Fossil and Friends Start Drama

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Introduction August is one magical month. It's the month where people like to seem like to get angry and defecate onto other people's otherwise peaceful lives for no reason. No good reason, I should say. Restart, the creator of Fossil MZ, decided to do just that. Part 1. Accusations Out of the blue, I got this direct message in Discord one day. The first thing that comes to mind is how strangely worded this whole thing is. Why? It's extremely vague with what is the actual problem. It's extremely vague with who actually "verified" the problem. It's extremely vague why I need to be there in person to answer questions. And for those wondering, he never answered which are the members that "verified" this. I'm sorry, but when I see people texting and driving, it angers me. It reeks of irresponsibility. I don't understand why this couldn't have been stated in his initial post. Is it so hard to say "I think there's a potential copyright violation with your Dragonbones Union plugin" to get the point instead of skirting around? I also don't know why this is even a copyright violation in the first place since the MV plugin is something that both The Green Kel and I have collaborated on. Apparently, I can infringe upon my own copyrighted work? Do you want to know why I'm so confident that we aren't using the code from the KELYEP_DragonBones.js? That's because we tried to use it and it wasn't compatible with the new PixiJS version. This was attempted three times over. First attempt was a direct port. Second attempt was a modified port. Third attempt was a PixiJS function reversion. It "worked" but it also broke everything else. However, that's a story for another day. Ultimately, we decided the best course of action was to recreate the integration from the ground up. He shows one function that had an argument (what he calls a "variable") that was unused. This is what tipped me off to something strange: Any kind of programmer should know full well there are differences between "variables" and "arguments" but semantics, so I digress. The second tip off is, why is he deobfuscating our plugin? Is he trying to edit a function in it? Or is he trying to take it for himself? Furthermore, unused arguments aren't uncommon. Look at RPG Maker MZ's coresripts. There are functions all over the place that have unused arguments. And worst: he's a light-theme user. Like that. However, at this point, I'm still unsure at what he's trying to get at. It was getting late for me so I didn't want to deal with it. I figured if anything, settling it in court would be better than prancing around with someone who probably doesn't even know programming all that well. The next odd thing I'm hearing from this person is that I'm "infringing" upon a library under the MIT license. I don't know about you, but something about that doesn't sound right. "Infringement" refers to the violation of a law, but the only thing I can think of regarding this is "copyright law". But even then, that's under MIT. Still, suspicious. In addition to that, he still refused to answer me which "community members" are responsible for letting him know this information. At this point, he's arguing that the usage of a generic function name "loadComplete" is plagiarism-worthy. Which, sure we do have a function in Dragonbones Union called "loadComplete", but this is like trying to call someone out for using generic sentences in a book that is shared across many. Imagine going to court because one book contains "Oh my God" in it and stepping on the toes of another book. At this point, I'm fed up. It'd be faster to just take things to court and let the lawyers have a good laugh. However, he tries to conclude the whole thing on his own, putting words in my mouth that I "have no intention of making things right". Keep this in mind, this inserting-words-into-other-people's-mouths is a recurring tactic of his. Here is another thing that tipped me off. "If you're willing to reveal to public the full plugin, everyone can see for themselves" In another words, probably another individual who is hampered by obfuscation and cannot read the code as it is. Suddenly, it makes sense as to why he deobfuscated our plugin in the first place. However, revealing it to the public isn't the only way to get a plagiarism check on things. Especially since we can have unrelated third-party individuals check it. Keep this part in mind, too. Now, the part with the Public_0_Dragonbones.js not having the aforementioned MIT license notification is correct. We were lacking in that. However, that's not infringement. Infringement refers to laws. Violations refer to conditions. It'd be correct to say we were violating a condition. You can argue it's semantics, but the United States court treats cases for law infringements and licensing condition violations differently. But! Even the Github linked from Dragonbones.com's website fails to include their own MIT license as a part of it. Example seen here. Still, adding the license back to the Public_0_Dragonbones.js plugin is no big deal. I don't know why he is so set on calling it infringement. I'm guessing it's because he doesn't have an understanding on how different laws, intellectual property, or licenses are from one another. Either way, I show him proof that it was never sold. He never mentioned the third "infringement", to which, leads me to believe that he probably thought it was illegal for me to sell the Dragonbones library MIT license. And yes, that's actually semi-true, except, that's only if there were changes to the code breaking the "as if" clause of the MIT license. However, at this point, I decide to play stupid to see where he's getting at due to him skipping around so much. To be honest, I'm still not sure what he's getting at. Yes, we forgot to include the MIT bit on the actual redistributed library itself, but even the official Dragonbones Github forgot to do that, too. Now this is where things