I pretty much agree with this. I probably (to use the labels already given) would tend towards Cathedraliam for my own stuff, but I don't regard that opinion as any more valid than Parlourism or anything in between. And I see lots of collaborative effort and patches made for ongoing mods. There are tons of modders resources around and many mod readmes allow for further development or use under certain circumstances. If some are more restrictive it's not a big deal.

You could create a website with some licence agreement that sets usage rules, but IMHO you'd end up with an agreement very similar to most readmes and probably a smaller community, since people generally don't like being told what to do. And if there are 7000 mods on PES there can't have been that many withdrawn.

Yes, I agree that it helps other modders when they can use other people's work for their own projects. In fact, I have always granted permission to use my stuff when asked, I find it flattering My point was, like you said at the end of your post, that it is just not that big of a problem if some are denied permission to use something specific. It's only modding and the earth is not going to stand still just because of that.

This is what I was saying earlier, more or less. Modding is not about finding the cure for a disease, or about protecting the global economy. So if you don't get to use a specific mesh in your mod, I'm sure you'll get over it and certainly nobody will die because of that. Modding just isn't so important that it needs to be geared entirely towards progress. Modding is about the people who make mods as a hobby: do they have fun creating mods? If yes, then that's enough. No need to annoy them and bother them into reluctantly agreeing to contribute to the creation of "Morrowind 2.0"

I guess in the end, the question is, What is the goal of modding? For me, it's all about having fun. If what I make ends up improving the game, then it's all cool. But mostly I make mods because I have a good time making them. If I made a mod that removed all mushroom trees from the game, I'm not sure it would improve anyone's gaming experience, but if I had fun making the mod then I think I reached my goal.

Finally, I think improving the game is NOT the same as improving the community. If I make the perfect compendium of the "best" mods to improve the game and manage to rip apart the community in the process all for the goal of improving the game, it will certainly not have improved the community. So which one is more important? The community, or the game? Personnaly I prefer staying friendly with the community, because as I've said I don't want to annoy anyone over a game and because of modding, which is (for me) all about having fun. Morrowind 2.0 can wait.


@Cdeford: exactly!

I actually vaguely remember when this paper by Wrye was new, and I think that I'll take the time here to point out that I think it was contextually appropriate at the time. I took a few lessons away from reading it that stay with me still - I think that it must not sit well with me so well today not because of the content of the article itself but because of the present day context.

Wrye is a bloke for whom I've a good level of respect and I think that at the time he was talking of concepts and understandings, not of labels and sects. It seemed to me that he was talking more about how the community should be more clear about their wishes when they release a mod - a similar thing to http://www.zyworld.com/redwoodtreesprite/ModderOks/ModderOKs-Reuploading.htm but more formalised. This is clearer when reading the entireity of the article at Wrye's site rather than the excerpt in this thread.

I think that the current day context, hot on the tail of recent events changes the meaning of it in a way that isn't intended.

so the quoted stuff has no relevence at all. There was no need for the poster to post it.

It was written a while back when it might have applied better interms that the community has evolved alot since then?

So I again say: This thread is rubbish and should be thrown in the bin.

I'm not going to comment on whether or not the community has 'evolved', because commenting on that would require having paid attention to the community over the past year or two.

Nonetheless, I agree with you that Wrye's article probably isn't as relevant to 'recent events' as it is stated to be in the OP. I don't think that it was written about compilations - actually, he doesn't even use the word. The 'Open Modification' section doesn't mention even compilations/collections/other-synonyms as a type of modification, though it is implicit to the 'Open Distribution' section. If you go further to the 'Open Modding License' section, then the recent events still don't fall under the Cathedral View that his proposal was in support of (See 'Limits on Modification')...

Unless I've misunderstood it entirely (quite possible, I'm not much of a reader/understander) Wrye's paper is largely about creating an infrastructure of Gentleman's Agreements to support the Cathedral Approach, not putting forward Cathedralism as a codeword for free-for-all. It'd be great if Wrye could step in and clarify his thoughts (is he still around these days?)

So, um. Basically, yeah. I agree with you. On this thread, that is.
I think it's salvageable though - It'd be nice if the OP could clarify exactly what the relation is that he sees between recent events and Wrye's paper.

Ahh but he wont. I have already shown schisms, re-inturpritations, ignrance and misunderstanding of the labeling and stil he stays quiet. SO I think perhaps we can asume that he dislikes of inturpritations of something he took as gospel.

