Looks like DT needs to change it's policy on 3rd party developers

[SmokeDiddy 262]

1 hour ago, Milviz said:

That's not what I meant by the oops... I meant that I was the first (and only) dev to post here... 

haha...well at least we now know you guys are lurking here 

 

[n4gix 4,947]

I truly do not understand the premise of this thread. Thus far DTG have not even forumlated, much less published, any firm policy on 3rd part development.

All I've read are suppositions and interpretations based on hyperbole...

[arsenal82 120]

5 hours ago, n4gix said:

I truly do not understand the premise of this thread. Thus far DTG have not even forumlated, much less published, any firm policy on 3rd part development.

All I've read are suppositions and interpretations based on hyperbole...

 

Really???

i wonder why they wasted their time to write their nasty 😷 eula

 

 

[G-RFRY 1,712]

1 hour ago, arsenal82 said:

 

Really???

i wonder why they wasted their time to write their nasty 😷 eula

 

 

May be there the same sort of people who wright other EULA`s but do not always inforce or police them,

Ray Fry.

[Torg Smith 31]

1 hour ago, arsenal82 said:

 

Really???

i wonder why they wasted their time to write their nasty 😷 eula

 

 

Their EULA was quite timid compared to many I have read. Is there a specific section.sub section your are referring to? What is you interpretation of it?

[arsenal82 120]

Enforcing or not is not the issue; the fact is written on the eula therefore is agreed as soon you install fsw; 

 

Dovetail Games - Steam Workshop Contribution Agreement

3.Free and Paid Distribution 
DTG may choose to distribute Your Contribution for free and/or for a fee. 

 

eula user generated content:

8.2 Please make sure you fully understand and comply with these requirements, since failure to do so can lead to serious legal consequences.

 

(b) we have an irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual, payment free right to take any actions we consider appropriate (including without limitation to copy, reproduce, market, advertise, modify, adapt, merge, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or create derivative works based on the whole or any part of the UGC), and all consents (if any) required under intellectual property, data protection and privacy laws worldwide, for that use, in respect of any UGC which includes portions of our Intellectual Property Rights;

 

(i) the UGC must be designed and used for personal entertainment and not for any business purpose or for any commercial purpose such as, but not limited to, training, marketing or advertising;

 

this masterpiece of writing -  clearly show their position about user generated content; either freeware or payware.

 

[A32xx 129]

4 hours ago, arsenal82 said:

this masterpiece of writing -  clearly show their position about user generated content; either freeware or payware.

 

I doubt that Developer Generated Content will be subject to the same T&C's as User Generated Content. I'd expect the same T&C's for FSW as for any other DTG product, why would DTG make an exception for FSW?

[fs4fun 366]

IANAL, but the Eula doesn't seem all that scary to me.

9 hours ago, arsenal82 said:

Dovetail Games - Steam Workshop Contribution Agreement

3.Free and Paid Distribution 
DTG may choose to distribute Your Contribution for free and/or for a fee. 

This applies to user-contributed freeware, things like user-created missions or flight plans. I doubt this means that DTG intends to resell anyone's freeware, rather that they reserve the option to charge people to access the workshop service. Similar to a site like AVSIM if they chose to charge a fee for library access to pay for the storage and bandwidth. Charging a fee is not the current policy:

"If DTG chooses to distribute your Contribution for a fee, we will change the terms of this agreement and these terms will be notified on our website"

Currently anyone with FSW can download all the workshop content they want to for free.

You can distribute freeware any way you like. Upload to AVSIM's library for example. You don't have to use Steam Workshop if you don't like their terms.

