Private forums... public?
by Danner Jones · in Torque Game Engine · 06/14/2004 (7:41 pm) · 15 replies
Here's a wild suggestion... why have the private forums be Private? Why not make them public?
I know the initial reaction: there's a lot of Torque-engine specific (and proprietary) information being talked about, including code snippets. Playing devil's advocate, is there really all that much people that *haven't* bought Torque could glean from reading the Private forums?
Ok, WHY make them public? Google. This would solve the need for GG to spend any time on developing a more robust web searching interface for the forums.
I know it sounds crazy, and maybe you've all talked about it before. But, I thought it worth mentioning just in case you hadn't thought about it.
-Nerseus
I know the initial reaction: there's a lot of Torque-engine specific (and proprietary) information being talked about, including code snippets. Playing devil's advocate, is there really all that much people that *haven't* bought Torque could glean from reading the Private forums?
Ok, WHY make them public? Google. This would solve the need for GG to spend any time on developing a more robust web searching interface for the forums.
I know it sounds crazy, and maybe you've all talked about it before. But, I thought it worth mentioning just in case you hadn't thought about it.
-Nerseus
#2
(Random fact: did you know that at one point GG seriously considered making Torque available under the GPL?)
06/14/2004 (8:16 pm)
It is something we've considered. But it's unlikely to happen. The license makes it necessary that there be a private place to discuss Torque internals, and this is the place.(Random fact: did you know that at one point GG seriously considered making Torque available under the GPL?)
#4
While I can't predict the possible futures, I do believe that if GG had decided to go the GPL route they would have scared off a lot of potential licensees.
As for the forums, I think Westy has a point. Sometimes I have to remind myself not to post anything like code snippets, etc. outside of here. And before you say, "But knowledge wants to be free!" let me remind you that Jeff and GG is trying to make a living off their code. So are some of the rest of us. :)
The current Torque license is perfect for me, IMHO. It freely encourages community members to give back to the greater good, but doesn't shackle us with that as a license requirement.
06/14/2004 (8:34 pm)
@Ben: I know I might torque (ha ha) a few open source folks by saying this but -- Good. Glad you didn't make it GPL. If you had, I'd have avoided it. Why? Because if I were to write a game, I like to have control over my own code. If I want to give it away for free, great. If not, well, call that anti-social of me but it's OK too.While I can't predict the possible futures, I do believe that if GG had decided to go the GPL route they would have scared off a lot of potential licensees.
As for the forums, I think Westy has a point. Sometimes I have to remind myself not to post anything like code snippets, etc. outside of here. And before you say, "But knowledge wants to be free!" let me remind you that Jeff and GG is trying to make a living off their code. So are some of the rest of us. :)
The current Torque license is perfect for me, IMHO. It freely encourages community members to give back to the greater good, but doesn't shackle us with that as a license requirement.
#5
06/15/2004 (12:02 am)
Being GPL would not have precluded a commercial license. Much like that being done with OpenTNL / TNL
#6
From the code snippets I've seen in the forums thus far, I don't think there's any harm in letting non-Torque owners see it. The biggest chunks I've seen are maybe 2 or 3 "pages" long. Torque is HUGE and the little bit of code exposed through the forums isn't going to let anyone rebuild Torque without paying for it.
Althought *I* haven't seen code snippets that would show any proprietary logic that I'd want to keep hidden, I can't say it doesn't exist in the private forums. I also can't speak for the future, for what people may post - maybe large chunks of crispy clean code that GG would not want exposed to the public. If this is what GG is trying to prevent, then I'd agree - keep them private.
Another option, possibly - is there a way to license "Google"? Meaning, allow the Google technology to run on your local servers where you can have it run with certain credentials to scan your forums as if they were, for example, Jeff Tunnel? Meaning, something "out of the box" that would crawl the internal, private forums and allow custom text searches without having to redesign the website and searches yourself?
That's probably the last of my ideas - of which you've probably already thought. Again, you can't score if you don't shoot on goal...
-Nerseus
06/15/2004 (6:21 am)
I know the current Torque license doesn't allow posing of the Torque code - I'm just wondering if code snippets would fall outside of that. I mean, GG made the license, they could change it if needed.From the code snippets I've seen in the forums thus far, I don't think there's any harm in letting non-Torque owners see it. The biggest chunks I've seen are maybe 2 or 3 "pages" long. Torque is HUGE and the little bit of code exposed through the forums isn't going to let anyone rebuild Torque without paying for it.
Althought *I* haven't seen code snippets that would show any proprietary logic that I'd want to keep hidden, I can't say it doesn't exist in the private forums. I also can't speak for the future, for what people may post - maybe large chunks of crispy clean code that GG would not want exposed to the public. If this is what GG is trying to prevent, then I'd agree - keep them private.
Another option, possibly - is there a way to license "Google"? Meaning, allow the Google technology to run on your local servers where you can have it run with certain credentials to scan your forums as if they were, for example, Jeff Tunnel? Meaning, something "out of the box" that would crawl the internal, private forums and allow custom text searches without having to redesign the website and searches yourself?
That's probably the last of my ideas - of which you've probably already thought. Again, you can't score if you don't shoot on goal...
-Nerseus
#7
Google can indeed be licensed, but it's pretty expensive - more expensive than just upgrading our servers to allow searching.
It isn't so much any single code snippet, rather that when taken together they form a big picture of the engine... And more importantly, by having a private area, it means that when you buy the engine you get access to a big body of knowledge that is a) useless to you until you've bought it and b) extremely useful once you have.
06/16/2004 (1:39 pm)
We really do appreciate you taking the time to post these suggestions. :)Google can indeed be licensed, but it's pretty expensive - more expensive than just upgrading our servers to allow searching.
