ShowEQ-Maps-1.0

[quackrabbit]

I'd like some help getting the cvs maps package up to date. Anyone interested in helping with this endeavor?

[Fatal]

What exactly do you need?

[quackrabbit]

I need to get a directory of all current maps together so i can diff that against cvs. Once I get that done I'll apply it to the current cvs tree.

[tanner]

The debian diffs to what is in cvs is available here:

ftp://ftp.real-time.com/linux/real-time/pool/s/showeq/showeq-maps_1.0-1.diff.gz

There is probably more then just the maps in the patch, might be changes to the makefiles/etc.

Figure, I might as well post the url to the complete .tar.gz as well.

ftp://ftp.real-time.com/linux/real-time/pool/s/showeq/showeq-maps_1.0-3.tar.gz

Format: 1.7
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 10:11:04 -0600
Source: showeq-maps
Binary: showeq-maps
Architecture: source all
Version: 1.0-3
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: low
Maintainer: Robert J. Tanner <[email protected]>
Changed-By: Robert J. Tanner <[email protected]>
Description:
showeq-maps - official maps for the ShowEQ Realtime packet analyzer for Everque
Changes:
showeq-maps (1.0-3) unstable; urgency=low
.
* Added some Dragons of Norrath maps that CeleSEQ has collected. Thanks!
Files:
35701c192159153943b4a7d99eb2ea75 524 net optional showeq-maps_1.0-3.dsc
784eb11ab7a5bf78cc255d7b754398a6 3413372 net optional showeq-maps_1.0-3.tar.gz
6592770d9e6b5f883c9894adccde8d4f 3119360 net optional showeq-maps_1.0-3_all.deb

[quackrabbit]

I suppose due to licensing issues, this is going to take a bit more effort than I had originally planned.

First off, people have stopped submitting maps here - they're more apt to submit them to Mapfiend's site. Mapfiend doesn't release his maps via GPL (or public domain) so that leaves it up to the original author.

In a lot of cases, the map may be a SOE converted map. I'm pretty sure we can't take one of those and release it under the GPL...

So, I guess I need to contact each author of the maps from mapfiends site and get their permission to release the map under the SEQ project and we need to not include any maps (in whole or in part) that contain work originally developed and/or released by SOE.

Fun fun...

[Fatal]

Most of my (mapfiend) maps started from this project. If you want to download a set and make them available or want me to make a script to put a tarball somewhere or whatever let me know. I just need to know what you want in the package and the format you want them in.

Which goes back to my original question, what do ya need me to do? ;)

[purple]

First, up front, I don't mean for any of this to sound harsh. Personally, I don't use the showeq-maps package at all. I keep my in game maps up to date with mapfiend and convert them to seq format for my own personal use when my in game map is better than my seq map. I'm also not a developer here, so I'm just speaking as a contributing member of the community.

That said, the issue of distribution for the showeq-maps package is a much bigger deal in my opinion than me keeping myself up to date on maps. In order to make some people comfortable (and to even be able to be released as a part of some linux distributions such as Debian), there needs to be clear licensing with showeq-maps.

If the showeq project releases showeq-maps as GPL, the maps need to be GPL. For maps that are made and posted here released into the public domain, that's not a problem. But not everyone likes the GPL. If we start taking maps that weren't submitted to us, we don't know what the copyright holder thinks about our releasing their maps as GPL. This is bad for us.

The first idea when we need maps is to get them off mapfiend. This is easy to do and works great, except mapfiend (from where I stand) skirts the licensing issue. I've never uploaded a map to mapfiend though. Maybe when I upload I assign rights to the site? But looking around, I don't see an All maps copyright their individual authors, or All maps copyright their individual authors and Mapfiend. I can just get my maps and get on with my life.

If I'm just gonna use the maps, I got absolutely no problem with that. But if I'm going to redistribute the maps, then we've entered the shadows. If we're willing to look the other way and just do it, so be it. But don't tell Tanner or I don't think he'll be able to release the .deb of showeq-maps! This is the easiest path for us to take of course. But there are other possibilities.

If, when someone uploads a map to Mapfiend, they hand over rights to the map to the site, then you can give us permission to release any of the maps on the site (or specific maps, or anything you want) under the GPL, Fatal. But I don't know if this is a possibility. If it is, this is by far easiest for us. We can just slurp maps off mapfiend, convert them, and repackage. Though there is the issue of some maps that are just stolen from SoE's base maps. In that case, the uploader didn't have the right to hand over copyright on the map they took from SoE. An example of one of these maps is the new bazaar map which is clearly just the one from the patcher from the initial DoN patch.

Another alternative would be to identify the maps we want for seq and get in contact with the authors to see if they were willing to release them as GPL. This will be hard work tracking down people, plus who knows what their reaction will be to helping showeq.

Another alternative is to make a list of maps we need and work hard to fill them in with maps where we know the IP history. This seems like an enormous deal to me. There are so many zones and I really think we've just been taking maps off mapfiend since ldon at least. But it is a possibility.

The last alternative would be to rewrite seq to be more like the in game maps, and we wouldn't release a showeq-maps package (or we can leave it out of date) with the intent that people who want new maps should just copy their maps directory from in game to where showeq wants them. Users already know how to get maps for in game (from mapfiend of course!) and we could just piggyback off that. We'd probably need to do some color correction and this wouldn't be trivial, but it is doable. But it takes something we don't have a lot of around here: developer time.

That's my input on this map thing. It really doesn't impact me personally since I don't use the showeq-maps package or cvs. But if we want to keep it up to date and release it, we need to figure out what we believe is ok to do and what isn't then do it.