start making me question whether or not he's a programmer at all. These are generic call functions used to load and parse Dragonbones data from the library itself. It's a straight up declared function with preset arguments. At this point, it feels like he's just grasping for straws so I show him some generic loading functions from RPG Maker MZ's core scripts themselves. What? Just what? Multiple ways to structure it? How the hell do you restructure a function and its arguments from ANOTHER library and expect it to work? For the non-programmers, this person is expecting us to change ABCD into DBAC. During the conversation, I tried to add in Archeia and some programmers to further explain what this person isn't understanding, however, it was blocked. No avail there. Now, onto the next stunt he tries to pull off. He's trying to get me to refund the plugin for "relying on infringing code". To be honest, I don't even know how he came up with this angle. Refunds only apply the actual product being "defective" and cannot be fixed. He wants us to "refund" based off missing license agreements, which can easily be fixed. Once again, I have to remind him that RPG Maker MZ is also selling a product that relies on Pixi. At this point, I see what he's trying to do. He's trying to make me say something that is not true with "yes" or "no" answers. Either this is an attempt to slander me or to shove words in my mouth that I didn't say. Remember what I told you to keep in mind? This is exactly that. So, how do you deal with these situations? Instead of answering "yes" or "no", you answer clearly what you meant in detail. However, he also refuses to answer my questions. He tries to avoid them by asking other questions. A simple update is all that's needed to get this fixed. And that's exactly what we did. However, this person choose to make a mountain out of a molehill. It becomes clear to me that he's just here to start trouble. Once again, the refund despite there being no problems with the actual product itself. The person clearly doesn't understand how infringements and license condition violations work. At this point, it's extremely late and he's still skipping around in circles. Usage of Public_0_Dragonbones.js has always been optional. In fact, inside the help file, we clearly provided a link to the official Dragonbones website to where users can acquire the Dragonbones library. So why did we include Public_0_Dragonbones.js? It's because not everybody knows how to get rid of that annoying message in the Plugin Manager saying the plugin is not supported by MZ. We added in comments (which aren't code) to trick MZ into thinking the supporting library is a legitimate MZ plugin. But back to the topic, suppose his fantasy copyright infringement law is even real, there is still no legal liability attached to it due everything else being met by the MIT requirements outside of the license mention which they didn't even do for their own library release. Now this is where things got interesting. Archeia has discovered that this individual is Restart, the creator of Fossil MZ. And now it's all falling into place. For those not in the loop, Restart goes around telling people to not use VisuStella MZ and use Fossil MZ with old MV plugins instead. He plays dumb. At this point, I'm talking to several RPG Maker discord owners all at once. They're all telling me their experiences with Restart and how he likes to stir trouble regarding VisuStella. Also, I have my doubts about him trying to screw me over. Why? Because a simple "Bro, I think you're missing the MIT license in your Public_0_Dragonbones.js" should have been more than enough instead of trying to set up verbal traps to me advocating for copyright infringement so he can "go public". This is where I decide to put an end to it. The time for playing stupid is over. The reason why I brought up car recalls is because it will similar to the very course of action I'll be doing. For those who don't live in the United States and/or unfamiliar with how car recalls work, if a car manufacturer discovers that they have a faulty part, potentially harming their customers, they will issue a nation-wide car recall. Any customers that comply with that recall will have their vehicle fixed with proper parts. At this same time, this will protect the car manufacturer from legal liability pertaining to those faulty parts from thereon after. It makes sense. If you received a car recall due to a faulty party, refuse the recall, then get into an accident where the faulty part is the cause, then you lose legal viability to push forth a case. The same applies for software. And so, there, the nail in the coffin for this particular "infringement". However, he still tries to cling onto it by making up potential hypothetical cases where the problem would still exist. Except, there's a few problems with his logic: They need to have happened before the notice. Nothing has happened yet prior to this notice update. The lawsuit would have to come from the current owner of Dragonbones itself. Restart is NOT the one in position who is able to even start a lawsuit about this. I don't even know why he made the comment about "the not big deal" and "very pragmatic" thing. I'm guessing he wanted me to agree so that he can go public about it. However, as I said, it's time for me to stop playing dumb. I made it clear that I knew he was trying to catch me off guard and answer something in a controversial way. I also made it clear my exact stance on the thing and how it would be solved. Bruh He literally pulled a "It's just a prank, bro". For real? I'm sorry, but I'm not having that. I tell him straight up that IF he actually cared about our side in the first place, he could have just "you forgot to list the MIT license" instead of doing this awful song and dance. He tries to change the conversation topic because he now knows he's losing. Furthermore, MZ's numbers are doing amazing. 