06 Jun, 2009, Hades_Kane wrote in the 102nd comment:
Cratylus said:
Lol!
I kind of can't believe this thread is still going… give me a minute to reply :p
06 Jun, 2009, Emmu wrote in the 103rd comment:
Banner said:
I believe Flumpy has been here longer than you. An established member of the community is someone that has created an account and contributes, not lurks as a guest. In my own opinion.
I can honestly say that I haven't known Runter for a long time, and I don't know Midboss at all, but I can say that Runter is an excellent programmer and I don't see any reason for him to claim someone has stolen his code just to do it. He obviously already has the code, and what purpose would he have to claim Midboss stole it other than to defend himself and claim his own innocence? And the possibilites of them writing the same exact code using the same exact methods? Impossible, but who wrote it first?
If the snippet was indeed removed, then perhaps someone felt that Runter was correct in his statements and there is truth behind what he says. As has been stated previously several times, however, this thread is going nowhere without logs or proof of any wrongdoing by either party, and bringing it up in public without said proof is of no use to any of us exluding the two involved.
I can honestly say that I haven't known Runter for a long time, and I don't know Midboss at all, but I can say that Runter is an excellent programmer and I don't see any reason for him to claim someone has stolen his code just to do it. He obviously already has the code, and what purpose would he have to claim Midboss stole it other than to defend himself and claim his own innocence? And the possibilites of them writing the same exact code using the same exact methods? Impossible, but who wrote it first?
If the snippet was indeed removed, then perhaps someone felt that Runter was correct in his statements and there is truth behind what he says. As has been stated previously several times, however, this thread is going nowhere without logs or proof of any wrongdoing by either party, and bringing it up in public without said proof is of no use to any of us exluding the two involved.
As I said, I lurk. And no, I believe the last time I came here was a tad more than 3 months ago.
The thing is, all the credibility Runter has, Midboss has as well. Runter just hangs out here more. And the snippet being removed doesn't prove anything except that Runter went behind Mid's back.
You are right, the odds of two people writing the same exact code are staggering. The odds of Mid thinking ahead over a year to post stolen code that nobody can verify even existed at the only place and time he would have had access to it on a website that wasn't even around at the time are pretty bad too. The odds of someone noticing a similarity to their own work and lieing to satisfy their ego? Not so much.
06 Jun, 2009, Asylumius wrote in the 104th comment:
Banner said:
Did you just draw that? :P
Cratylus said:
Did you just draw that? :P
Last-Modified: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:01:52 GMT
Like a serial killer, Crat keeps a tool kit at the ready containing all of the equipment required to pwn n00bs and take their 100th posts. God knows how many victims are out there.
EDIT: Oh, and I'm not sure what you're talking about, but Crat does in fact have the 100th.
06 Jun, 2009, Banner wrote in the 105th comment:
Asylumius said:
Last-Modified: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:01:52 GMT
Like a serial killer, Crat keeps a tool kit at the ready containing all of the equipment required to pwn n00bs and take their 100th posts. God knows how many victims are out there.
EDIT: Oh, and I'm not sure what you're talking about, but Crat does in fact have the 100th.
Banner said:
Did you just draw that? :P
Cratylus said:
Did you just draw that? :P
Last-Modified: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:01:52 GMT
Like a serial killer, Crat keeps a tool kit at the ready containing all of the equipment required to pwn n00bs and take their 100th posts. God knows how many victims are out there.
EDIT: Oh, and I'm not sure what you're talking about, but Crat does in fact have the 100th.
I think I was counting replies whereas you're supposed to count the OP's first post as well.
06 Jun, 2009, Emmu wrote in the 106th comment:
Banner said:
I think I was counting replies whereas you're supposed to count the OP's first post as well.
Asylumius said:
Last-Modified: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:01:52 GMT
Like a serial killer, Crat keeps a tool kit at the ready containing all of the equipment required to pwn n00bs and take their 100th posts. God knows how many victims are out there.
EDIT: Oh, and I'm not sure what you're talking about, but Crat does in fact have the 100th.
Banner said:
Did you just draw that? :P
Cratylus said:
Did you just draw that? :P
Last-Modified: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:01:52 GMT
Like a serial killer, Crat keeps a tool kit at the ready containing all of the equipment required to pwn n00bs and take their 100th posts. God knows how many victims are out there.
