Okay, what exactly happened with this game going open-source?

[Nezumi]

Here's what I know:

• Everyone in the development and moderation team hates the idea of open-source, hates the idea of mods of the game, hates the mods that exist.
• Corruption of Champions was not originally intended to be open source, but was made so without consulting the contributing authors -- with this not being a "for hire" or other scenario where the writers were expected to relinquish some amount of rights to their character as part of joining the project. (Which, honestly, was an outrageously awful move. I don't have much objection to my writing or characters being used or remixed personally, but I'd still probably devour anyone who did that to me, because you don't suddenly change the terms of creative ownership like that without telling anyone else, and people are right to be bitter or angry or disillusioned if it happens to them.)
• This apparently somehow backfired, leading to the current animosity towards open-source and modding.

What I don't know:

• What the expectation of open-sourcing was, here.
• What, precisely, happened instead that was seen as a mistake or backfiring.
• How this should affect my conduct going forward, vis a vis supporting development of TiTS and CoC2 or working with CoC source or mods.

 

[Savin]

So, first off, "Open Source" is a misnomer; the game's code is visible and people could make pull requests to the same code Fen used, but it's not under any sort of open-source license.

The expectation of opening it up to the community was that they would help clean up Fen's spaghetti code and add things in from the backlog. What actually happened is that a bunch of people completely rebuilt the code in such a way that Fen didn't really understand how it worked anymore. The even worse backfire was that people started making a bunch of mods for CoC instead of actually contributing anything to the main game, made worse by the fact that these mods distribute the entirety of the OG content with them, such that many people to this day don't know what's mod content and what isn't.

How should this affect you? Just ignore the idea that CoC's code exists outside of a complete and finished game, since nobody is touching that repo and it's not getting any more updates. If you want to help, look into coding approved submissions for TiTS.

 

[Nezumi]

I will attempt to practice writing more and learning to code, and help out.

And... yeah, it sounds like opening up the source was a mistake. It might've worked out better with more communication and oversight... but honestly, it sounds like it was a situation where more coders should have brought on to the project while keeping it proprietary, instead of open-sourcing it, so that Fenoxo could maintain more direct control and make sure he was consulted about major changes to the code and its mechanics. Open source has its virtues, but if you're just trying to get help while retaining control of the project, it's the wrong way to go. Generally, if you're not comfortable with the terms of an open source license for your work, opening the source is not the way to go, as those licenses tend to pretty well reflect this approach's strengths and use cases.

I... have no idea how or why I even know all that, given that I can write a little BASIC and not much else, and I'm pretty sure it's not common knowledge so I can see where mistakes could be made.

I'd also incorrectly assumed the mods came AFTER development on the game was halted, not before and being a factor in it.