400px For those who don't know, Archeia is on the official team for RPG Maker as a whole. Now, he's just grasping for straws with claims that have little basis. He keeps trying to extend the conversation. Probably in hopes of me saying something controversial so he can screenshot it and "go public". However, he tries to state that he will find a third party to check the code. What? Since when was he in charge? At this point, I can't tell if he really thinks I'm stupid or if he thinks he's smart. However, an "unaffiliated third party" to check the code would not be someone that would come from him. It would not come from me either. The best course of action would be to have the forum officials do that. One thing I did leave out? It's not for him to decide. It's for The Green Kel to decide if it needs to be done. However, even if Kel does come to bring it up, I have nothing to hide. Let the forum officials bring out a programmer to compare the code used between the two. Also, this is one of the biggest and poorest excuses I encounter all the time. I'm sorry, I just had to get that out of the way. For the record, the official Github didn't even add the MIT to their minification. "Glad we could solve this without a big shitshow" Bruh Post Investigation So this is where things start getting interesting. I start doing my own investigation. I take a look at his post made on RPG Maker Web for Fossil MZ. Did a search for "Dragonbones". Nothing. Did a search for "KELYEP", nothing. Did a search for "KEL". Nothing pertaining to Green Kel although it did catch "likely". In other words, there's nothing regarding Dragonbones there. Now, it's starting to make sense why he's poking his nose around the obfuscated code for VisuStella MZ's Dragonbones. Remember how I said that we had problems porting it over? And we failed three times with the ports? It's extremely likely that this person was unable to do it, too. So what was the best way to make it work? Take code from another library where it already works. Guess whose library that was? VisuStella MZ. Now this is all conjecture, but based on how he was deobfuscating our code, demanding that we release the code publicly for all to see, I think it's pretty clear what his intentions are. For those who need it spelled out, he wanted to steal code from us to put into Fossil in order to make Dragonbones work. How do I know he's at least attempted to work on it? That's because since post #138 of his thread, he stated he'd take a look. Now, this post was made in May. The shitshow happened in August. I don't know if he was working on it for that long or if at all, there is at least some semblance of a potential attempt or else he would not be going about deobfuscating code willy-nilly. I also have my doubts of him being an actual programmer, too, but who knows. So what can we take from this? TL;DR Restart, Fossil MZ's creator, approaches Yanfly anonymously or at least, not explaining his actual identity Restart makes bold claims about copyright infringements about Dragonbones Union Restart reveals he's deobfuscated code and demands that Dragonbones Union is made public for potential cases of plagiarism Yanfly corrects the only thing that needed correcting (which even Dragonbones failed to do correctly either) Restart doesn't get what he wants and tries to push for reasons for refunding, fails to get that, too Restart starts losing steam and tries to derail the conversation And you know what's the real kicker? He comes and posts this the following day: However, that's not all there is to the story. Part 2. Arrogance The story with Restart doesn't end there. Shortly after his conversation with me that night, he decided to visit Driftwood Gaming's Discord server. I was just doing my own thing in Drifty's server by answering a few questions another individual had in regards to why RPG Maker MZ might feel lacking in features. However, out of the blue, I was pinged by... FossilMZ? I'm guessing this is another account of his? And after having closed the conversation I had with him in DM, I'm guessing he wanted more which is why he pinged me here. Probably in hopes I'd continue the conversation here. But in case you can't tell, I'm tired of seeing his mug so I just go silent. I left Discord for a while and come back later and this is what I see: I'm guessing he felt frustrated so he starts talking about the things that RPG Maker MZ could change. That's perfectly fine. In fact, I agree with some of those changes. Tea adds in her feedback here to his suggestions. Namely with the UI. I agree with her somewhat. The UI is not perfect, but the familiarity is what keeps new users and returning users engaged with the engine. It's why whenever you use different browsers, from Opera to Firefox to Microsoft Edge, they don't all look to different from each other. This is called the user experience, or UX for short. Having a high familiarity rating with the UX is often key to a software's success. But I'm getting off topic here. This is where Tea states that it's her opinion that she thinks the UI is great and it's what defines RPG Maker. However, for Fossil, he doesn't seem to agree with her and gives her an example of the "UI" at fault. But to my knowledge, this "bug" of the flower making the tile suddenly passable isn't a fault of the "UI". UI stands for user interface. It's the design layout of the software client to relay information and allow interactivity between the human using the computer and the machine the human is processing information into. To my knowledge, the UI isn't responsible for detecting bugged collisions in the editor. Either way, Restart/Fossil starts coming off a bit too aggressive here. Actually, as a game developer, you SHOULD be rubbing against every wall to make sure it's solid. Watching video speedruns goes to show that neglect to do so will often result in exploits against the game's fundamental design. I'm actually okay with collision maps being added to RPG Maker, but I never felt like I needed them with how RPG Maker automated its pathing and collision. In fact, I prefer