So like I say: Thread = rubbish. Should be binned/locked/eaten/ turned into cheese and other silly things.

if i read correctly, the paper is from 2005.

yup. We know. Thats why this thread is so pointless.

It's not like I've released a whole pile of innovative stuff to have to worry about anyone "pilfering" anything (my paltry couple of releases are strictly "add-ons", tweaks, or extensions to existing mods), but I can see where a modder might want to retain control of his (or her) creation, even after ceasing active work on it for all intents and purposes. On the other hand, once someone has left the community, do they (or should they) even care what happens to those things they've left behind?

I tend to believe in a "middle of the road" view, where courtesy, if nothing else, should require a potential mod updater or compiler to at least get permission from the originator. If permission is not even available or possible, the real question is: how long do you have to wait without contact (or at least a confirmed sighting on the forums) by the original modder before the mod can be considered "abandoned"? To me, if someone hasn't shown their face here or on any major "related" sites for at least 3 years, they don't maintain a site of their own that can be found with a reasonable search effort, and nobody here has been able to establish contact in that time, I'd consider them "gone", and wouldn't fault anyone for using their work WITH PROPER CREDIT given to the original modder. Exceptions would be where the original modder has clearly stated that his/her work in not to be used without permission.

I agree that the potential for substantial progress is greater when ideas and work can be compared, exchanged, and freely "upgraded", as long as the parties involved all agree to it (The TR project is an excellent case in point, and even includes situations where individuals didn't agree and started their own project). Agreement isn't always the case, and I can see many instances where one might be willing to share an idea with one modder, yet withhold support from another because you don't care for the direction they want to take things. I've had slight differences of opinion with the originators of mods I made changes to, and ultimately had to drop or radically alter a few ideas which proved contrary to their views and intentions. The options were to conform more closely to their view, to "reinvent the wheel" and create a competing mod, or make the change anyway and withhold the mod strictly for my own use. Generally, it was far more practical and sensible, although not creatively satisfying, to fall into line and follow the original modder's wishes. The distinction between "Cathedral" and "Parlor" mods can be very uncertain at times.

If someone wanted to use my work for anything (although I don't know why anyone would want to), I'd expect the courtesy of them at least trying to contact me. If I'm not available, then the chances are that I don't care one way or the other. If I don't like what they're doing with it, and I eventually find out, I can express my opinion and ask them to try to "phase out" my contribution in any future releases, but I wouldn't try to force or demand a withdrawl of their mod unless it was a blatant case of just re-releasing it under their own name.

Personally, I like a Cathedral style of community. It's the mindset I release my mods with, especially my modder's resources. Modding is a just a hobby for me, a creative outlet. I share what I make because I like to share, and it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to know that I did something cool. I hope other people can use my stuff to make cool mods.

I've been making modder's resources lately, but I feel that all my mods can be used as resources (caveat: credit needs to be given to meshes and stuff that other modders have made for me or helped me with)..

I'm not getting paid for any of this, I do it because I want to. I'm part of a community here, and I feel that the least I can do is to give back to the people who have made such delightful mods for Morrowind. The point, for me, is to have fun and help make Morrowind an even more enjoyable game.

Unless someone is trying to make money off something I did, or is failing to give credit as specified in my readme, I don't really care what happens to my stuff. If I didn't want people to use it, I wouldn't release it. The process of making the mod - not just the end-product - is where I get my enjoyment from.

Ultimately, this is all just small peanuts for me: Morrowind isn't my whole life. It isn't really worth it to me to get proprietary about what I make for Morrowind. I've got university to attend, a planet to save, puppies and family to love, and a world to explore and enjoy.

Yeah I remember when Wrye first posted these views. Then as now I find them a little too simplified to actually work as a model.

While I am firmly of the cathedral view, there is another layer to consider. A cathedral could not be built if all the builders were to bicker over the design, or the masons refused to share their tools. The cathedral could not stand if every builder put the stones how they wanted and the cathedral could not weather a storm if the glass in the windows was upside down or half-done.

Thus, while the cathedral is certainly more helpful for everyone and in an open community like this, where money is not involved, is really the only viable way to go, there still must be an element of order.

In this community, that order comes from the basic courtesy and respect given mod authors and content creators, and the written (and unwritten) agreements between us and Bethesda Softworks. If we disregard gamesas and violate those agreements, or we begin to trample all over one another, our cathedral will collapse in short order.

