Planeshift Forum » General Discussion » The real history of PlaneShift development and its "business" model

Hi, your review is pretty good, and I want to start another thread on it, just because I think it's a different topic from this one.

This is a new update to my original post.

The original link to the article of an ex-PlaneShift developer's blog is back up with a July 2007 update:

rtfm.insomnia.org/~qg/planeshift.html

Update July 2007: Since I wrote this 3 long years ago the Planeshift project has continued to steam along. Shortly after these events the non-profit organization Atomic Blue was formed. Planeshift contributors are required to sign a copyright assignment document and no contribution from those who haven't signed the document is accepted. This makes it absolutely clear to all contributors that they do not maintain ownership of their work. For making this clear, this is a good practice. Talad, the still leader of the project, has compared Atomic Blue to the Free Software Foundation. I want to stress that, once again, Talad is not only wrong but deliberately trying to mislead. The stated goal of the Free Software Foundation is the promotion of Free Software and the associated ideals. The stated goal of Atomic Blue is to "make good games". Assigning your copyright to the FSF is a good way to protect the freedom of the users of that software. Assigning your copyright to Atomic Blue is not. Of course, if you have no interest in Free Software or the ideals it stands for, this isn't a problem.

It looks like "QuantumG" has become aware of the recent traffic increase to his PlaneShift article or perhaps someone has notified him by email. Either way, he makes his point clear and stands by his original statements, as well as adding a new one.

Hopefully this encourages more people to speak out and challenge the blatant lies that the "project leader" is deliberately spreading to the public to hide the game's unethical development.

I also stand by the statement that the "project leader" is bitter and envious of the commercial successes that other projects have experienced. He keeps stressing that his commercially failed project was "better" than any other similar project at the time. However, the results show the complete opposite.

If anyone has any doubts about this, feel free to do your own research.

Interesting update.

Deliberately trying to mislead people seems to be the main theme of the "project leader" in his public statements. Obviously, he has no respect for the Free Software Foundation and their ideas but tries to use their name in comparison in an attempt to give himself more credibility.

Assigning your copyright to "Atomic Blue" sounds like a trap for developers out there. It is clearly not the same deal as with the FSF.

makes sense why they won't fully open source the game. Still under false believe that it will one day become commercial. WIth out doing the right thing and moving the project to a full open source model I don't think this game will ever move into a profitable realm.

[I deleted my previous answer..] This thread is made to discredit PlaneShift out of falsity, they don't deserve any answer. This thread contains false/misleading/offensive information. They have no respect for our work, no respect for open source and no respect for small projects.

Originally posted by Talad

What are you saying? My comparison to FSF was to say that we are a non profit organization like they are. And that's completely true. Stop saying bad things on me without a clue of what you are saying. Go to whine is another place. Your continued insinuation and falsity is just silly and pointless. Developers have the same security about their work, because the code is GPLed.

 

Heres a question I have. If one wants to setup a full planeshift server "without the art of course", is that possible from the code you have "open sourced"

I will open a new thread on this point, because it's meaningful, and has nothing to do with this silly thread.

I deleted all my previous answers in this thread. While I originally tried to answer and to give explanations, I realized that this thread is made to discredit PlaneShift out of falsity, and they don't deserve any answer. This thread contains false/misleading/offensive information. They have no respect for our work, no respect for open source and no respect for small projects.

If you want real information, look at the informative material on our site and our forums, join the game, speak with our devs and fans.

The question that everyone should be asking is this - "Is this project/game open-source?"

The "Atomic Blue" website makes a deliberately misleading statement that it is. Go to www.atomicblue.org and click on the "Atomic Blue" menu link. This is what you'll see:

web archive backup link for www.atomicblue.org

Atomic.Blue is a Non Profit Corporation, built by a group of game development enthusiasts, to protect and promote the free and Open Source game, PlaneShift.

