Xavier's still at it :)

[iphdrunk]

But if the project will be democratic and the project will be community-driven
(As they have claim in all places) they will not have that power. If the democratic community make bad choices, they couldn't do nothing for it. It's the disadvantage of this way.

Uhm, minor nitpicking here. The community driven foundation has only one third of the votes in the new company who would acquire the assets ("Ryzonel"). In other words, if Mr. Lejade and Mr. Lacambre agree on something, the community has no vetoing option.

Maybe with the new FSF foundation donation it would be possible to change things, since at the time being each partner contribs around 50k€ in a 1:3, although pledges now seem to go around 150k€ but I guess it's too late to change the shares of each partner.

I wonder, if the project is retained and let's say the pledges mean like 100 real k€, if all partners would agree to leave the community non-profit to have 66% or 51% of the capital / vote, by doing a "augmentation de capital dans la societé par actions simplifiée". That would be a very good sign, the non-profit organization having a share depending on the funds raised. Of course, it was hard to tell when the plan had to be presented, and easy to see now how pledges evolve, but if the community raises e.g. 300k€ and the original partners, throwing in 50k€, still mantain 33%, what I said in the first paragraph stands.

[kyrix]

first, for those who haven't read, I posted in another thread something that might be of interest to understand how the GPL might impact ryzom and the FSF communities and to clearify some misconceptions...

http://www.ryzom.com/forum/showpost.php ... tcount=156

will the game be democratic in a swiss sense, a USA sense, or in a chinese sense. democracy is not always democratic. (oversimplifying, the swiss get to vote about everything, in the USA you get to vote your leaders, and I think in china the leaders get to vote their leader)


what I want to say is that even if the ryzom.org will be community driven, that doesn't mean that there will not be someone (or a company) who will make the main decisions behind it. Opensource projects don't "obey" the community. If they do it right, they listen to the community. If enough people dislike what is going on, the project will fork.

For those who say that the opensource projects are often chaotic, please take this into account. First of all, there are thousands of opensource projects, much more than commercial ones. Some are maintained by very professional people (opensource and free does also not imply that they are not getting paid), some are maintained by noobs. Some are chaotic, some are very good. It mainly depends on the maintainer.

Second of all, for those who have never worked in a company that makes software, you can find the same chaos in them too, or even more. Opensource projects encourage open discussion, so you normally get to hear a lot of people ranting. In companies, that happens behind doors, and in the worse case, behind your back. I had to leave a company because I couldn't stand the internal wars and intrigues, although it was the best paid job I have had (and wasn't really directly involved, but just the atmosphere made me sick).

As I mentioned in the other post, if ryzom.org takes over the game, it will be in the same positon as nevrax, except that it might attract opensource players, like sponsors or contributors, that can reduce drastically the costs of developing the game.

Opensource/free(code) projects normally have a different way of operating, a different financial model. Ryzom.org might be able to attract the attention of Redhat, IBM, Ubuntu, google, or other major opensource companies. Some companies are using the game Reallife for events and company work. They could take the ryzom code instead and use it for their goals. Several applications that have nothing to do with gaming may arise.

Other gaming companies could use the ryzom code to create their own games, that might not have nothing to do with ryzom at all.

The ryzom game and community would benefit in terms of code that is contributed, or even monetary contributions.

There is another difference in opensource development that might benefit the ryzom game community. Commercial projects normally keep their development and ideas as secret as possible, for market reasons. To "suprise" users, make news headlines and to keep the competition from "stealing" their ideas. They leak news little by little to create media buzz, but mainly keep the users in the dark.

Opensource development is made in the open, so that doesn't apply. You normally get to see a roadmap of what is going to be done way before it is implemented, and you can get involved with ideas more easily. This does lead to discussions, and you can't always please everybody. But IMHO I prefer a little discussion than being "suprised" with a new game play model that sucks.

In a practical sense, players can see ryzom.org as another company taking over. Another company that uses another development and financial model, a model that sometimes brings products like firefox, apache, linux, gnome, kde, tomcat, osX (its BSD based), and so on....

Even if ryzom.org fails... the code is very valuable and some other company might pick it up and do something great with it. I think that advantage alone is worth the risk

take care atys,
kyrix

[ummax]

Uhm, minor nitpicking here. The community driven foundation has only one third of the votes in the new company who would acquire the assets ("Ryzonel"). In other words, if Mr. Lejade and Mr. Lacambre agree on something, the community has no vetoing option.

