Luanti Forums

Posted: **Tue Jul 02, 2024 13:49**

Hello. I thought the crosshair from the Mesecons Lab game was really cool and wanted to make a texture pack that changes the default cursor to it. I knew I could because the license (as for 99.9% of other minetest media) is free, specifically it's CC-BY-SA 3.0.

I read the license carefully and made a README.md file with the copyright for Mesecons Lab's creator and my name. I put the year 2020-2024 next to him, but I'm not sure if that's the correct date when he started developing it, or if I'm even supposed to put the date. I have decided to license my work under the same one so I'm sure it is legal, so the LICENSE file contains the text for the CC-BY-SA-3.0 license as automatically generated by Codeberg.
My git: https://codeberg.org/NameNotQuality/mes ... sor-mt.git

However, I still am a beginner and am not sure if I'm safe from everything. On example, legalese is kind of confusing, and I'm not sure if I did exactly everything the license wanted me to or is there something hidden in its text. I also wanna know if there are hidden legal traps, e.g. with copyright or something similar to software patents. Really, have I missed something important in general?

Lastly, am I also supposed to do something in terms of publishing on ContentDB and minetest? E.g. did I miss some sort of config file?

EDIT: I forgot to say that when I entered the link of the git site https://codeberg.org/NameNotQuality/mes ... sor-mt.git at the first page when trying to upload the package, it said it couldn't access it:

Code: Select all

remote: Unauthorized
fatal: Authentication failed for 'https://codeberg.org/NameNotQuality/mesecons-lab-cursor-mt.git/'

I really don't want legal problems to happen, especially because they're really scary, and can do damage both to minetest and me. Hopefully it is easy to do this sort of legal stuff, like licensing and publishing packages.

Posted: **Tue Jul 02, 2024 16:02**

NameNotQuality wrote: ↑
Tue Jul 02, 2024 13:49
I read the license carefully and made a README.md file with the copyright for Mesecons Lab's creator and my name. I put the year 2020-2024 next to him, but I'm not sure if that's the correct date when he started developing it, or if I'm even supposed to put the date.

Usually you should put the date that the specific file was last edited. If it was edited by multiple people, give a year for the last edit of each person. In this case, it's just one person and one version of the file. You can find this info with git with git log textures/crosshair.png inside of the mesecons_lab repository.

For beginners it may seem imposing to use git on the command line, so instead: On websites GitHub and Codeberg, you click through the file browser to the file you want the history of, then on the History button on the right hand side of the page; the placement is very similar between those two sites.

The history view shows me there is only one revision of the file, from 2021-06-30. That is your copyright year.

NameNotQuality wrote: ↑
Tue Jul 02, 2024 13:49
I have decided to license my work under the same one so I'm sure it is legal, so the LICENSE file contains the text for the CC-BY-SA-3.0 license as automatically generated by Codeberg.
My git: https://codeberg.org/NameNotQuality/mes ... sor-mt.git

Using the same licence is the way to go, since your work is basically entirely a derivative work of BB's and any other parts are basically too short/simple for copyright.

NameNotQuality wrote: ↑
Tue Jul 02, 2024 13:49
However, I still am a beginner and am not sure if I'm safe from everything. On example, legalese is kind of confusing, and I'm not sure if I did exactly everything the license wanted me to or is there something hidden in its text. I also wanna know if there are hidden legal traps, e.g. with copyright or something similar to software patents. Really, have I missed something important in general?

You haven't copied any software element of Mesecons Lab, only images, so no patents will apply. The licence is CC BY-SA: Attribution & ShareAlike are the restrictions. You attributed BB properly and you are granting others the same rights as you to modify and distribute their copies. You're fine.

NameNotQuality wrote: ↑
Tue Jul 02, 2024 13:49
Lastly, am I also supposed to do something in terms of publishing on ContentDB and minetest? E.g. did I miss some sort of config file?

You have texture_pack.conf and .cdb.json. I think that's it. Many packages don't even have a .cdb.json, but just manually applied info on the package. When you import from git, you should just about be able to skip filling most of the details in since they'll be prefilled. It's only the basic like name and metadata like tags.

NameNotQuality wrote: ↑
Tue Jul 02, 2024 13:49
EDIT: I forgot to say that when I entered the link of the git site https://codeberg.org/NameNotQuality/mes ... sor-mt.git at the first page when trying to upload the package, it said it couldn't access it:
Code: Select all
remote: Unauthorized
fatal: Authentication failed for 'https://codeberg.org/NameNotQuality/mesecons-lab-cursor-mt.git/'

I think you should remove the final /. If not, try again later, maybe Codeberg has issues. If still not later, Rubenwardy may need to be told of an issue with ContentDB.

NameNotQuality wrote: ↑
Tue Jul 02, 2024 13:49
I really don't want legal problems to happen, especially because they're really scary, and can do damage both to minetest and me. Hopefully it is easy to do this sort of legal stuff, like licensing and publishing packages.

You've done a diligent job at following the licence terms, everything will be fine. It would be even better if BB had used BY-SA 4.0 since it reduces his potential to copyright troll by making the termination take more notice, but oh well. Don't let that worry you - CC version 3.0 copyleft trolling is rare and I haven't heard of it inside of Minetest. I've played on his server and talked to the associated mt-mods team. They're not going to be stressed about this kind of reuse at all.