In reality, only the engine code is open-source, which is a license requirement of the free Crystal Space 3D engine that they've been using for PlaneShift development. The rest (art, music etc) falls under a proprietary PlaneShift license, which is NOT open-source. The proprietary PlaneShift license can be viewed here:

www.planeshift.it/license.html

Code is under GPL license, this means you can get all our source code, study it and reuse it as soon as you keep it open and give back to us your changes.

All artwork, musics, dialogues, stories, names, 3d models, etc... are under a proprietary license. This means you cannot reuse those in any way. If you plan to create another game based on our source code, remember you will have to redo all art,music,models,stories,etc...

You cannot host another server where PlaneShift Clients connects to, because our license on assets forbits it.

As for the "Bad English" claims that the apologists make for the "project leader", note that the statements he makes in the video presentation are confirmed by the .PDF file he uses for it (the link to it has been posted earlier in this thread), which he had plenty of time to prepare (same goes for his forum posts).

Also, note that "Atomic Blue" board of directors includes three people. They are "Andrew Craig", "Keith Fulton" and "Luca Pancallo". In other words, two native English speakers. This can be confirmed at www.atomicblue.org website by clicking on the "Members" menu link. Additionally, "commercial standards" translates to "commerciale standard" in Italian, so you'd have to try really hard to mess that one up. Last but not least, the "project leader" also chose to be the PR manager, which can be confirmed on this web site:

www.planeshift.it/team.html

Their "Public Relation Department" member requirements can be found here:

www.planeshift.it/recruitment.html

Will talk to press giving information about PlaneShift. Will create new opportunities for PlaneShift to be present on the major sites.
Will provide interviews with devs, on-line events, and others to increase the popularity of PlaneShift.

Skills:

    * Must be heavily present on-line in terms of hours/day.
    * Knowlegde of Net sites related to RPG, multiplayer, communities.
    * ICQ, IRC channels, Newsgroups.

Insert your application here.

Please insert this information:
- Previous experiences on public relations (press, magazines, ...).
- Previous experiences on RPGs. Which tabletop games you played. If you have been DM and for how much time. Which RPG computer games you played.
- Include info on 3 sites you know where we can promote PlaneShift. 3 sites where we can find new developers for any of the departments.

It's rather amusing that the "project leaders" are so interested in promoting PlaneShift on 3 major sites (apparently, this site is now one of them) but do not want you to participate on those sites' forums or believe anything that is posted there, as was stated by the "project leader" in his replies on this forum. Luckily, most people here have been able to call the "project leader" on his blatant PR spin and lack of professionalism.

If at any point the posted links stop working, you can always check their archives at waybackmachine.org. It is also a good reference for comparison, in case the content of those links ever changes.

Hey, are you joking or what? Planeshift looks like one of the most interesting free games out there.

Your comments are just stupid and show your ignorance of the gaming scene. Your discussion on licenses is emblematic, did you check crystal space license? it's LGPL, not GPL. And this means PlaneShift could have choosen any other license option.

I've read the "findings" and "accuses", but all look very weak, being a series of bad mouthing made by ex-developers which have personal reasons to post such things, but this has zero impacts on the players and on the game itself.

What are you trying to accomplish with this silly and useless thread? If you are trying to demonstrate your wit, you failed. If you tried to demonstrate the project is bad, I think none is interested in your rants, I just checked the game and looks nice.

About yours comments on the project leader, I think you just try put his words in a bad light, and the result is very pathetic. Your "burn the heretic" approach is pointless with the evidences you show. Comparing words and concepts taken our of context is very silly.

If you think this game is so bad, go and make one yourself, and be sure to keep me posted on the progresses, so then we will compare Planeshift with your products.

Stop making this forum a trash, and post meaningful reviews.

To Planeshift developers: Go on, you are doing a wonderful job!!!!!!

Wow, your dissing a free game? I dont understand? I didnt even know planeshift was still around. Your post was nothing more than a bunch of insults threaded neatly with good wording, but still it comes down to that simple point....you're going on about how crap this game is or whatever when its free? And the people that make it are making it for free with their own time, the same time that u spend in the toilet looking at womans lingerie magazines.

