Maybe disallow forks being listed on the server list?

ghost commented 5 years ago

Recently in the forums a discussion started whether to allow forks being listed in the server list or not allow forks being listed.

https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?p=349681#p349681 ff. https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=22745

It should be clarified if 3rd party applications that were forked from any of the Minetest releases should be allowed on the official Minetest server list or if there should be usage guidelines or technical solutions to prevent forks being listed.

Cons:

Forks "steal" players from other servers because most of them are more popular than Minetest, especially on mobile
Forks are not Minetest, but it is the Minetest server list
Forks are not Minetest, but players expect Minetest and not some altered somewhat compatible other software based on Minetest
There could be licensing issues with the forks
Preconfiguring and hosting an own serverlist server is easy and forks can and should do that

Pros:

They centralize (most) mobile gamers on their own servers and mobile gamers are not that much liked by some Minetest server hosters.
Do nothing because a fork can simply announce itself as normal Minetest server anyways

nerzhul commented 5 years ago

you will only make them being rogue inside the server list

sfan5 commented 5 years ago

Allowing forks to use the server list (provided they behave) is very much in the spirit of FOSS. Disallowing forks in general would unnecessarily fragment the Minetest player base while bringing few advantages. Besides, the majority of forks (or variants) don't do anything we would consider undesirable.

SmallJoker commented 5 years ago

This is an open-source project, so expect forks. As long they're legal I don't see any issue with allowing those in the server list. Strictly spoken: testing servers with custom patches aren't much different, except that they keep the project name in their version string. :-1:

rubenwardy commented 5 years ago

:-1: for reasons given above.

If servers are found to be misbehaving, then they will be dealt with individually.

appgurueu commented 5 years ago

Probably add a flag ?

minetest / serverlist

Maybe disallow forks being listed on the server list? #32