At this point, we have a rather large and impressive cathedral that has stood for a good few years, longer than many, and weathered its share of storms. It is purely because of cooperation and simple respect that it was built and still stands. If I were to identify a single idea that was vital to the survival of the community, or any community, it would be that respect. It is something we must preserve, or our cathedral will topple.

I believe what you are referring to is a good, solid foundation, peachy. The foundation of any structure is respect. Respect for others' views, personalities, cultures, and property. In your anology, how long would even a completed cathedral stand or be used/enjoyed if I decided to take credit for what you built? What if I decided not to pay for the tools I used to build with and simply stole them, instead? The cathedral would lose all meaning and stand as an empty monument to dishonesty, discourtesy, and disrespect.

Someone mentioned a what if scenario earlier; I have a few thoughts to contribute. Since there is no international internet judicial system, let me offer a tangible precedent. Salvage and squatter's rights. If I own land and my neighbor builds his fence on my property and I don't protest, my land can become his land, legally. It is up to me to defend my claim actively. Also, if someone abandons their property, it can be claimed by another. Patents expire; registered trademarks can be lost if not defended. Companies such as Band-aid and Jell-o have to continually defend their brand names or risk losing them.

It is human nature to want our accomplishments to be recognized, even among those who don't desire accolades for them personally. In lieu of applicable laws and law enforcement, accepting that average people are not always capable of maintaining their claim across the vastness of the internet, IMHO, the only way to maintain a community is through the very same respect and courtesy peachy is talking about.

It isn't fair to frame the debate over Cathedralists or Parlorists as if claiming ownership of your talent and creations means you don't care about the good of the community. Taking pride in one's work and sharing it with others in no way implies a forfeiture of control over how it is used. If I am under contract to build a pillar for a Cathedral which belongs to someone else, it's true that even if I sign that pillar, I cannot return after I've been paid for my work and remove it. On the other hand, if I decide to allow people to use my parlor for free, that doesn't give them the right to tear up my furniture.

What are you trying to say?

Are you trying to counsel the community due to a recent event which is now a banned topic around here? Why would Bethesda ban a topic unless they thought it was too inflammatory - in fact I have a feeling we are not even supposed to talk about banned topics nor try and raise them in ways that skirt around the issue.



yes you have quoted wrye but what problem are you referring to here? What problem actually exists - clearly one that you are alluding to but are not making clear.

I have read countless negative and derogatory statements fired against this community for the past 2 days - many who think that somehow the community has become all possessive of work released. and now you turn up and throw this on the table.

A piece of writing by someone who openly admitted they had a very low tolerance of anyone not astute enough to run their program and who also cheerfully admitted they would block comments from anyone they thought was wasting their time or they couldn't be bothered listening to who at the same time was proscribing tolerance.

Now i have a healthy respect for wrye, both his work, contribution to the community and his musings - however the article you are using as your whipping rod has no relevance to what has happened recently. Wrye didn't condone credit not being given or respect for someone else's wishes to be trampled on. Show me one sentence where he recommends that.




I'm sorry did you just claim credit for creating a cure for the common cold when part of the formulae has already been created and copyrighted by Airbourne? Did you not in fact take Airbournes work and reassemble it in such way that gave you the result you wanted and still take credit for it?

Did you spend the same number of agonising hours Airbourne did in designing and thinking up that part of the formulae or did you not in fact publicly state it took you a couple of weeks to reasemble months if not years of work and when called out on it give a partial credit to Airbourne because you could not bring yourself to respect their specific wishes to not reassemble their work in any other shape than what it was currently presented in?

This issue is about respect.

Respect is the basis of trust.

Trust is the basis of all good relationships.

No respect, no trust, no relationship.

Please ask the right questions before admonishing this community - the community enjoys the game very much and wants others to enjoy it very much too, the community is made up of people from many different backgrounds, ages and viewpoints, we do not all play the same instrument in this orchestra neither do we play the same tune and I am so glad we don't because as Todd Howard said - the modders defined the game of Morrowind - and we will continue to do so in our own disharmonious way.




I do like how you take the middle ground - however it has been my experience in life that when we surf the wave of chaos, we get the greatest ride and when we try to please all we end up pleasing no one - besides the moderators beat us into submission when we step out of the boundaries and likewise protect the community from those who would disrupt the current good feeling had here

If I would have to chose I don{t think I could do it. I think that it{s true that both kinds of modding exist but I think that ither are equaly harmful for the comunity on their own and apart from the other.

