in my opinion: What does it change afterwards? This is a non-commercial game. There are several addons doing quite the same and noone complained (officialy). I know it is hard work to code the stuff and it is simply against the rules. If you can track what damage has been taken and if you know how to fix this, go ahead. Otherwise I'd say: Move on and have fun (thats the point where I always stick too with the game ). Don't use his addons, put him to ignore lists and do your thing. Don't get me wrong. I don't say what he did was ok and everyone should do it! (if he copied code without telling ppl where he took it). But it makes no difference anymore for today, isn't it? If you want him to remove his addon ppl just will remember you as the guy destroying an addon they liked, instead of the guy that initially coded some stuff the addon used without giving the credits :-( Ppl use your addon or they don't. It depends on what they prefer and how they play. You can't force them to use your addon then. You can't blame the people that just want to play and get more comfort. They only download an addon and sometimes some ppl say thank you to the author, most don't say a word, except for when the addon is outdated or it is not working like they think it should. Then they'll jump your face I'd say you take your steps but keep in mind that ppl will remember you are the guy that overreacts. @Philgo If you took the code, no matter how much, and it wasn't yours, be a man and say so and say sorry.

I was about to post almost the same.
Please resolve your issues - This is just a game and we all should have our fun playing it and developing addons/extensions for it.
I know you are far beyond the point to maybe collaborate and create the best Shop/Merchant Addon on the planet - but maybe (and this goes out to all developers) a good step would be to just opensource your addons on github and add a matching OSI approved license, so everyone who knows coding, wants to continue you addon, if at some point, you dont want to play anymore can do so.

[Sasky]

Originally Posted by l3x0r I was about to post almost the same. Please resolve your issues - This is just a game and we all should have our fun playing it and developing addons/extensions for it. I know you are far beyond the point to maybe collaborate and create the best Shop/Merchant Addon on the planet - but maybe (and this goes out to all developers) a good step would be to just opensource your addons on github and add a matching OSI approved license, so everyone who knows coding, wants to continue you addon, if at some point, you dont want to play anymore can do so.

DataDaedra does have an open source license (as well as Master Merchant). That doesn't magically make copying go away or fine.

The original complaint was around a section that was under MIT license (which is a fairly permissive OSI approved license). However, you still have the requirement to include the license file if you use sections.

Haven't seen the sections, so no idea if it is copying or not (and you both do have thousand-line monstrosities so it's not easy to compare ). Regardless, either the addon should be taken down until it gets the license included (if it is copying) or this thread should probably be locked (if it isn't).

[Area51]

Originally Posted by Sasky DataDaedra does have an open source license (as well as Master Merchant). That doesn't magically make copying go away or fine. The original complaint was around a section that was under MIT license (which is a fairly permissive OSI approved license). However, you still have the requirement to include the license file if you use sections. Haven't seen the sections, so no idea if it is copying or not (and you both do have thousand-line monstrosities so it's not easy to compare ). Regardless, either the addon should be taken down until it gets the license included (if it is copying) or this thread should probably be locked (if it isn't).

No point in locking... he will start another.

[Adalan]

Originally Posted by Deome Finally taking this to these forums, and others, as I have tried to resolve the issue with both Cairenn and Philgo68 without success. Philgo68's Master Merchant addon borrows a number of features originally published in DataDaedra. [...] So far, I've documented the following features, and their lines of code, as lifted from DataDaedra without permission or credit: Stats To Chat Save Posting Prices I have worked tirelessly over the past year on my addons, and I am absolutely fed up with hearing people [...]

I do understand him very well.
You all coders know that its mostly a fulltime job to create addons in LUA or to update to a new version, fix errors, make improvements and so on.
You investigate countless days (not just some minutes or a simple hour) for nice addons which do raise up the good feeling in TESO and let us all play a really cool game.

But its also understandable, if someone gets out of the game and got no time to do work on addons, that the addon is outdated anytime.
Even if its outdated, even if its fixed and updated to a new version by someone, its absolutely unfair to not have his name written there (page and inside the addon).
Coders dont do that !! In the 80s and 90s we were a handful of freaks out there and greets everyone we just heard about and knew.. so whats wrong here with the culture ?

Guys, ladies... this is a fine community and we are doing alot of nice things to everyone.
Shake hands and put into his name and send some nice greets - its gentleman like :-)

Greets,
Adalan

[mctaylor]

Originally Posted by Philgo68 -- The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be -- included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. I did not consider a handful of fairly standard lines of code a "substantial portion" of the addon, so I didn't feel the need to include his Copyright.

"Substantial portion" is a legal phrase from the Copyright Act in some jurisdictions, including UK and Canada. I don't know if the phrase is explicitly use in the US Copyright Act itself, but the phrase has a specific meaning in legal / copyright context. Nobody gets to arbitrarily decides what a "substantial portion" is.

Reproduction of a copyrighted work, without a license is considered infringing, with the exception of fair use / fair dealings exemptions (education, criticism, parody, other limited cases) which do not appear to apply in the reproduction in a derivative work.

Additionally, this code has it's roots in the ESO source anyway: (http://esodata.uesp.net/100010/src/l...er.lua.html#31)

I'm sorry I do not understand yout claim, are you saying that Millus copied code from zo_linkhandler.lua? If so, what is the basis for your claim? Is the code identical?

I have no control over what other say or don't say about your addons, so please don't lay that at my feet.