It isn't so much any single code snippet, rather that when taken together they form a big picture of the engine... And more importantly, by having a private area, it means that when you buy the engine you get access to a big body of knowledge that is a) useless to you until you've bought it and b) extremely useful once you have.
#8
Gee, wouldn't want anyone to get "the big picture"... come on... Do you *really* think someone is going to try and save $100 by trying to paste some snippets together into what would ultimately be an illegal codebase?
There is no good reason for the private Torque forums to be private... In terms of evaluation you are just making it a harder decision. However, write access should be imited to SDK owners, simply to keep the noise to signal ratio down...
-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games
06/16/2004 (1:44 pm)
"It isn't so much any single code snippet, rather that when taken together they form a big picture of the engine..."Gee, wouldn't want anyone to get "the big picture"... come on... Do you *really* think someone is going to try and save $100 by trying to paste some snippets together into what would ultimately be an illegal codebase?
There is no good reason for the private Torque forums to be private... In terms of evaluation you are just making it a harder decision. However, write access should be imited to SDK owners, simply to keep the noise to signal ratio down...
-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games
#9
While you can't really stop the leaking of stuff if someone wants to leak it out, protecting the private forums goes a long way to making it harder for anyone to use the engine without paying. $100 is small enough even for most college students that it would be well worth it to pay to get access to the forums AND the CVS updates, in my opinion.
Ah well, so close yet so far (plus, I love the speed of Google)...
-nerseus
06/16/2004 (1:52 pm)
Ben did spark one concern I hadn't thought of: if someone were to share out their Torque engine sourcecode (either by accident or on purpose) then unlicensed users would not only have all the code, but full access to the forums to get help (if nothing more than reading existing posts).While you can't really stop the leaking of stuff if someone wants to leak it out, protecting the private forums goes a long way to making it harder for anyone to use the engine without paying. $100 is small enough even for most college students that it would be well worth it to pay to get access to the forums AND the CVS updates, in my opinion.
Ah well, so close yet so far (plus, I love the speed of Google)...
-nerseus
#10
/me raises hand.
I think it's fine to have the SDK forums fenced off for now, even if the search isn't awesome. I've found that if I can't find a topic that covers my question, there most likely isn't a post that covers what I need, so rather than waiting for an appropriate post or getting angry at GG for not having a comprehensive search feature, I just plop back into programmer mode and try to figure it out myself (after posting a question on the forums, if necessary). I'm sure most programmers have had the weird experience of spending hours on a single problem, then post a question to the forums only to answer it 5 minutes after posting :)
Personally, I'd rather see enhancements in a DIF modeler or good "complete simple game" tutorials. (Which might even be coming soon...)
06/16/2004 (2:01 pm)
Quote:$100 is small enough even for most college students
/me raises hand.
I think it's fine to have the SDK forums fenced off for now, even if the search isn't awesome. I've found that if I can't find a topic that covers my question, there most likely isn't a post that covers what I need, so rather than waiting for an appropriate post or getting angry at GG for not having a comprehensive search feature, I just plop back into programmer mode and try to figure it out myself (after posting a question on the forums, if necessary). I'm sure most programmers have had the weird experience of spending hours on a single problem, then post a question to the forums only to answer it 5 minutes after posting :)
Personally, I'd rather see enhancements in a DIF modeler or good "complete simple game" tutorials. (Which might even be coming soon...)
#11
Again, there is no good reason for the private Torque forums to be private... In terms of evaluation you are just making it a harder decision. However, write access should be imited to SDK owners, simply to keep the noise to signal ratio down...
-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games
06/16/2004 (2:03 pm)
Worrying about a few people, using limited access to a forum, to develop software illegally, without access to CVS, or other developers, is plain silly.Again, there is no good reason for the private Torque forums to be private... In terms of evaluation you are just making it a harder decision. However, write access should be imited to SDK owners, simply to keep the noise to signal ratio down...
-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games
#12
I think it's agreed that the forums and/or website could use a better search mechanism. I think it's been agreed that GG's time is better spent on other areas at the moment. Since the employees only recently starting making any money off this venture, I say let them keep at it and not spend time/money on improving the website until they can afford it. In the meantime, resources like the Essential User Guide DO offer some alternative to getting at the more useful posts. And the search does work, to an extent - so we're not left totally in the dark.
Now if some enthusiastic intern or GG member wanted, they could scour the forums and produce a "What's new and interesting" type of email or weblog to keep most of us up-to-date. But who has that time?
-Nerseus
06/16/2004 (2:40 pm)
For evaluation, Torque offers the demo (now 2, with TSE) and you can tweak those scripts and add content. Plus, they have the public forums for asking more specific questions. I'd say ALL of us did some amount of research/evaluation and like what we saw enough to end up in here, paying $100 for the right to argue about things like this :)I think it's agreed that the forums and/or website could use a better search mechanism. I think it's been agreed that GG's time is better spent on other areas at the moment. Since the employees only recently starting making any money off this venture, I say let them keep at it and not spend time/money on improving the website until they can afford it. In the meantime, resources like the Essential User Guide DO offer some alternative to getting at the more useful posts. And the search does work, to an extent - so we're not left totally in the dark.
Now if some enthusiastic intern or GG member wanted, they could scour the forums and produce a "What's new and interesting" type of email or weblog to keep most of us up-to-date. But who has that time?
-Nerseus
#13
I totally agree.
EDIT: Hah... check out Mr. Overman's .plan
06/16/2004 (2:49 pm)
"paying $100 for the right to argue about things like this"I totally agree.
EDIT: Hah... check out Mr. Overman's .plan
#14
06/16/2004 (4:04 pm)
Lol... kinda makes this a bit of a moot convo? 
Torque Owner Westy