You are pathetic, seriously..so what about whatever the past of it is, its free now, you cant insult it and expect all these things to be perfect when no one is getting money for it. Jeez this is why the world is so f***ed, idiots like you swarming around. ITS A FREE GAME DUDE, A F***ING FREE GAME.

EDIT - oh yea, and we are talking about programming a game here as open source, not arts/music/texture files u idiot, what has that got to do with open source? Of course only the damn engine is open source i dont understand what you expected? What are you trying to get across here?????

Also the developers are exactly that, DEVELOPERS, they are not PR executives or somthing, damn are you stupid or what? Most companies hire pr people, but since this game is FREE, obviously the PR isnt going to be close to the ELITENESS of what you expect. Now go pour gasoline on yourself and light up a match dude.

Originally posted by 3hundred

...PlaneShift was restarted by Luca Pancallo as a new and free 3D project, with a new development team made of volunteers. This time Luca was not a programmer and has not written a single line of code for the 3D version...

 Not true, as per http://www.ohloh.net/projects/4003/contributors/20356 Luca has clearly committed source code to his own project.  As of now, he is ranked the fourth highest in commits with 886 over five years, compared to QuantumG's pathetic 49 over four months.  Get your facts straight please.

Here is some additional information about more misleading statements and blatant lies made by PlaneShift's "project leader" Luca "Talad" Pancallo on BlenderNation. He is apparently trying to solicit 3D art and animation help from the Blender community. This is an excerpt from his statement:

www.blendernation.com/2007/04/05/planeshift-project-recruiting-blender-artists/

[…]PlaneShift is a Free Open Source 3D MMORPG in Development, created by a talented and dedicated team, which has a high level of professionalism within its ranks. Our target goal is to be the biggest free MMORPG available, with a growing community of developers that can expand the virtual world into experimental directions where no commercial product can dare.

[...]A separate license for art ensures all graphical assets can be used only in PlaneShift.

And why exactly would the artists, who aren't going to be paid for this work and may be looking for true open-source projects to contribute to, want to "ensure" such a restriction in the first place? This is a blatant PR spin in an attempt to make this sound good, as if it is for your own benefit, when clearly it is not.

He also clearly calls the whole project as "open source" just like on Atomic Blue website, when clearly it is not. It is mostly a proprietary license with only the engine code being open. The open-source engine code does not make the whole game "open-source". The engine code is open-source because they are using a free Crystal Space 3D engine, which has a license requirement for its code to be kept open, so Atomic Blue and PlaneShift development team doesn't have a choice in the matter.

Many comments below the announcement show that Blender artists aren't fools and see Luca's statement exactly for what it is - a blatant PR lie. Here are some examples:

Any other work (such as 2D graphics, 3D models, music and sounds, character descriptions or fantasy world histories) will be the property of Atomic Blue once you submit it, but you will continue to have the right to display the work as part of a personal portfolio. You are not allowed to display or use the work in another game or application and you are not allowed to use derivative works owned by Atomic Blue.

When will people learn that we need a free database of objects, under free licenses, such as the GPL such that game projects can pick and choose from a variety and still contribute back.

Does each game need to create every **** object, even a phonebooth 20 times over?.

Free software games would start popping up if we had a good library to select from and contribute to, now that we got a free game engine, such as Crystal Space.

"…but you will continue to have the right to display the work as part of a personal portfolio…"

Oh, many thanks, guys, I was afraid my contribute could be erased from my mind, like in Pay Check!

I think that such a restrictive licence is the main reason for planeshift still being at an early developement state. When wanting others to work on a common project, you're looking for contributors, when wanting others to work on something that will be yours and yours only, then you're looking for slaves!

No matter what are the reasons, that's what one perceives by reading their conditions… Artists are not encouraged to partecipate.

Esben makes a good point in that freely available 3D resources shorten the amount of volunteers needed to reach each milestone and they help all of us as a community. Granted it may not look exactly the way you want the phone booth to be but it's easier to change 5% of a model then start from scratch. Plus reuse can test ideas before spending lots of time refining models, textures, animation, etc.