the automated pathing and collision because it saves so much time. The problem he is presenting also something I believe he's being overly critical about as there are multiple ways to going about solving it, with or without the need for a UI change. I still disagree that you can see "problems" in the map without rubbing against every wall, because for all we know, this could be a bug. There are editor bugs where sometimes objects that would appear on a higher layer in the editor would appear on a lower layer in the game when it's actually running. Attempting make a game with as little playtesting as possible is akin to writing a book with as little proofreading as possible. In other words, it doesn't end well. Either way, it still comes off to me as being overly critical about something that could be resolved through playtesting. This is where things take a turn for worse. Tea brings up the question if he feels being overly critical plays any part in actually convincing people to change. I don't think Tea disagrees with the need for change. However, his approach makes people not want to do anything about it. So what does Restart/Fossil do? Tries to flip the topic into suggesting Tea doesn't feel like there's a need for change (which is something she never said). To my knowledge, Restart/Fossil has been pretty abusive towards RPG Maker's devs since they're not implementing his suggestions when he asks for them. Tea's comment here seems to suggest that statement is true, too. Tea reminds us all that at the end of the day, suggestions still have to be made with an objective mind. Even if you, Restart/Fossil, Drifty, or I feel overly critical about a certain topic, it doesn't mean it's going to be added in. Why is that? Because suggestions are made off subjective trains thought. Even with all my years in RPG Maker and creating scripts and plugins for it, my suggestions still won't be taken as objectively sound because at the end of the day, it's still what my own perception of an improvement is. The actual RPG Maker developers have to be objective in how to go about the acknowledgement, process, and procedure to making the suggestions happen in a fitting form. Why is that? Because suggestions are unlimited and ethereal. They can come and go across time. Some people may feel more strongly about certain suggestions and then lighten up about it over time. On the other hand, those taking in those suggestions need to be objective, because once the feature is implemented, it is permanent. It is not temporal like the suggestions. Permanence has a long-lasting (if not everlasting) effect. Therefore, its actual value needs to be taken into consideration over what others have as a perceived value. Tea brings up a good point, too. If you change a product so much from its original that it's no longer recognizable, can it even be considered the same thing anymore. And to each, the identity of what makes RPG Maker itself will vary from individual to individual. I know for some, it's a means to easily prototype. For others, it's a dream weaver. For me, it's a reminder of why my wife made me sleep on the couch for over a half year. The important thing here is, Tea acknowledges that not everybody will see the value of specific things the same way because of subjective reasoning. Whether or not people think of such a thing will always be kept separate from the objective nature of when a suggestion is to be taken and made into a feature. I'm... not sure if I believe it when he says he works in software development, intellectual property, and neuroscience. His confusion between arguments and variables along with generic function names and how libraries are ran leads me to believe otherwise. Especially when claiming that I could just simply change the "structure" of a function's arguments. Even if he did make Fossil MZ, it doesn't really make him a software dev. I'm also skeptical about intellectual property, too, because with all the ways he's been going on about "infringement" in part 1, I'm lead to believe he doesn't know as much as he thinks he does. No comment about neuroscience other than I don't think any of those three can even simultaneous jobs at once due to their corporate workforce nature. Maybe software dev gets a pass if he's a freelancer, but definitely not for IP and Neuroscience. On top of that, still having free time to make it a "hobby"? I worked as a software dev for my day job and the hours easily extend past 40 per week. When I worked on Yanfly Engine Plugins during the MV era, the amount of time I spent per week would range around 70 to 90 hours from just my day job and RPG Maker plugins alone. I believe I'm already very time efficient with my work, too. So for this guy to juggle "intellectual property" and "neuroscience" on it makes me raise an eyebrow. I'm not sure if what he means by "digging into newbie issues" is simply recommending people to use Fossil MZ over VisuStella. But, this also comes off as extremely nosey, too. To which, makes me believe why Drifty asked if he's making a rival engine. If he wants to improve the engine, that's great. However, finding issues and being overly critical about them doesn't really provide a solution or make things better. I do find it odd how he would even say something like "not trying to steal Tea's job" because it was already insinuated by him that he has three jobs. Even Drifty noticed that being odd, too, which is why I guess he decided to ask about it. This is where Fossil just starts coming off as rude. And extremely patronizing. Oh boy... Is he really going back to the "Tea thinks nothing needs to be changed" thing again? Remember what I said about his tactic of putting words in another's mouth? Drifty even suggests he goes to use the search option to pull up where Tea said such a thing. Out of curiosity, I searched for "nothing needs to be changed" and it wasn't coming from Tea either. Still also being rude and patronizing. And there it is. Later comments from other members. End of File