Honestly, it's not so much about what you CAN do, it's about what's fair and sensible for the overall Freelancer community. Sure, you can just take whatever version number you want, and you always have been able to. The thing is that version numbers have become something of an identifier for mods for Freelancer, because each mod wants to be sure only people with their mod can connect to their server. It's a reasonable way to prevent crashes, and if two mods share version numbers, then players of one mod could accidentally log onto another server and crash it.

So yeah, you can go ahead and do what you want. But this system has kept things here nice and stable for years now and I see no reason why it couldn't keep doing that.

the interesting thing is that this list contains many mods which use the same version

lets just take my mod
1.10
1.20
1.30
1.40
1.50
1.51
1.52
1.53
1.54
1.55
1.56
1.60
1.61
1.62
1.63
1.70
and the comming 1.80

then there is the tbb mod in his variations which is also using some of these versions 1.70 and 1.80 if im not wrong

and there are many other mods which use version numbers that are listed here
mods that often used such versions long before they were "reserved" here and often when i see that ppl reserve versions these versions are used by somebody else already and that those "old" mods dont even get mentioned

once i also was told that im not allowed to use a version number when i released a update of my mod because that version was "reserved" (not to mention that before it was reserved 3 other mods used it for a long time already)

many ppl which reserved version numbers here reserved numbers that are already used by others
so the big question comes of which right do such ppl have to reserver something that is/was already used by others before and tell modders not to use such version numbers anymore

So why bother having this thread anymore, we didnt make this forum Lancers made it so people could see what others had took, quite a sensible stance imo.

So why trash something that has worked fine ??

We may as well go read the eula and do what we wamt, take what we want from other mods.. After all it all belongs to microsoft, it all their code.

NOw either lets get back to running this forum as it was intended, or get rid of it altogether.

Until something better is made available this is the best there is.

all is MS code?
so if i create a new ship model it automatically is owned by MS or what?
if i write a new line of code it is owned by MS?
no!
new stuff is property of the modder and not of MS or anybody else and if other use it without permission then it is a plain simple theft of mental/intelectual property

Can't you just change the build number as well? That way you could have version 1.0 Build 10 and people with version 1.0 Build 5 couldn't log in to the server, but it still shows as 1.0 on the global server, and at the lower right of the main menu.

the build has no effect on anything... its more like a version for coders
also the version numbers that are allowed by FL/MS are very limited

---

all is MS code?
so if i create a new ship model it automatically is owned by MS or what?
if i write a new line of code it is owned by MS?
no!
new stuff is property of the modder and not of MS or anybody else and if other use it without permission then it is a plain simple theft of mental/intelectual property

---

Yes & no OP, basically everything that got installed into your HDD when you installed Freelancer is copyright M$ except the THN which uses LUA which belongs to someone else(that's double trouble). Any models and textures you make that are not based on ships from other games, tv or movies are copyrighted to you as the creator, until you convert them into the game file format (CMP,MAT,SUR etc.) then they become the joint property of both you and M$ (models yours but the file format belongs to M$). INI code is a different matter as they are 100% Micro$ofts as all we do is alter the existing code forms in the files.

You should have a look in the archives in this forum from around October 2003, back when TNG and Starfyre Studios got served a cease and desist order by M$ for trying to copyright stuff, it should give you an idea about what you can and can't claim as your own.

The threads are actually well worth a read by everybody but please wear your flame retardant undies as it gets quite heated.

**shuffles off with a new headache**

MS has 0 rights on what i created
MS only has rights on what they created
the code (LUA or INI) of my mod (that i have written) is my intelectual work and therefore protected
as of the copyright changes in 2004 i dont even need to put a copyright mark on it since it is protected automatically

same happens with cmps mats and surs
if there is a starwars ship converted to cmp then MS does not hold the copyright of that ship... believe me lucasarts would have a real problem with that
in fact cmps and mats are just utf containers but the content of those is not automaticaly microsoft property in the same way the software that encode to a zip container is not property of those which invented zip

we use copyrighted software to create our mods... thats true... but milkshape is also copyrighted but that does not make all our models property of those which developed MS3D

the keyword is intelectual property and that is copyrighted (by the creator of the model or the code) automatically as soon it is done

and i am pretty sure of that since i already was in the situation that i had to protect/defend my work by law

Swat Wrote:
the build has no effect on anything... its more like a version for coders

I'm not suggesting it, I'm saying that you can't log into a 1.0 Build 5 server if you have 1.0 build 6. It's how we've been doing our patches while keeping the same version number.

ive tested different builds before and i was able to log into one of my servers running one build on the server and a different on the client

not to mention that if i remember right the 1.1 patch (the official FL patch) does change the build of the server too and 1.0 clients with the old build are still able to connect to such 1.1 servers running the new build


im not sure what you did to make this possible but i consider this more useful than version restrictions

Edited by - SWAT_OP-R8R on 6/1/2007 1:42:48 AM

i do not see how using of a proprietary file format does limit ur personal right on what u have created.

if that would be, then writers using ms word would get into trouble publishing their books...

Sub-build numbers (1.0<span style="text-decoration: underline">.0.0</span>) have no impact on client/server version identification.

While it is true that anything you create using a file format is still your IP and not the format creator, it is also true that the file format specifications, in this case, were never given to us by Microsoft. Technically we have all violated the DMCA just by using these formats. So claiming copyright over material that was illegally created causes some problems.

Edited by - Louva-Deus on 6/1/2007 7:54:34 AM

this argument would only allow the owner of rights of file format to speak against publication of your work, but not at all would allow other people to use your stuff, just because the file format would be not yours.