By the way Planetshift managers do not return emails.

I have to agree with everyone, I'd jump on board if it wasn't for that darn license. :/

Only reason I would contribute to a free project like this is so everyone can have access and freedom to use what I produced, but with this I would have to worry about using it myself.

I was about to complain about the license for all the art, but it seems like everyone else did that already. No way I'm going to just give away all the rights for my work. But if there was some kind of Open Source license for the art too…

Overwhelming majority...

It looks like the "project leader" eventually responded there with more disgusting PR spam, capitalizing the the word "FREE" and not even mentioning the words "OPEN SOURCE". Luckily, no one has bought that lie. Not everything "free" equals good. As has been stated before - you wouldn't eat a rotten sandwich, if it was free, would you? Didn't think so. Additionally, Luca never bothered to respond to someone's repeated questions on needing more feedback about rigging and animating models in PlaneShift.

Would anyone like to count how many people from Blender community spoke against PlaneShift's license just on that site alone? According to the "project leader" and his fanbois, they must all be "just trying to hurt the project" or "dissing" it.

I've only provided verifiable information. Draw your own conclusions.

3hundred, just three comments:

1) You never met me, you never spoke to me, you never participated to PS development, you have no clue apart from what you read from the web.

2) If PlaneShift was my real life job, I would have already filed a lawsuit against you and all the insults and falsities you are saying.

3) When you will produce something free for the others to use, please let me know. Until that time, any argument on your side is just pathetic. We are producing a nice free game, you are just producing negative moods. We are giving our time for others to enjoy, you are just fighting windmills and trying to spit on our work.

Do as you prefer, but your actions are disgusting and pointless, I hope you will find something better in your life than going against a free service.

Originally posted by 3hundred

He also clearly calls the whole project as "open source" just like on Atomic Blue website, when clearly it is not.

3hundred, it is apparent that you don't understand "open source".  Open source means that you can take it apart and see how it works, whether or not you can redistribute it.  The art files included with PlaneShift all use open standards, instead of some proprietary format, so everyone can see for themselves how it runs.  Apart from that, most free software projects come packaged with some degree of proprietary artwork.  Even Mozilla Firefox does.

This is the only thread you've ever posted on this entire site, and I don't understand why you continue to do so.  It's obvious that you don't even know what you are talking about. 

Originally posted by 3hundred

Many comments below the announcement show that Blender artists aren't fools...

I don't see where you can even draw the conclusion that these posts are from Blender artists.  All your quotes are from a news posting on another website, not the actual forum posting on BlenderArtists.org.  The thread where Luca is asking Blender artists directly is on blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=93077 and I doubt you even know what Blender is used for.  Crystal Space and Blender have a strong relationship with each other, as does Crystal Space and PlaneShift.

Originally posted by Talad

2) If PlaneShift was my real life job, I would have already filed a lawsuit against you and all the insults and falsities you are saying.

Oh grow up.

I'd like to post an addition to 3hundred's latest post.

What is the definition of open-source games? From this excellent article at Wiki:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_games

Open source games are video games which are open-source software and use open content.

It then proceeds to give a specific example:

One example from 1999 is Quake 3 Arena, which was a completely proprietary game with closed source code/engine and everything in the game (graphics, sounds, music, computer models) was copyrighted by and property of the developers, id Software. In 2005, id Software released both the game and graphics engine of Quake 3 Arena under an open source license. Although the code done by the programmers was open source (a so called open source engine) the content (done by graphics artists, music composers etc.) is not, so one still must buy Quake 3 Arena to play it. The gaming community on the internet took the code and rebuilt most of the content of the original game with open content. This way, the game, renamed to OpenArena, could be published as an open source game.

Therefore, PlaneShift "leaders" and developers have been lying to the public about PlaneShift being an "open-source game".