EDIT: Oh, and I'm not sure what you're talking about, but Crat does in fact have the 100th.
I think I was counting replies whereas you're supposed to count the OP's first post as well.
It says #100 right on the post.
06 Jun, 2009, tphegley wrote in the 107th comment:
I myself am interested in seeing Midboss's version and Runter's version side by side. I think since it was brought out in the open by Midboss and Runter then the only way to settle this is by pure evidence rather the heresay.
What say you?
What say you?
06 Jun, 2009, Emmu wrote in the 108th comment:
tphegley said:
I myself am interested in seeing Midboss's version and Runter's version side by side. I think since it was brought out in the open by Midboss and Runter then the only way to settle this is by pure evidence rather the heresay.
What say you?
What say you?
I say there'd be no point in doing that. I believe Runter when he says the two are exactly the same line for line, because the version he posted was totally unknown to the world until today. And since he used pastebin and not the code repository, there's no last modified date to go off of. Therefore there's no proof that he didn't, in fact, copy Mid's code. Unfortunately, the version of Mid's in the repository was the only existing copy I know of unless Hades or Mid kept a backup somewhere, which is doubtful.
06 Jun, 2009, Hades_Kane wrote in the 109th comment:
Runter said:
I think the fact that the snippet has been removed speaks for itself.
Banner said:
If the snippet was indeed removed, then perhaps someone felt that Runter was correct in his statements and there is truth behind what he says.
I'm currently talking in private with the person who removed the code, and that's really all I'm going to say about that out of respect for that person. Let's chill on trying to use this as evidence for now, shall we?
Runter said:
Midboss was an immortal on FFC before it got shut down indefinitely. He had access when he wrote the code to my updated code. Not the crap thats floating around now.
Midboss was a builder on FFC before it got shut down. Sure, he had access to the game, but he didn't have access to the code. Also, when he "wrote the code to" your updated code, this was about a year after his split from FFC and about 6 months after FFC wasn't being actively ran was listed on its greeting as just being up for the sake of still having it up.
Runter said:
Comparing it to FFC code proves nothing if that is what you are trying to say. The code circulating with FFC, which everyone knows I wrote as well, was version 1. The recursive version. This was the next version written to not be recursive.
This is still one of the inconsistencies I'm having trouble reconciling. The code that's floating out there now, the one that is currently being ran, could be called a snapshot of the game right before Kai leaving. If Kai didn't have the code installed there, then I still don't see how its possible Midboss could have gotten ahold of it. Josh was notoriously paranoid, and he and Midboss always had a rocky relationship. If I recall correctly, once Josh took over FFC, he actually invited Midboss back to the MUD to be an Immortal as a means of consolidating his power there, as Midboss represented a portion of the game unhappy with Josh's policies and getting Midboss on board was an important step in trying to quell opposition. Josh was not only notoriously paranoid, but he was also quite vicious in regards to perceived threats to his position or game, and was known to go to lengths at spamming MUDs he considered competition or even threaten if not attempt to get them hacked. Those things known about Josh, combined with the always uneasy relationship between Midboss and Josh, I think its reasonable to conclude that Josh would have never shared access to or given any part of the code to Midboss. The question remains, if Midboss stole your code, how did he even gain access to it? Of course, you don't really have a way to answer that, no one does. You are describing something, putting aside what I know of Midboss and what I've seen personally, that just doesn't add up to a possibility based on the known facts.
I'm not trying to smear you, I certainly don't condone code theft, and if I could be convinced he stole your code, then I'd admit fault in defending him.
Banner said:
I can say that Runter is an excellent programmer and I don't see any reason for him to claim someone has stolen his code just to do it.
Then you see where I'm coming from in regards to Midboss :p He was also an excellent programmer (he stopped coding about a year and a half ago partly due to drama like this) and has had no reason to steal anyone else's code or pass it off as his own.
But really, I think just about everything that could have been said has been, and without some further proof I don't know how much of a point there is to continuing. I'm certainly not going to spend another couple of hours on this, so my next response will more than likely be hours from now if something pops up I feel the need to respond to.