As I see it we all have some cathedral and some parlor inside. and their coherent interaction and articulation is what makes possible to create that mod that adds to the paradigma. it{s true that if I create a window I shouldn{t take it back..., but after all I made that window, I considered the cathedral as a whole, but I created that window with stained glass for "that place" to give "that light" over "that place". and so I should be asked before someone comes in to decide that my window looks better with a candle brazier even if it casts shadows over the place I imagined with light.

I mean imagine if a particular armor set created for a special character enemy or foe, would be worn by every telvanni guard out there. That would corrupt the escense of the armor. and how do we prevent that from happening if not by the little parlor in us! in a comunity decitions are made in common and respecting the craftmen wishes even for a common work.

There are no arquitects in a comunity cathedral not even one everything is a product of mutual respect may it be on expanding or in refraining to do it when you know you can{t preserve the original pourpose of the object.

I didn't state anywhere that no credit would be given to airborne. In fact, I stated specifically that I tried to contact the correct people for the cold. I said I wanted to strike a deal, give them credit and possibly reimbursemant for the use of their formula. Additionally, taking credit for reassembling something is not the same thing as copying something and taking credit for completely creating it. Please don't try to spin it like it is.

I tend to be a large picture guy. To me, creating a whole, greater product is much more important than any one relationship. Do we credit each builder of the great pyramid for his contributions? In 10 years from now, the only thing people will remember is the content of the mods, not who created them. I understand that in this particular section of the forum, it isn't a very popular ideal.

I'd also like to ask you to take your stance down a hair. I have said nothing bad about this community, I just want to see opinions and ideas.

In fact you said you would only give credit if he turned up and disputed it with you.




And you had previously stated that you personally were responsible for the cure



Now when you say



In fact you did not say that all - you just said



You did not at any time state what effort you put into contacting Airbourne or whether in fact they had given any instructions on how to use their product.

You say to me take it down a hair and yet you wander into a community that has had a beating for the past couple of days is feeling bruised and you say - hey you guys need to learn to share a bit better because I think that's better

Come on - why do you bait a wounded bear and then act surprise if it growls at you?

And not only that you continue to malign the community by saying



Well thank you for tarring the whole community with a single brush stroke

There are many here who have no issue with that ideal at all and others who do - who are you to speak for either group?

Let's get real here for a moment - Bethesda state they don't want Oblivion assets put into Morrowind or into other games - do we respect that - yes we do - now a modder comes along and creates content and says that they don't want it put into another compilation - shall we not respect them because we are not afraid of getting sued? is there some difference between their wishes and a corporates?

If someone for whatever reason asks for something not to happen and we go ahead and do whatever we feel like - that is violation - a violation of someone's personal wishes.

This community has had some hissy fits and drama moments but in the end it generally exists well because it doesn't go around violating other's rights to ask that their wishes are respected - and when those rights are ignored as a community it rallies to protest those violation of rights

There is no spin being put on your words - they are the ones you typed - if you had different thoughts about them when you typed them then you could have written those down as well.

As it was you didn't.

And you avoided answering the questions about the relevancy of wrye's musings to the current situation of a lack of respect in following the wishes of those who specifically said in readme's do not upload my work to other sites or include in any other mod.

This is not a personal attack on you

Please continue to state your view as I will do mine

Nothing to add... just that Illuminiel makes a lot sense.

You have a point here. Well, I don't necessarily try to please everyone (even though I probably said that in one of my previous posts ), to be more precise I mostly try to avoid stepping on their toes and just go about my business. It certainly is an impossible task to try and please all!

Well you do please me - though i will be even more pleased when that stunning parrot finally arrives

Well, if some modders choose to restrict the use of their mods, what can you do? Point a gun to their head?

I can think only, only one way for this to work.

Make a better mod and make it open.

I would make a huge OPEN MODS LIST thread, list ideas and make them free to claim(as they are already). They should get better with a broader scope and detail eventually. There is no escape from hard labor.

No reason to bother closed mod authors. Their works should remain as unique content if they wish so. And some works(not modders) are indeed need to be like that. The disadvantage of keeping their stuff updated is on their side already.