I'm posting this after I saw a thread on the official PlaneShift forum that covers the same topic. Not surprisingly, the thread has now been deleted. Moreover, someone immediately went to Wikipedia and butchered ("edited") the whole article to hide the original content and to lie about the official definition of open-source games - disgusting. They tried to pass it off as "free games" or that having an "open-source engine" is enough to call it an "open-source game" (it isn't). However, when it comes to the definition of "open-source games", then "open content" is part of it. It is a widely accepted definition that has persisted for years.

Luckily, someone has restored the original article by now. You can click on "History" tab to see what's been going on. This shows how dishonest and desperate PlaneShift team and its cultists are.

---

Originally posted by Twinchaos

What is the definition of open-source games? From this excellent article at Wiki:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_games

---

---

This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.

---

The article you're using doesn't even cite from anything. I, for one, know what academic research is like, and understands that even an encyclopedia article needs citations. It looks like a silly article anyways; when I have time to from college, I'm going to nominate it for deletion.

Originally posted by Twinchaos

I'm posting this after I saw a thread on the official PlaneShift forum that covers the same topic. Not surprisingly, the thread has now been deleted. Moreover, someone immediately went to Wikipedia and butchered ("edited") the whole article to hide the original content and to lie about the official definition of open-source games - disgusting. They tried to pass it off as "free games" or that having an "open-source engine" is enough to call it an "open-source game" (it isn't). However, when it comes to the definition of "open-source games", then "open content" is part of it. It is a widely accepted definition that has persisted for years.

Luckily, someone has restored the original article by now. You can click on "History" tab to see what's been going on. This shows how dishonest and desperate PlaneShift team and its cultists are.

The forums get a bit ridiclous, but it's mostly the fault of the egos and personalities you find among the moderators and devs. It makes you wonder why certain individuals say that criticisms should only be posted on their official forum. 

I don't know why Talad continues to push Planeshift's image as an open-source game.  It quite obviously isn't, and I don't understand why that's such a big deal.  The big deal is lying to people about it. Or perhaps it's just a difference of opinion? Talad told me once (actually, it might not have been him but another dev, it's been a while) that he had art and music under a closed liscense because he wanted to protect the game in the event that a developer left the team and decided to take his or her contributions with them.

Edit:  I just looked at the wikipedia entry for Planeshift. It very strongly reads like an advertisement.

---

Originally posted by pstruth
Talad told me once (actually, it might not have been him but another dev, it's been a while) that he had art and music under a closed liscense because he wanted to protect the game in the event that a developer left the team and decided to take his or her contributions with them.

---

I once heard Talad say that the card is on the table to release the content under a free license once the game has reached 1.0. The reason the content is closed now is to prevent forking of the content while it is still in development. All he wants is to see one damn free non-commercial game of this caliber get completed, and so far that hasn't happened yet. Allowing the content to be forked is to allow no such game to ever be completed due to an endless cycle of forking projects and losing contributors.

---

Originally posted by pstruth
...I don't understand why that's such a big deal.

---

Neither do I. There's absolutely no reason you would even give a damn whether the content is free unless you were a game developer yourself.

---

Originally posted by pstruth
Edit: I just looked at the wikipedia entry for Planeshift. It very strongly reads like an advertisement.

---

I don't mean to hijack the topic, so do you mind elaborating on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:PlaneShift_(computer_game) please?

I see no need to elaborate - there or here.

Originally posted by Dracus

Originally posted by Talad

2) If PlaneShift was my real life job, I would have already filed a lawsuit against you and all the insults and falsities you are saying.

Oh grow up.

Going back through the thread, deleting your arguments, and replacing them with "this thread is bad" whines like a 6 year old throwing a tantrum?

Showing total ignorance of even simple law. Tthere is no way in hell anyone could sue the OP or others that are here making their arguments, as from what I have seen they are all backing them up with posts from other sites including the Planeshift site that already existed and were already fully within the public view before being reprinted here.

Talad has had this entire thread to successfully rebuke and discredit anything that was untruthful, if it is or was possible to do so. And even if there were some good counter arguments in his past posts in this thread ( which I don't believe there were ), his little re-write tantrum removed those to be replaced with the equivalent of "you're a big meanie doo-doo head" posts.