9 hours ago, arsenal82 said:

(b) we have an irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual, payment free right to take any actions we consider appropriate (including without limitation to copy, reproduce, market, advertise, modify, adapt, merge, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or create derivative works based on the whole or any part of the UGC), and all consents (if any) required under intellectual property, data protection and privacy laws worldwide, for that use, in respect of any UGC which includes portions of our Intellectual Property Rights;

I take this as an elaboration of the preceding term:

(a) any part of the UGC which comprises or incorporates any of our Intellectual Property Rights (such as our lakes or equipment) remains our property;

So if you create an addon compiled using FSW SDK (which does not exist yet), and said addon includes DTG-owned intellectual property, then DTG has ownership claim. This is avoided by making addons that contain only original content, or content licensed by the developer for use in the addon.

9 hours ago, arsenal82 said:

(i) the UGC must be designed and used for personal entertainment and not for any business purpose or for any commercial purpose such as, but not limited to, training, marketing or advertising;

Yes, FSW is for entertainment-use only. Nothing wrong with that. Personally I only use flight sims for entertainment.

[n4gix 4,947]

5 hours ago, A32xx said:

I doubt that Developer Generated Content will be subject to the same T&C's as User Generated Content. I'd expect the same T&C's for FSW as for any other DTG product, why would DTG make an exception for FSW?

That is precisely my point. DTG have published absolutely nothing official about their T&C's for developers. That remains an unanswered question.

[Chock 17,769]

All of that stuff about choosing to 'publish stuff and charge or not charge for it', and the stuff about 'we can do what we like' is really just standard fare for a business to cover its bases. It certainly does not mean they have some evil plan, it's just the smart thing to do for a business when we live in the litigious world it is. The fact is, these days, all that EULA stuff is necessary and it sometimes seems over the top because laws are somewhat different for copyright around the world, so they have to be sure to cover their arses internationally.

It's like when you see those disclaimers about 'not using a flight sim for any real world training'. We all know that nobody in their right mind would teach themselves to fly an aeroplane purely on a PC-based sim and then climb into a real aeroplane and go flying, but believe it or not, it is legal in some countries to jump into an aeroplane and fly it without ever having had a single proper flying lesson, nor in possession of any kind of pilot's licence at all, and you might be surprised to learn this includes being able to do something stupid like that even in the UK (with some aircraft types), so we're not just talking about that disclaimer covering their arses in obscure countries here. So if someone did crank up the the Cherokee in FSW and then after one quick circuit, then go and hop in a real aeroplane and go flying, and then they were killed (as they almost certainly would be if doing that), without that EULA disclaimer, their relatives would be able to bring legal action against the flight sim's developers. And if people think they can make money out of a company with something like that these days, we know damn well that they absolutely will.

A cautionary tale about that stuff...

You may recall that some years ago there was a kid's cartoon series based on the well known (1984) film Ghostbusters, but the official cartoon series of that film wasn't able to be be called Ghostbusters, because years before the movie came out, there was a TV series (not the same characters) called The Ghost Busters. It was made by Filmation for CBS in 1975 (it was crap). But, this meant that Columbia Pictures had to pay Filmation half a million Dollars up front, plus a promise of one percent of the overall profits of the movie Ghostbusters, for the rights to use the name Ghostbusters for their 1984 film (i.e the one with Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray etc). But because of that film's massive success (i.e. worlwide number one hit theme song, huge success in cinemas etc), Columbia was faced with handing over one percent of the profits to a smash hit movie franchise (and that was including everything from licensing for lunch boxes, comic books, toys etc, etc), so we are talking literally multiple millions of Dollars here because they didn't know it was going to be such a massive hit when they made that 'one percent' deal, which they obviously didn't want to do, so thanks to some 'creative book-keeping' shall we say, Columbia was able to claim (from a legal standpoint at least), that Ghostbusters had not turned a profit, which is of course utter bollocks because it pulled in 295 million Dollars profit at the box office alone (and craploads more in TV rights, video/DVDs, toys etc sales). Naturally, Filmation felt a bit duped to say the least, so they quickly knocked out an animated series of their original crappy TV show, which they also called Ghostbusters, this in order to cash in on the craze driven by the success of the movie. This meant when Columbia did their own animated series of the 1984 film, they had to call it 'The Real Ghostbusters' because needless to say, Filmation told them to 'eff off' when they asked to use that name again for their cartoon. Which just goes to show you that, not covering your arse legally can cost you a lot of money and cause all kinds of legal tomfoolery.

