Hextator's Doc & Patches

Incidentally, the question of re-hosting is a moot point, since it’s all CC-SA 3.0

Here’s a few choice passages

  • The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
  • No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
1 Like

I don’t think we ought to have this devolve into personal attacks; so let’s all keep calm, there’ll be no “witch trials” against anybody.

All of that knowledge that Hex accrued, however; it’s pretty useless unless people can learn from it. I can’t understand why someone would want to so thoroughly devalue their work; all of that time spent was a waste, since now nobody benefits from its existence at all.

Also, I’d like to turn everyone’s attention to the license under with @Hextator is claiming authority in regards to his doc. @Lisandra_brave is pointing it out, citing Creative Commons (CC-SA 3.0) in its “human-readable summary”, which states the following:

You are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material

The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

So, unless he can find something under the license which members of this community have violated (and backed with evidence), we are still free to share “the doc.” In fact, Hextator seems to be in violation of his own licensing agreement with this hostage situation.

As a site administrator, I would not feel justified in taking down a repost of the materials in question.

11 Likes

I didn’t really want to say anything before since I really don’t want to be delving into any drama or cause trouble for the admins, but given the situation and what Arch has said, Hex’s doc has still been in the unified drop box the whole time.

2 Likes

Nobody is violating the license as far as I know (including myself, obviously).

If someone actually saved the entire thing and reposted it they would be within their right, but

  • Really? That’s your solution to the stagnated development?
  • Speaking of that development, any new developments added to my doc would only be in my doc, not any reposts. You know, until that part of my doc is itself made public. Which it wouldn’t be, because I am not going to put stuff up anymore since no one uses it anyway. I can’t afford to work on this stuff, though, so there wouldn’t be any new stuff.

Suffice to say you are all getting worked up over nothing. If it’s really such a big inconvenience that the doc is down then help it back up. If it’s not, be it because it’s hosted elsewhere or because nobody cares about it, then why whine?

I learned from it. I learned that working hard on things that you don’t get paid or hired for is stupid.

If people were actually benefiting from it then they will stand by it and by me.

For such skilled programmer, your logical skills definitely need work. Here we go with that Modus Tollens again. Assuming “not P,” when once again you haven’t proven “not Q.”

Translate “then they will stand by it and by me.” Define “stand by,” because people here are, in a sense, “standing by” the value of your doc. Obviously people are upset that it’s been taken down, which implies a value to the works beyond your simple lesson in capitalist economics. The logical value of a phrase like “stand by” is inherently subjective; unless you intend to express physical proximity. Arguably, people are “standing by” you in voicing the obvious value of the works you’ve produced. You obviously define “stand by” in terms of monetary support, but that meaning isn’t itself apparent in the sentence’s core structure. If people didn’t care, there wouldn’t be any kind of response to losing “the doc.”

Your qualm is that people have not paid you for something which you had provided to them with the understanding that it was free. By the way, retroactively taking privileges from users who have not violated the licensing agreement, or to charge for the content, seems to be in violation of your license. Also, you still haven’t given us the total amount of ransom requested. An attainable fundraising goal of some sort might help give people a clearer incentive to pitch in?

Unless you’re just expecting everyone to open their wallets and make it rain. Nevermind that you’d be charging people to access information which was obtained through and is applicable only to stolen property. I pay a monthly fee to host this website, and an annual domain renewal fee; never once have I asked for assistance, nor have I ever demanded repayment from my beneficiaries. I’ve been unemployed for seven months straight (basically, the majority of this site’s lifespan). It can’t take up that much Dropbox space as to require a service charge, can it? If so, other hosting can be arranged.

Given the current impasse, I would not begrudge users for distributing the doc. In light of your own intransigence, what other option are people left with? This is a hobby, and nobody else demands any sort of payment from other members in this fashion. Charging for services is fine, charging for information of this type feels both legally and morally dubious.

If you were to take out all of the custom code and simply leave us with documentation on the GBAFE games, that might be an adequate solution for both aggrieved parties. That, however, would require effort in sorting through the doc to determine what you’d like to hide behind your paywall (and I don’t expect you’ll be putting in any degree of effort until you get paid; the best solution to the problem is entirely unworkable).

That this is the natural reply of the community might give you pause to re-assess your goal, and whether your actions are conducive to the accomplishment of your goal.

8 Likes

Arch and his 3-syllable words tho

Call me a doctor because my flow is so ill.

Hex, bro, it may seem like we’re “against you” right now–but I’m trying to help. This seems entirely counterproductive. The fact that the doc’s absence was certainly noticed, that it was so frequently referenced and even saved by some members, is a clear testament to its value. I still respect you, and your contributions to this community; I’m sorry that you don’t feel your contributions have been reciprocated.

Monetizing videos of cool hax? Great. That’s capitalism. Advertise that here, by all means. Really in need of money? That’s the world in which we live. But by taking down the doc, you’ve effectively neutered its ability to generate donations. It’d be more intellectual honest to just say “I need money, so consider making a donation or check out my offer for paid services.” You can use the doc more effectively when people access the version you control. Taking it down, you’re basically ceding control over people’s access to your docs, and damaging your credibility with the people you’re trying to solicit money from. It’s a lose-lose proposition.

I feel like it’d be in your best interest to come to some sort of compromise on this, and parlay that into your strengthened fundraising efforts.

4 Likes

You’ve written an essay since I last visited this thread. A quick skim of it presents these premises, as best I can tell:

  • You (and presumably others; please vouch for yourselves individually) are in need of documentation that is not being hosted on my Dropbox
  • The documentation is under a license that allows its free distribution by other parties
  • As there are (apparently) no such other parties, you would like me to put it back up

This next one will need some correction, because I know I didn’t understand it fully:

  • You have proposed some sort of deal (please clarify what it is, if so, more concisely) by which to incentivize me to put the documentation back into my public Dropbox folder

Is that an accurate assessment, aside from the ambiguity of the last point?

For the future, please be terse. Say what you mean directly. I am not the best speed reader and don’t plan to be.

If you are addressing me, separate the communication intended for me from that which is intended for others. If you have, I couldn’t tell because the size of the paragraphs you wrote are disproportionate from the expected response.

tl;dr, use adfly or something on links to your doc, that’ll get you at least a little cash, since your doc is actually fairly popular.

1 Like

Your doc is on the FEU unified drop box here as I said before. You not hosting the doc and continuing to do so in the future only means we wouldn’t have access to any future endeavors of yours.

Let’s stop antagonizing Hex here; it’s his decision to take it down. The information has been saved and is still publicly available (I’m aware it’s not completely up to date, but afaict all we’re missing is the FE7.x and FE7.o files that aren’t of huge interest to most people).

1 Like

This has been considered for a while although I am not entirely sure how to implement it properly. It’s something I was going to address when restructuring, which should also make stuff less difficult to find (the doc is super organized and yet at the same time it feels unintuitive)

1 Like