Posted: **Tue Jul 02, 2024 16:48**

For beginners it may seem imposing to use git on the command line, so instead: On websites GitHub and Codeberg, you click through the file browser to the file you want the history of, then on the History button on the right hand side of the page; the placement is very similar between those two sites.

By beginner I meant a beginner in licensing, I didn't know what to do at all, and thought everything could hide a trap.

The history view shows me there is only one revision of the file, from 2021-06-30. That is your copyright year.

Alright, I'll change the '2020-2024' year next to BB's name to '2021'.

I think you should remove the final /. If not, try again later, maybe Codeberg has issues. If still not later, Rubenwardy may need to be told of an issue with ContentDB.

I didn't put the slash at all, I guess it just appended it automatically.
Maybe the issue is related to the fact that when I wanted to clone my repo using git I needed to put my username and password, and contentdb doesn't expect that? But why though, I didn't make my repo private. Should I just delete the texture_pack.conf and .cdb.json if I choose the manual contentdb upload option?

You've done a diligent job at following the licence terms, everything will be fine. It would be even better if BB had used BY-SA 4.0 since it reduces his potential to copyright troll by making the termination take more notice, but oh well. Don't let that worry you - CC version 3.0 copyleft trolling is rare and I haven't heard of it inside of Minetest. I've played on his server and talked to the associated mt-mods team. They're not going to be stressed about this kind of reuse at all.

I also think he should've used 4.0, because even the creative commons site said that 3.0 is worse and that licensing with 4.0 is better because e.g. it's more user friendly. I never heard of copyleft trolling earlier, I just searched it up, and I think it means suing people for making simple mistakes while e.g. giving credit or not putting a link to the license, I guess that's why it is worth it to read a license carefully, since I read about those and put correct credits and URL. I earlier said similar to software patents and meant things like this with trolling, but I would not imagine BB doing this anyway. I also think they would not be angry about this kind of reuse at all, since else they would make their work propietary.

Also, thank you very much for helping me with this! I think I should be able to publish my package now on contentDB...

Edit: I tried doing so doing the manual method but when I chose to import files from git it also printed

Code: Select all

''fatal: Authentication failed for 'https://codeberg.org/NameNotQuality/mesecons-lab-cursor-mt.git/''

Another edit: I got a notification from a bot and it said

Code: Select all

Error: 'fatal: could not read Username for 'https://codeberg.org': No such device or address'.

Posted: **Wed Jul 03, 2024 03:01**

NameNotQuality wrote: ↑
Tue Jul 02, 2024 16:48
By beginner I meant a beginner in licensing, I didn't know what to do at all, and thought everything could hide a trap.

And I meant beginner git users, since I didn't know your level of git and was trying to give accessible advice. But looking at your repo you do use custom git commit messages not the awful pre-fill ones that GitHub etc. give you.

NameNotQuality wrote: ↑
Tue Jul 02, 2024 16:48
I didn't put the slash at all, I guess it just appended it automatically.

Here is a working Codeberg URL that I package I maintain is current using on ContentDB:

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https://codeberg.org/advtrains_supplemental/advtrains_bboe_1080

It seems to work if you don't include the .git

NameNotQuality wrote: ↑
Tue Jul 02, 2024 16:48
Edit: I tried doing so doing the manual method but when I chose to import files from git it also printed
Code: Select all
''fatal: Authentication failed for 'https://codeberg.org/NameNotQuality/mesecons-lab-cursor-mt.git/''

It seems not to matter whether you use automatic or manual, the git clone from ContentDB's end is still failing. See my above advice.

Posted: **Wed Jul 03, 2024 08:46**

Wait a second, I was thinking if my account's visibility being set to 'limited' (which means only logged in users can see it) meant that contentdb can't access the git. I tried creating a release after making my account 'public' and it worked!

Still thank you very much for trying to help.

Edit: wait, I have one more problem, I couldn't search this up: when I put the texture pack in the textures folder in minetest and enabled it in minetest, it disabled another texture pack I had on, specifically baunilha. Enabling the baunilha again disables the crosshair texture pack I made, so they cannot be enabled together. Do I need to fix that?

Posted: **Wed Jul 03, 2024 11:44**

NameNotQuality wrote: ↑
Wed Jul 03, 2024 08:46
Edit: wait, I have one more problem, I couldn't search this up: when I put the texture pack in the textures folder in minetest and enabled it in minetest, it disabled another texture pack I had on, specifically baunilha. Enabling the baunilha again disables the crosshair texture pack I made, so they cannot be enabled together. Do I need to fix that?

That's how it goes with texture packs, one at a time. To be able to enable multiple there would need to be some kind of priority system, which Minetest doesn't have (imagine what could happen with two packs with the same texture). I guess it's best to just give the advice that people need to merge your pack into another if they want that.

Posted: **Wed Jul 03, 2024 13:27**

Oh alright, so it's minetest fault, so I've done nothing wrong.

Once again though, thank you for staying here, I could'nt have done this without you.

Posted: **Fri Jul 17, 2026 15:47**

Great post! I hope you can publish your texture pack soon. Keep going, your hard work will help many players. Wishing you the best of luck with your project!

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