I think there is more than enough in this thread even at this point to show there are at the least very good reasons to be wary and skeptical of this game and it's developers.

Here is an interesting update on the Wikipedia situation. Apparently, after I posted a link to the Wikipedia article in this thread about the definition of Open Source Games, "Tuxide" (under the same alias as on this forum) has started a petition on Wikipedia to delete the article entirely because he can't prove the contrary:

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2007_September_25#Open_source_games

Interestingly, he is also trying to remove the link to The Linux Game Tome, which is referenced in open source games and a few other articles on Wiki that have to do with open source games (such as "The List of Open Source Games"). The LGT link has recently been posted on this forum by "pstruth" with a direct link to its PlaneShift discussion, where a lot of people (some are ex-regulars from PS forums) speak out against the game, its license, its unethical development, and its egoistic and dishonest leaders/devs/gms/mods/shills and where the "project leader" basically shows his true colors.

I have also noticed the same two people (possibly one person under different alias) edit several open source games related articles on Wiki, to change its definition, and also to remove the links to LGT. Some of the edits have been restored to the original articles but who knows for how long. All of the initial edits happened on or around September 16th - exactly when the thread discussing and citing the Wiki's articles appeared (and subsequently deleted) on the official PlaneShift forum.

Someone has already provided an excellent rebuttal to "Tuxide's" petition. Personally, I think that "Tuxide" has shot himself in a foot because he claims that the definition of open source games is "impossible to verify", and that according to his argument the definition and the article shouldn't exist. The problem with that statement is if it happens to be true (if there is no definition of open source games), then no game can legitimately claim to be an open source game. Therefore, any claims that PlaneShift is an "open source game" or an "open source MMORPG" are illegitimate and are still a false advertising.

Moreover, "The Linux Game Tome" does not have to cover open source games exclusively to be a great example of covering such games extensively, as has been stated in the Wiki's rebuttal.

In the end, I don't think it really matters what remains on Wikipedia or what kind of lies and PR spam PlaneShift shills attempt to spin next because the active player numbers speak for themselves. If the game was great, it wouldn't matter what anyone said anywhere, criticism or not. No matter how many times you write "fresh" on a rotten sandwich label, no one's going to eat it.

What you are saying is simply ridiculous! The devs are spending their time making this game and you are trying to put it a bad light using very weak points. None of those points is comparable to the game they built. Also your personal attacks are just mean. There is nothing bad in a developer defending his own product.

Your discussion about open source is an endless one, and has nothing to do with PlaneShift. For what I read on their web site they have stated very clearly which licenses they use and why. Also in all materials you posted, the devs are always giving proper definition of the open source and their licensing.

I really think you failing to demonstrate any of your arguments and you are making the developers angry for no reason. I hope they will listen to all the players which enjoy the game and think PlaneShift is a nice game.

I support this game, and after seeing your bad arguments, now I support it even more.

Go PlaneShift team! Continue to improve the game!

---

Originally posted by Twinchaos
Apparently, after I posted a link to the Wikipedia article in this thread about the definition of Open Source Games, Tuxide (under the same alias as on this forum) has started a petition on Wikipedia to delete the article entirely...

---

It is obvious that you and your buddies don't even read the other posts on this thread. Else, 3hundred would be responding to the counterarguments of her flawed analyses instead of posting the same crap again. I said I was going to bring the article up on AFD in advance, and there is nothing wrong with me doing so. Then difference between you and me here is that I am an established editor and you are not. I am even the founding member of my own WikiProject.

---

Originally posted by Twinchaos
Someone has already provided an excellent rebuttal...

---

...and quit speaking of yourself in third person, please.

If you and your friends want to promote your "libre game" ideology, I encourage you to write a paper about it and present it in a conference or something instead of bringing it up on this message board, because you're getting nowhere here. You'll have to find some real sources to cite from instead of using blogs, forum posts, and wikis.