Maybe with the new FSF foundation donation it would be possible to change things, since at the time being each partner contribs around 50k€ in a 1:3, although pledges now seem to go around 150k€ but I guess it's too late to change the shares of each partner.

I wonder, if the project is retained and let's say the pledges mean like 100 real k€, if all partners would agree to leave the community non-profit to have 66% or 51% of the capital / vote, by doing a "augmentation de capital dans la societé par actions simplifiée". That would be a very good sign, the non-profit organization having a share depending on the funds raised. Of course, it was hard to tell when the plan had to be presented, and easy to see now how pledges evolve, but if the community raises e.g. 300k€ and the original partners, throwing in 50k€, still mantain 33%, what I said in the first paragraph stands.

Actualy there is usualy some legal number of shares for a non-profit organization to be allowed to hold in canada its 49% I have no idea what it is or how it works or even if does work in France hehe. Anyhow usualy non-profits can put in as much personal money as they want, but it does not convert to shares as they are capped at 49% no matter how much money or worth. This is to prevent them controlling anything. They can make the rules however as the "workers" but this set up is somewhat different then what I am used to and is why it makes no sense. Non profit organizations usualy have themselves no real hand in the day to day workings of a company. This situation has it all "bass ackwards" in that the non profit organization is also the company .. so i am confused as well. I have only seen one case where the actual person became non profit, but it was actualy after the fact that the organization was a business and it was a result of collecting donations for various projects she had to become some business entity and given the type of work and where the money went non-profit was the appropriate classification however she did not collect a salary from the organization and had no say on how the donations were spent once this was put into place.

Anyhow my concern is this the employees or employees to be (since they dont actualy exist as of yet) also appear to be the organization from day one. This makes no sense. IN my little pea brain I am applying law from Canada so this may be why, but those who run the non-profit organization are not legally allowed to collect a salary even if they do work (the shareholders and board etc) as this is viewed as conflict of interest, but we have here a case of the potential workers setting up the organization and who will in the future if all works out collect a salary so I guess I am confused as to how its going to work for me.

Also the workers are with the exception of 1 chair usually not allowed to sit on the non profit board or hold shares.. again this is not happening in this case if this is what I see here.

What should happen is this from where I come from hehe.

-there is only chair who is a paid employee of the actual company allowed on the board usualy for the executive director or their equivalent that can sit on the board in an advisory role but I can't remember its been awhile I dont think they can even vote

Workers and company workings are seperate from the actual non-profit organization also to avoid conflict of interest. The actual company can be joe's widgets or whatever and how the company works and the prices and how it sells the widgets and the colours can all be decided by the "head widjet maker" who is a paid manager/employee of the organization. Any accounts cannot however draw interest all money's must spent or paid to workers or reinvested and no members of the actual no profit organization is allowed to collect a salary ...

This is Canadian law though again I have no idea how it works in France, but its probably not a whole lot different.

Lastly no profit is supposed to mean that "not for profit" so the owners of the non profit organization would gain nothing really no salary, no profit, no bank interest and most importantly no income.. non profit organizations cannot make income which is why all their bank accounts have to make 0% interest. These guys seem to be expecting to collect a salary in the case of the 4 named people that means they are not a part of the non-profit thing but as we can see they are... so I am confused hehe..

Anyhow if the company ryzonel is the actual software company those guys you mentioned cannot be a part of the non profit organization and cannot vote as a point of law I would assume xavier is going to be a paid employee of ryzonel or run ryzom that means he cant be a part of the non profit organization or vote on their board. They can donate to the organization but that is the end of what they can do

[iphdrunk]

(...) not a part of the non-profit thing but as we can see they are... so I am confused hehe..

Anyhow if the company ryzonel is the actual software company (...)

To clarify things a bit... the actual company created is not a non-profit organization, but a "societé par actions simplifiée" SAS (like a public limited company, with some simplifications), made of 3 partners, one of them being a non-profit organization, representing the community, with 1/3 of the capital. The SAS can make profit, and it is in its fouding status that there can me a "CEO", with salary fixed or proportional to benefit or business volume.

[ummax]

okay the non profit organization would actualy not be able to hold shares in this type of company in canada and the only cases of non profit organizations taking part in other businesses is when they are some public service sort of thing like a hospital or a community center which doesn't make money it just burns it up hehe.