Yes, but you are in control of the distribution of your addon, and associated documentation and web pages (at least the ones you can edit). You specifically control the license, the source code, and acknowledgements.

That is of course unless you make false claims about Deome or Millus, or egg on those criticisms with your own false or misleading statements.

I can't say I've looked too deeply into the GuildLibHistory library, but it seems like it doesn't return information until it's brought all the guild history in from the server, while the scanning MM, and SK before it do, is as shallow as possible to return an offline sales report ASAP to the user on login.

That sounds like legitimate technical criticism.


Am I correct in that it appears that you, Philgo, admits that you read, if not cut-and-pasted, portion(s) of Millus Roster(? Millus Log?) code, and if I understand correctly also portion(s) of Deome's work in DataDaedra?

I suspect you (Philgo) have erred in not retaining the copyright notice(s), and not distributing your (derived) work under the MIT license agreement.

Frankly the licensing terms are not onerous on any authors, particularly given the nature of source based (Lua) and not-for-profit (ESO Add-on end-user licensing agreement) restrictions, the "MIT" license does tends to promote cooperation and collaboration.

In other words, I think authors that do not have an explicit license to their add-ons should consider the MIT or Expat license as a good choice if they do not have any specific preferences. Since most add-ons are small, I think that the LGPL or Apache 2.0 would be excessive (in text length) for many projects, although otherwise suitable alternatives.

Beyond that you are not required to "be nice" or friendly with Deome and Millus, and I suspect you may not be able to entirely satisfy Deome's wishes or rather quell his(?) angry / frustration, but that is merely speculation on my part.

[timidobserver]

Originally Posted by mctaylor Beyond that you are not required to "be nice" or friendly with Deome and Millus, and I suspect you may not be able to entirely satisfy Deome's wishes or rather quell his(?) angry / frustration, but that is merely speculation on my part.

I suspect that an apology would completely fix the problem. His response came off as "eh, I only copied a little bit of your stuff not all of it, no big deal to me even if what I am doing is legally wrong or at least unethical." I think Deome's entire problem is that there are people acting like nothing wrong happened here. You have to look at the facts. The major supporters of MM regularly bash Deome's stuff into the ground, while at the same time their copying it? I can see why he is upset, but I bet that a simple "I screwed up, let me know how we can make this right" would entirely end the issue I think, but I could be wrong. However, egos probably won't allow such a thing to happen.

I really wish all of the egos and stuff would be dropped. IMO, it is the responsibility of addon authors to ensure compatibility with as many other addons as possible. If an author creates a new addon, they should try to ensure compatibility with already existing addons that do similar things where possible. I can run AIU, Combat Cloud, FTC at the same time with no problems even though they have similar funcionality. I can run destinations, sky shards, lore books, harvest map, mundus map, and crafting stations at the same time with no issues.

Even if they don't like each other, I feel that the authors of DD and MM should try to ensure that the addons function together, rather than just telling people not to use the other addon. It would probably take 10 minutes of collaboration to find the issue. I don't even make addons and I know that making the addons not scan at the same time would solve most of the problems.

[Werewolf Finds Dragon]

Not that I'd want to reveal my identity, but it's fair to say I created a fair few addons for WoW, and many of those ended up being improved upon and recreated for other MMOs without ever asking for permission. In fact, some of them have been recreated for ESO. I just shrugged it off.

I made the addons for myself. I didn't share them for glory, recognition, power, praise, or position. I understnad that that's different from person to person, but I shared them because I thought others might want them. That they may even deserve them if a problem I was fixing was also a problem I was having. I got out of the game because it's largely a thankless job, but there are always others to pick up the slack.

I think that losing sleep over someone borrowing your code, though, is silly. Even on ESOUI right now there are 'Revived' and 'Extended' addons all over the place. I don't feel like many of those actually ever got permission to do those continuations, and yet there they are.

And it's not something you can really pursue legally, either. ZOS owns everything you make, which is true for every MMO with an addon system -- the publisher owns it. There's almost always a clause for that. So you don't retain proper ownership of what you make, and they can shut you down at any point. You go into it knowing that.

You can't even attach legal disclaimers/licenses because that's a misnomer, the only people who truly have a say are ZOS in the first place. This is why I didn't include them with the libraries in my mod, because I didn't want to be misleading. It's not something I want to argue about (I'm not going to hang around), but I'm making the point for it to be seen.

The moment you stop playing the game you stop coding, anyway. Your mod falls to antiquity, it'll be picked up by someone else if it's popular and it'll be developed regardless of how you feel about it.

It's been that way since Vanilla WoW. Which was... what... over a decade ago? I can't see it changing any time soon. This is a hobbyist thing. Yet I think that when addon/library authors get too popular, it can go to their head, and they'll absolutely want to attach something of worth to it, like a sense of legality to give it weight. It's not going to mean anything. No license ever will. It's a bit of code scribbled down as an addon for a game. It's ethereal.

If someone had stolen your code from your open source game for their open source game, that's different, then you'd have cause for legal proceedings. In this case? You'd have to get ZOS involved, and they'd just dismiss it because it's silly. It's better for them when we share, because it means more addons for their consumers.

So I think we should stop worrying about licenses, legality, ownership, and all that rot. I think we should just make fun addons for ourselves and share them with people that want them. If we want to share.

I don't think we should have any lofty goals or pretensions beyond that.