Schall Autolinked Chest


Experimental feature, based on 1.1.0 hidden "linked-chest" prototype. Adds chests that when built next to each other, they are automatically linked to share the same inventory. Useful for belt balancing and train station wagon balancing. (Locale: English, Deutsch, 正體中文, Português Brasileiro, Русский)

Content
2 days ago
1.1 - 2.0
3.73K
Logistics Storage

g [Solved] Possible copycat

3 years ago

There seem to be a copy of your mod on the portal: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/fklinkbox

I don't know if it's modified in any way, and I think that if it's not, it won't actually break your license, but I don't know your code well enough to verify it. So I just thought I'd let you know, in case you didn't.

3 years ago

Thanks for the notice. I have to think of how to deal with this.

Just looked into it. The contents are mostly the same, yet NOT identical.
I have found the following differences:
1/ Modified license to MIT. Attached license.txt is edited, with some parts removed.
2/ Changed info.json. Including mod name, author, and description.
3/ Added locale/zh-cn.
4/ Overwritten locale/en, with the same Chinese text as in locale/zh-cn.
5/ Various changes on paths in several files.

I think the biggest issue is the change of license (as point 1). I have never allowed such change.

My license has stated "No modification" rule, but allowing "Minor bug fixes/tweak for compatibility reasons".
Differences 3 and 5 are acceptable. But 2 and 4 are questionable...
The major problem of point 2 is that all credits to the original work (including mod name, mod author, URL) are removed.
Point 4 is not an necessary change, at least not belonging to "Minor bug fixes/tweak for compatibility reasons".

I am not a legal expert, so I cannot determine whether such re-publication in a different language is legally wrong.
Yet if is legally allowed, then everyone can in theory re-publish 20+ copies of each mod on mod portal? Just because each of them is in their own different language? That would be very wrong.
If users really want to publish locale text in their own mods, that can be done WITHOUT copying my mod files. There are some good examples: 1 and 2.
Not to say that many mod authors accept users submission of locale text/file, and will include them into the mod package file. I have Schall Language Pack dedicated to collect all the community translations.

Anyway, it does not seem like the mod is ill-intentioned. Yet in the current form, it is harming my rights.
So now I have to think of how to handle this.

3 years ago

It is not required to fully reupload a mod to add locale for a different language. If localization was the only intention, they only needed to include the locale folder (and an info file for the game to recognize it, of course).

Regarding the license change, unfortunately bob's copyright doesn't have a clause about forbidding the changing of the license, so that's a bit of an oversight.
I would suggest asking them for their intentions as for uploading it. Perhaps come to some sort of an arrangement?
Worse case, you can submit a request for Wube to remove it, if it comes down to it. Deadlock was able to remove all of the IR reuploads between taking down the original and uploading IR2, so it's clearly possible.

3 years ago
(updated 3 years ago)

Thanks for your advice. I will post him/her a message, after sorting out all the points.

I doubt the practice of license change in general, when anyone is just re-posting the contents instead of being the original author.
Although it is not explicitly written in license terms, I do not think it is acceptable.
Otherwise, someone can always re-post the mods in a more relaxing license (like MIT) allowing modifications, and possibly break every terms in the original license? Meaning Bob's copyright (or other similar license) is effectively void?

PS: According to his/her reply to a reply in another mod, I think he/she is not an ill-intentioned bad guy. Guess just not paying attention to license matters.

3 years ago
(updated 3 years ago)

I doubt the practice of license change in general, when anyone is just re-posting the contents instead of being the original author.
Although it is not explicitly written in license terms, I do not think it is acceptable.

This is why writing a proper license is hard. This type of loophole is easily exploitable by someone who knows how to find them.

PS: According to his/her reply to a reply in another mod, I think he/she is not an ill-intentioned bad guy. Guess just not paying attention to license matters.

They're Chinese, no? Their attitude towards intellectual property/copyright is a bit different than the west, so it might not have even came up in their mind to check.

3 years ago

hahlong has mentioned to remove the mod, which is now marked as deprecated.
I guess okay for now? (I think only Factorio team has the power to actually removal mods. Authors can only mark mods as deprecated.)

New response