You're reading an awful lot into that one little statement. That said, I was being snarky and I should have gone into a bit more detail.
The reason I allow ZIP files at all isn't because I want people to upload executable files to OGA, it's because I understand that there are tons of different art formats out there, some more esoteric than others. While I don't necessarily want to encourage people to use strange formats (by explicitly listing them in the allowed file upload formats), I don't necessarily want to prohibit them either. But that's just on art submissions.
The reason I allow file attachments to forum posts at all is to facilitate discussion about art. I'm perfectly happy with people discussing code as well, but I don't want to get into the business of hosting people's random files in a section of the site that doesn't receive nearly as much public scrutiny as the art section does. I don't have time to vet everything myself, and a lot more people see art submissions than forum posts. I'd also prefer to avoid having people post a zip on the forum and then hotlink it from other sites. OGA is an art hosting website, not a code hosting website. There are other sites that are perfectly happy to host your code and your executables, and you're more than welcome to link to those sites in your forum posts.
I'm hesitant to allow zip files on the forums due to the potential security issues for people who download and run them. Before someone points out that the same security issues exist for art, bear in mind a couple things:
Generally speaking, if something claiming to be art comes with an executable file, people will be suspicious of it.
Art gets a lot more attention then forum posts. If someone tries to upload something nasty, it's a lot more likely that it will be noticed quickly.
qubodup brings up a good point about OGA not being a software site. I'm not completely opposed to hosting certain kinds of art software, but if it's going to happen a lot, I'd prefer it to have its own section so it doesn't get mixed up with search results.
As it stands, the official word from the top is that I'm allowing it in this instance. If software uploads become a frequent thing, we're going to need to come up with some way to deal with them. But for the moment, I don't see any reason to make a big deal out of it.
Finally, a word on licensing: The licenses we have here are (for the most part) more appropriate for art. In a case like this, the best solution would be to choose a license from the available list, and then put in your notes that the program is additionally available under some other (more code-appropriate) license as well.
My dad had a stroke over the weekend and I haven't been around to approve posts. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Also, for the record, we get a tremendous volume of spam attempts, so as much as I'd love to turn off the spam filter, I can't do it. If I did, we'd be inundated with far more spam than I could manage. It's unfortunate that it occasionally gets false positives.
I'm not saying you necessarily should't. It's just not a license that was written with source code in mind, so I'm not aware if there are any odd consequences to using it. It's possible it might also render it incompatible with the GPL and some other licenses, but I'm not sure about that.
(Incompatible meaning that you can't mix the source code in with your own work, not that you can't use it alongside your work.)
In the interest of making sure we don't succomb to link rot, can you upload a current source snapshot? (I noticed you linked to your github repo, which is good. That's definitely the preferred method of getting the source, but I just want to make sure we keep an archive of it here.)
Thanks :)
Bart
P.S. I'm not sure what the implications of using CC-BY as a source code license are. You may want to consider dual licensing it with something more standard like the LGPL or MIT or something, just in case.
You're reading an awful lot into that one little statement. That said, I was being snarky and I should have gone into a bit more detail.
The reason I allow ZIP files at all isn't because I want people to upload executable files to OGA, it's because I understand that there are tons of different art formats out there, some more esoteric than others. While I don't necessarily want to encourage people to use strange formats (by explicitly listing them in the allowed file upload formats), I don't necessarily want to prohibit them either. But that's just on art submissions.
The reason I allow file attachments to forum posts at all is to facilitate discussion about art. I'm perfectly happy with people discussing code as well, but I don't want to get into the business of hosting people's random files in a section of the site that doesn't receive nearly as much public scrutiny as the art section does. I don't have time to vet everything myself, and a lot more people see art submissions than forum posts. I'd also prefer to avoid having people post a zip on the forum and then hotlink it from other sites. OGA is an art hosting website, not a code hosting website. There are other sites that are perfectly happy to host your code and your executables, and you're more than welcome to link to those sites in your forum posts.
You can make someone download a zip file with a plain HTML link, too.
Big discussion here.
I'm hesitant to allow zip files on the forums due to the potential security issues for people who download and run them. Before someone points out that the same security issues exist for art, bear in mind a couple things:
qubodup brings up a good point about OGA not being a software site. I'm not completely opposed to hosting certain kinds of art software, but if it's going to happen a lot, I'd prefer it to have its own section so it doesn't get mixed up with search results.
As it stands, the official word from the top is that I'm allowing it in this instance. If software uploads become a frequent thing, we're going to need to come up with some way to deal with them. But for the moment, I don't see any reason to make a big deal out of it.
Finally, a word on licensing: The licenses we have here are (for the most part) more appropriate for art. In a case like this, the best solution would be to choose a license from the available list, and then put in your notes that the program is additionally available under some other (more code-appropriate) license as well.
Bart
The reason we use Drupal is because it's easy to add custom code to it. Drupal can't do what OGA does out of the box.
Done. Also, I tweaked the spam filter a bit, so hopefully it won't give you any more trouble.
My dad had a stroke over the weekend and I haven't been around to approve posts. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Also, for the record, we get a tremendous volume of spam attempts, so as much as I'd love to turn off the spam filter, I can't do it. If I did, we'd be inundated with far more spam than I could manage. It's unfortunate that it occasionally gets false positives.
This is awesome. :)
Is your war game called "Call of Honor", by any chance? ;)
I'm not saying you necessarily should't. It's just not a license that was written with source code in mind, so I'm not aware if there are any odd consequences to using it. It's possible it might also render it incompatible with the GPL and some other licenses, but I'm not sure about that.
(Incompatible meaning that you can't mix the source code in with your own work, not that you can't use it alongside your work.)
Greets!
In the interest of making sure we don't succomb to link rot, can you upload a current source snapshot? (I noticed you linked to your github repo, which is good. That's definitely the preferred method of getting the source, but I just want to make sure we keep an archive of it here.)
Thanks :)
Bart
P.S. I'm not sure what the implications of using CC-BY as a source code license are. You may want to consider dual licensing it with something more standard like the LGPL or MIT or something, just in case.
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