For instance the City of Ottawa is a non profit organization (its also government) people who collect salaries are not part of the organization they are simply employees the board etc is completely different. Probably works different there but they aren't allowed to invest in anything that would draw a profit.


anyhow it looks like the community and shareholding power is set to never be a majority as its only set at 1/3 which is fine, but makes no sense really and is just being used as a source of funding which is also fine hehe, but I dont think it will have much say in any event since the business is a seperate entity and has to be.

[ashling]

I'll be happy to rise the issue on your behalf.

Hi Fattus do you know if anything been said about how ryzom.org would handle people that have been baned by Nevrex in the past? Would be a pity to see bad elements being able to come back into the community if the bans were cleared.

[fattus]

The issue as not even been mentioned afaik. Good point though, I'll rise it.

[vardarac]

I've seen alot of posts that seem to go like this:
"Ryzom run by players? One hit monsters with huge loots everywhere!"
"Players can't host the servers needed to run the game!"
"Democratic game decisions? Everthing will go pvp and everybody gets nerved!"

Let's look at existing open source projects. Let's take Linux.
The sourcecode is available to anyone, anyone can submit his sourcecode to enhance the product. This sourcecode has to meet certain demands.
You can't just submit code and expect it to get implemented, or else you'd have any hacker submitting their own backdoor.

Just because Ryzom becomes open source, doesn't mean every numbskull gets to alter the main product.
SURE you could alter your copy of the sourcecode and run your own little server.
All you need now is some silly player to connect to YOUR server. And when you 'pwn' them with your little hacks, they're out of your server and you can 'pwn' on you own against npc's.

Players won't be running the server, the company behind the Free Ryzom will be running it, from the FEE that you still have to pay for playing on the main server.

I believe most people aren't familair with opensource projects, or think Ryzom will be owned by just players.
Ryzom WON'T be just owned by players.
And PLEASE read a bit into opensource projects or what the "Free Software Foundation" stands for.

They aren't just saving Ryzom from dissapearing ('cause you DON'T know who the other candidates are, for all you know it's sony trying to erradicate a competing mmorpg), They are also giving players the chance to use the RYZOM resources to create new and innovative idea's for the game.
Once this project is succeful, you can start sideprojects to enhance the game.
Rabid coders can try to make a true linux version of the game.
Or wacko programmers can try to squeeze it into a pda.
Students can try to make advanced AI systems using the released sourcecode of Ryzom as project.
Behaviour researchers could add monsters that demostrate simple evolutionary processes by giving players breedable pets.
This is what the Free Ryzom Project means to me, not "omg, players wil haxor teh game if players are GM!". Cause that is not what's going on.


Please read my whole post.

[ashling]

I've seen alot of posts that seem to go like this:
"Ryzom run by players? One hit monsters with huge loots everywhere!"
"Players can't host the servers needed to run the game!"
"Democratic game decisions? Everthing will go pvp and everybody gets nerved!"

That's funny I haven't seen many if any complaints like that here.

This is what the Free Ryzom Project means to me, not "omg, players wil haxor teh game if players are GM!". Cause that is not what's going on.

Well geeh thanks but portraying anyone that has reservations about the Free Ryzom Project as overreacting and unreasonible doesn't help convince me (and I'm willing to bet others) that ryzom.org is a good idea. Espically when wanting to know what would happen to the current top class GM system if Jolt is removed is a fair question and if it isn't asked and discussed then it makes it more likely that is could be abused.

[vardarac]

That's funny I haven't seen many if any complaints like that here.

I'm not going to post examples, that would be a personal attack.

Well geeh thanks but portraying anyone that has reservations about the Free Ryzom Project as overreacting and unreasonible...

I was portraying stereotypical uninformed reactions. If you feel not properly portrayed in this it most likely doesn't envolve you. Matter of fact, there isn't anyone that fits the profile. It's more like a parodie. If you fit a parodie you should start a comedy show on national television, like 'Friends' or 'Darma and greg'

doesn't help convince me (and I'm willing to bet others) that ryzom.org is a good idea. Espically when wanting to know what would happen to the current top class GM system if Jolt is removed is a fair question and if it isn't asked and discussed then it makes it more likely that is could be abused.

Oh I'm sorry if you thought it was to convince people, I just wanted to rant a bit and inform people about what 'I' believe will result from this whole 'Free Ryzom' jig.
And you could hang around in #ryzom.org at irc:\\irc.freenode.org to ask these questions. I found out about that chat channel at ryzom.org