ContentDB is free software, so you can host your own. And the content server isn't hard-coded into the source code, you can change it in the menu. So yes, it's pretty easy all things considered.
Do I understand correctly that I only need to activate the “Host Server” option when starting Luanti to get such a menu? I started Luanti with the “Host Server” option activated. I did not find a menu like the one on the screenshot.
contentdb_settings.png (35.22 KiB) Viewed 902 times
ContentDB is free software, so you can host your own. And the content server isn't hard-coded into the source code, you can change it in the menu. So yes, it's pretty easy all things considered.
Do I understand correctly that I only need to activate the “Host Server” option when starting Luanti to get such a menu? I started Luanti with the “Host Server” option activated. I did not find a menu like the one on the screenshot.
contentdb_settings.png
This is a screenshot of the settings menu with a search entered. It demonstrates that there are settings for asking Luanti to change the content server from the default of the main ContentDB away to another server. For instance, you could run a ContentDB server with content not intended for UK residents which would not be bound to the terms of the UK's Online Safety Act (the topic of this thread).
To host your own ContentDB, you need to follow the instructions in its README and Getting Started document.
The "Host Server" option is wholly unrelated to ContentDB. That option is for hosting multiplayer games of Luanti.
Thanks for your care and attention in handling this regrettable new requirement, really appreciate all the work that goes into ContentDB and keeping it running. All in all, it's a good compromise and not much was lost.
In case anyone's interested: I suggested a few changes following this news, to make supporting alternative server lists and content sources easier on users. Hopefully there aren't any blockers to supporting multiple sources in the menu and merging identical results in case of duplicate entries.
Beyond that I can only encourage hosts in the Luanti community to try running at least one unofficial ContentDB instance as a precaution and see how that goes, ideally not bound to any content rules: Mods normally use 16px textures and simple blocky models, drive storage and network load shouldn't be too high especially for casual downloads. Same for the server list; I vaguely remember someone mentioning that on a few occasions, the team was asked to de-list some servers after people complained about their theme or content, hopefully this can help with avoiding those situations as well.
lmk how that goes when you end up with license hell content, nsfw, other illegal content and your local government knocking on your door
Depends on the area and what's considered illegal. In any normal place (as many as we have left on this planet) it shouldn't be a problem if it's not real life illegal content or copyright infringement, even NSFW shouldn't matter long as it's not imagery of real people... of course we no longer live in that world and don't know when things will finally start to calm down. For now there are still oasis of normalcy, if anyone's located in one they can help with alternative content hosts to mitigate disruptions.
If this really is the worst timeline and it keeps getting worse still, we'll be in the absurd situation of having to host pixelated game mods on Tor: If you have Tor installed system-wide I presume you can use a custom ContentDB server through an onion URL and Luanti will recognize it. Same for IPFS, I remember wondering if Minetest could be better integrated with that for decentralized world storage.
lmk how that goes when you end up with license hell content, nsfw, other illegal content and your local government knocking on your door
I'm not sure what to describe this phenomenon with, perhaps the Sword of Damocles. Basically, any alternative platform which promises looser rules than the predominant platform is cursed to (seemingly) primarily revolve around all of the stuff that was never destined to end up on the main platforms. See, for instance, how any alternative to YouTube will hit you with stuff out of left field that YouTube (in its "infinite wisdom") would ban. Actually, having said that, Odysee's home page looks downright normal today.
Even if existing content won't be affected, there's no guarantee this will stop now that the precedent is there: Anything can be added to the list if one of those people is having a bad day. I'm afraid to bet that given enough time, you'll be asked to remove the sword and the bow items because they're considered symbols of violence: I'm not going that far yet but after this I have no doubt it's legitimately on the table with much more, it's all foot on the gas pedal and no brakes at this point.
Even without the OSA, there's still reason to have other CDB instances - the official instance is quite strict on licenses and doesn't allow NSFW or more adult content. So a separate instance for this would provide a place for this content
Comparing the UK to China or North Korea is quite laughable and again unhelpful.
I am no fan of the OSA, especially as it required me to do a lot of work to keep ContentDB compliant. I would appreciate more "oh what a silly law, thanks for doing this though" than comparing the UK to North Korea. I'm a volunteer on open source, I'm not the prime minister
I must to agree with it. If know I it correct, it is similar as in Czech republic where I live in. We have too very complicated, non-efficient, much of paper producing byrocracy. We don't have any concentration camp for 3 generations, we don't have any non-free hard-work uran mines, in our state is big verbal freedom (but many people using high level of self-censorship).
We all think it is a great idea to have other instances of ContentDB. Do we know of any other public instances of ContentDB, for which we can compile a list?
I love how the code is available: https://github.com/luanti-org/contentdb. However, I'm not sure what benefit it would provide me to run it, considering I run only headless servers and appear to need to manage mods from command line where git seems to be easier rather than download and explode a zip from a contentdb instance. Thankfully, only a server needs the mods and it will distribute to all clients who connect so clients do not have to manage mods to match a server. That would be a big headache!