And if you ain't covered it all legally, 'Who you gonna call?'

There's been plenty of that stuff with Star Wars too: Some of the actors in the original film got offered a percentage of the profits deal, but of course in 1976 they all thought Star Wars was just gonna be some throwaway space opera movie like all those space films before it, and so they all took a flat rate one off payment instead (Doh!). Even Lucas thought that might be the case, which is why he offered that percentage option. Bet he's glad nobody took it considering he sold it all to Disney for 4 Billion Dollars lol.

[WotanUK 289]

In the end developers will support the platform or they won't.  The reasons may not even be clear to us, MilViz for example have never released anything for DCS even though at face value it would be perfect for their military aircraft, i doubt that is down to the EULA.

From what i have read, it's more the Early Access part putting off developers more than the EULA, Aerosoft have for one made that quite clear.

I bought FSW when it first came out, i wasn't overly impressed, but i am reading with interest the updates DTG are putting out, being honest it's unlikely i'll move over to FSW anytime soon, simply because of the amount of money i have invested in P3D.  

However, unlike some of the more partisan members of AVSim i do want FSW to succeed.

[A32xx 129]

5 hours ago, n4gix said:

That is precisely my point. DTG have published absolutely nothing official about their T&C's for developers. That remains an unanswered question.

...which surely cannot by answered by any responsible game developer until the SDK is finalised - which would you prefer: a rushed-out SDK which changes weekly/monthly according to some accountant's sales statistics, or a thoroughly researched, well engineered and stable platform on which to build for years to come?

FSW is still in Early Access remember, the whole thing is still in pre-release development, and that includes the SDK of course. It's really good to know that 3rd party developers like yourself are eager to get started on projects for FSW (can I request a P-51 Mustang please? With the whistle?) but at this stage, which is an evaluation stage, I'd recommend less haste and more speed from DTG!

[arsenal82 120]

fsx p3d xplane do not make a distinction between   'user generated content'  or 'developer generated' content

you have to look at this point;   with fsx p3d xplane;  anybody can be either a user or a developer without any wall in the middle or permission / agreement with anybody to be one of the other.

[A32xx 129]

12 hours ago, arsenal82 said:

fsx p3d xplane do not make a distinction between   'user generated content'  or 'developer generated' content

you have to look at this point;   with fsx p3d xplane;  anybody can be either a user or a developer without any wall in the middle or permission / agreement with anybody to be one of the other.

Here's a part of the Steam EULA for Dungeon Siege from Square Enix:

"You agree to only use the Game Software, or any part of it, in a manner that is consistent with this License and you SHALL NOT:

(f) reverse engineer, derive source code, modify, decompile, disassemble, or create derivative works of the Game Software, in whole or in part (except as the applicable law expressly permits, in which case all and any lawful modifications, adaptations, improvements, etc., and all copyrights and morale rights therein, shall be deemed assigned to, and shall belong to, vest in and be the exclusive property of Square Enix and/or its licensors on creation, in any event);"

Looks like the current standard boiler-plate to me. It's not 2006 any more...

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

17 hours ago, n4gix said:

That is precisely my point. DTG have published absolutely nothing official about their T&C's for developers. That remains an unanswered question.

"If you want to develop payware for FSW, get in touch with our 3rd party team".

Which is what I did. From my limited experience it looks like terms and conditions are set by that team, seemingly on a case-to-case basis. Even if you really want to develop for FSW, you first have to be licensed to gain access to the SDK, which is a very slow process (I suppose they are probably being swamped with requests). 

Nothing in their answer to my request indicated that the SDK is not yet available. The current content suggests that it already exists, or at least parts of it do (like the SimConnect libraries, the model and BGL compilers). 

Best regards