NovaFox161
commented
1 year ago Running the bot locally isn't recommended due to the complicated setup required and multiple 3rd party dependencies that need to be setup in a specific manner to maintain stability and security. Additionally, I have absolutely no interest in providing hosting support as I already have to maintain my own infrastructure and do not wish to take on the additional work of supporting people with various different software and hardware configurations.
Open source does not mean self-hosting is encouraged or even possible, there are numerous bots and non-discord-related services that don't support self hosting but still have their code open source. DisCal is open sourced for numerous reasons, including but not limited to: free software principles, ability for the public to audit the code, encourage contributions and suggestions, use the project in my portfolio, etc.
Using the code in DisCal across other projects is allowed by the license, GPL-3. This license allows the code to be used in other projects, forked and/or modified under the requirements that the project it is used in is also under the GPL-3 or greater license, and all modifications are open source. For full info on what the license does and doesn't allow, check the LICENSE.txt in the repo.
All of that being said, go ahead and attempt to self host (I have no control over whether people attempt that), but I have no interest in providing support for that or writing instructions, and encourage users to continue using the official instance of the bot that I host. All patron-only features are Quality of Life (QoL) features that are not strictly necessary for the bot to function, in fact, all core features of the bot will now and forever remain completely 100% free without ads or other monetizations. The QoL features that are patron-only are there to give back to users who have kindly and thoughtfully supported me financially through Patreon or other means. This financial support largely goes to paying for hosting and tooling used for my projects. As much as I would love to make a living doing what I love and working on my own projects, this is largely just a hobby for me that I maintain in my little bits of free time between my actual job and other responsibilities and life. I have no intention of shutting down the bot anytime soon, and am still (slowly, but surely) working on this bot's code.
I don't know if this fits some categories, but the bot's readme doesn't have any instructions on how to run the bot locally with it's own profile picture and name (it's only have instruction for contributing and translations)
The question is, are you won't allow anyone to use your codes with their own bot? (Since the codes are open source as promoted, but it did have patron-only features which I'm not sure everyone will use it...)