[I<3EQ]

While I agree wholeheartedly with the licensing side of the argument, I think there's at least one compelling reason to maintain a showeq-maps package -- some SoE and mapfiend maps just don't look good in ShowEQ.

The best example I can think of off the top of my head is the PoK map. It seems to contain a label for _every_single_NPC_in_the_zone_. While this may be handy for an in-game map (due to the lack of skittles), it's just redundant in seq and it makes the map nearly impossible to use.

Lots of maps on mapfiend follow the "label everything" idea simply because it's useful to those who don't use a sniffer. That's fine because it fits the intended purpose of the map. ShowEQ maps on the other hand, should be (in my opinion) as clean as possible so that skittles show up as nicely as possible.

Granted, with 200+ zones in the game and some unknown licensing issues, this could be a huge ordeal. If it's feasible, though, I think it's a worthwhile endeavor.

[Dedpoet]

Something to keep in mind: prior to the LoY expansion, there were no SOE maps. All of the maps prior to that expansion were made for Seq. The maps that SOE released with the expansion were simply converted from the maps we already had. I don't think you'll find that admitted anywhere, but you need only look at the maps to know. You can't tell me that somone from Sony ran around and mapped all of those zones, and that they happened to come out looking exactly like our own maps.

What that tells me is that there are versions of all of the maps pre-LoY that are already GPL. You may have to go back a ways in CVS to get them, and they may not have all of the updates on them that the newer ones have, but adding a few lines and locs isn't a big problem. The newer zones may be more complicated, but at least we'd only be down to a few dozen zones that we don't have maps for. It would, in theory, be much easier to contact a few dozen map authors for permission, or have a few dozen maps remade with intent to release under the GPL rather than 200+.

[CeleSEQ]

Between Dedpoet's point about pre-LoY zones, and the fact that Tanner has already made a good start on this list a few posts down from here, this project might not be too bad.

It looks from Tanners list like we probably only need to track down about 6 people to cover the vast majority of the maps.

Some of the old maps might have been put into cvs in the old showeq sourceforge project, or on the sins project.

[purple]

That was the thread I was looking at to gauge how much work filling in gaps with known maps would be. There's more than 200 zones added since that point in the AUTHORS file. It doesn't even have Kunark in it! It's just a list of original EQ zones!

Looking through the mapping forum we could probably fill in a lot of it, but even then most people were posting fixes to existing maps, not complete maps and also they didn't assign licensing when they posted, though we could assume since they were submitting them to the project they were ok with the licensing of the project I guess. I'd be ok with that if they were submitting them here, but that's a lot different than us taking it off mapfiend.

I can't see how anyone could think that's not a huge effort. I don't know where your 6 people came from. I do think the effort is doable over time, but it will take a bit and some coordination.

[CeleSEQ]

Ah, I didn't go through Tanner's list too much, I just looked at his list and saw that a half dozen or so people were listed for hte majority in the list. If the list is that incomplete, that's a big difference.

[Alethal]

Just to answer someone's post. GPL is not a "public domain" license. BSD is the public domain license: once you release something under BSD, it gets into public domain and nothing can be done about it, even from the author.

On the other hand, someone who releases something under GPL still owns the software and can do whatever he wants with it. It's just a way to force others to behave in a certain way.

[purple]

BSD is NOT a public domain license and there is nothing you can do other than handing over your personal copyright to lose copyright on something.

If I release something BSD, I still own it, but I have given you permission to redistribute it as long as you maintain the BSD license on what I did and give me credit. You can change my BSD licensed code, put it into a commercial product and sell it, but those source files better still have my license info in them! I can still do whatever I want with what I released BSD, including re-release it GPL because it is mine. I own the copyright on it. Public domain is releasing the copyright to anyone who wants it pretty much and saying I don't want this anyone but if someone else can build upon, please do whatever they want with it with my blessing.

Public domain is very different than BSD is different than GPL. Blurring those lines because you don't understand that is bad.

[Alethal]

All right, I am wrong. Law is not my domain at all and that statement about public domain was taken from one of my auxiliary courses, so I won't even bother arguing about it.

That said, according to what I read, where I live (Western Europe), the new BSD license is effectively the same as the public domain. It is NOT the public domain for the fundamental reason you mentioned though.

I am not pulling this out of my ass, for the main reason that I am clueless on the subject. It is taken from publications I would gladly give you. (if you can read german or french).

[purple]

BSD had 4 main rules in their license. In the past 5 years, the advertising clause was rescinded (I believe in order to make it GPL compatible). Those rules amount to requiring source distribution to retain the copyright notice (as it remains copyright to the original author), binary distribution must show the copyright notice for pieces which are BSD in documentation, and you can't use the original copyright owner to endorse whatever you use the source for without permission.

Anything released under a BSD license IS STILL COPYRIGHT to the original author. You are just given permission to use/distribute it in both source and binary form as long as you follow those 3 rules.

Public domain is a total release of all copyrights by the original author. You have to follow no rules whatsoever.

[Alethal]

All right, well, thanks for the clarification!

[jaqq]

Ive got a question a bit off topic but related here.

I have just came back from about a 1 year break from seq.
I noticed that Zaphod has a site with map packages.

My question is.. why are they system specific, and need to be compiled with a make system.

I thought the maps were just text files. Do they vary per system, and what is being compiled?

[Cryonic]

They aren't system specific. If you look closely, you'll notice that the RPM versions say noarch as opposed to i386, i486, etc... What you are doing by running make is prepping the scripts needed to install them to a certain location so that SEQ can find and use them.