I found a discussion to convince authors to open their mods useless. I am pretty sure they can value their work just fine to extract things to be used as resources. But one should start a project first, maybe if cathedrals' contribution reaches a level usability, Parlors can feel the urge to contribute to an open project too(which will render them as cathedrals!). Their presence would be welcome. Heck, if it was for me, I want to see Parlors as overseers to keep the quality on par.

My logic limits the options to take here.

Use assets from other mods without permission?
-Plain wrong!!!
Create a mod that relies on closed mods.
-What if they disappear?

If one really wants to stand on others' shoulders, one must choose open shoulders.

Eventually, the ball is in Cathedral's court.

Spot on Illuminiel . I suggest also that people visit Great House Fliggerty where Fliggerty has added a new set of guide lines specifically pertaining to copyright and the results of said copyright being violated at GHF . I am not a particularly active modder but I had a moment of doubt about posting a mod I am currently working on . Thanks to Illuminiel and others , that doubt has gone .
EDIT - spell check

I will finish it I promise!

I find that slightly... I don't know, let's just say I cannot agree with you on this. But more on topic, I wanted to ask you something else, Lunatic Wolf: what were you hoping for when you made this thread? This community has existed for like 8 years now, there are thousands of mods released, the "peak" of morrowind modding is long gone and I just don't see what you hoped was going to come out of this discussion. This community has had a set of more or less implicit rules for quite some time, and most people who have been a part of it have accepted them. Even if we all agreed now we just couldn't suddenly say "anything goes" like that, not now anyways. If that rule had been established from the beginning, I don't know; but as it is now, respecting modders' wishes has been one of the main principles of this community for quite some time, and modders have released their work under this assumption. What do you suggest, that we suddenly say "what they stated in the past doesn't matter anymore"? Isn't that dishonest towards them?
Also, there are many, many modders' resources out there, and many modders who very easily grant permission to re-use their work. Is there really a need to take a radical stance and say that everything should be free to be reused? I think not.

So my question is: what is the point of this discussion, really? At least for you? Is it purely theoretical? Or are you hoping to achieve something? (I just want to know; if this all theoretical, then I don't see the point in discussing this further)

edit: just to be clear, that second quote is from one of Lunatic Wolf's posts.

i remember reading this before...

personally, i consider myself a mix of both viewpoints. to continue the anology, i have a parlor in the cathedral. i'd really like for someone who enjoys that sort of thing to come by and "less generic-ify" my mod. on the other hand, i'm quite proud of some of the things i have done, and would like to receive a little bit of credit for developing these ideas. i dont want my work hosted by IGN (aka PES). those are pretty much the only restrictions i have. to continue the anology, i've got a stained glass window for the cathedral, and i only really care about where it is placed.

i dont agree with the view that in some undefined future, no one will care about who produced what or how they did it. as long as editors can look inside an ESP, someone is always going to dig through mods. because of naming conventions, my name is written large across every internal aspect of my mod. even if you load your whole load order, it's not too hard to see the main body of my work.

but at the end of the day, it's my little parlor. if a piece of it is being used in a way that i disagree with, i have the right and the obligation to stop the "misuse". it may be a cathedral, but i'm the "foreman" of this little chunk. i was the "architect" that drew up the plans for it. i was the "mason" that laid the stones. i was the "painter" that added the finishing fresco. personally, i can think of very few situations where i would ask someone to remove my work from their usage of it. the only situation that comes to mind is the hypothetical one of someone rewriting my "generic" stuff and exclusively hosting on IGN.

The updated GHF policy is such (although I didn't ask to copy-pasta this, Fliggerty wrote it and I will take it down if he asks ):



As you can see, it clearly defines modder's rights, but also points out the rights Bethesda has.

It is important to remember that they do have legal rights to some work. Things created in the CS, particularly. However, these rights apply to gamesas and legally appointed people, not just anyone.

Without the cooperation between the community and gamesas, not only would we not have Morrowind, we wouldn't be here having this discussion.

Bethesda's rights are as important as ours, and it is in all of our best interest that they all be upheld.



As for what vtastek said:


This is the reasoning behind most open-source software today. If we can't use it, or can't share it, we'll make it ourselves. Maybe do it better, too.

That is a completely valid philosophy, and the relatively widespread nature of GPL and CC-licensed content throughout the world proves it works.

The cathedral vs parlor, or market/bazaar vs parlor, or some such, concept was also created by open-source folks, long before Morrowind came around.


Foundation and mortar. Simply basing the community on respect is not enough, it must be kept throughout for things to stick together.