06 Jun, 2009, Hades_Kane wrote in the 110th comment:
How amusing would it be if this turned into a flame war over what constituted the 100th post :p
06 Jun, 2009, Cratylus wrote in the 111th comment:
Quote
You are right, the odds of two people writing the same exact code are staggering.
There's lots of ways that identical text can wind up in
work that authors legitimately believe is their own. It's
not unusual in the slightest. The question is usually
resolved by keeping an open mind and by comparing the
totality of the contested material with the totality of
the claimed original.
There's even software out there designed to analize and
compute the likelihood of plagiarism, to degrees of confidence!
I'm talking about academic publishing, of course, but I
think this applies to the kind of shared-developent authorship
that happens in mudding, too. I can think of many good faith
ways that blocks of code can travel from file to file and wind
up appearing to author A as though author B is a thief.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if elements of Runter's code
actually were in Midboss's code. It wouldn't surprise me
at all if Midboss were totally unaware of it. My guess is
that if people can stow away their epeens for a little bit,
some innocent understanding could be arrived at.
Having said that, I'd just like to reiterate something that
seems to come up more often than it should. If you want your
code to stay top secret, don't let other people see it.
Period. I know, I know, you should be able to trust your
balh blah and there's a minimum of yadda yadda you should be
able to piffle wah.
But honestly, folks. If you're going to be upset enough to
dramafy a forum if someone filches yer code, then probably
you shouldn't leave it lying around where someone can filch it.
Just a thought, not saying anyone here's a filcher.
-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
(eleventy-first!)
06 Jun, 2009, quixadhal wrote in the 112th comment:
On the next episode of "TOTAL DRAMA ...", the contestants discuss the use of simple and logical variable names, the indent tool, and how such things can make your code look just like someone else's!!! Immunity from being voted off will be granted to the first contestant who re-discovers the bubble sort<...! Don't miss it!!!
This message was brought to you by the letter 'Y', and the number '4'.
This message was brought to you by the letter 'Y', and the number '4'.
06 Jun, 2009, Emmu wrote in the 113th comment:
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, it actually happens a lot. But just saying 'coincidence' won't cut it without proof that either Midboss never came in contact with Runter's version of the code, or that he coded it himself from scratch (including betas).
Honestly with all the scenarios I've thought of, sheer coincidence does seem like the most likely one. The others all involve Mid having far more ability in several areas other than programming than he led me to believe at the time, or Runter attempting something malicious, which as Chris said earlier, would be beyond explanation.
Though if we look at just the facts here, Mid released first. At the copyright office, that means he wins.
Honestly with all the scenarios I've thought of, sheer coincidence does seem like the most likely one. The others all involve Mid having far more ability in several areas other than programming than he led me to believe at the time, or Runter attempting something malicious, which as Chris said earlier, would be beyond explanation.
Though if we look at just the facts here, Mid released first. At the copyright office, that means he wins.
06 Jun, 2009, Davion wrote in the 114th comment:
Emmu said:
But just saying 'coincidence' won't cut it without proof that either Midboss never came in contact with Runter's version of the code, or that he coded it himself from scratch (including betas).
If he came to me for help, he would have definitely come in contact with the code as that's where I learned about the 3x3 mapper and its glory.
11 Jun, 2009, Guest wrote in the 115th comment:
Alright. Having been asked to investigate this issue by at least 3 people involved in the preceding thread, I've done some digging and talked to people and was able to come to some conclusions based on that. So here we go.
The mapper code that Midboss uploaded was claimed by Runter to be derived from his code.
Runter has told me that his code was most likely derived from another previous source. Davion believes it to be from this one. The initial work he did was on Feltain.
Somewhere along the way, how we don't know (and frankly don't care) Kai was in possession of Runter's code. This worked its way into FFC.
Runter and Kai had a dispute, they parted ways, the code remained there apparently under a "no distribute" agreement.
Kai later left FFC and transferred control to someone named Josh. Midboss enters the picture here.
Midboss works on the mapper code, coming up with the version he posts here under the snippet that was since deleted.
Runter eventually notices and reports the file. Davion sees that it is either an exact match, or very close to the code Runter last knew of.
This thread results - accusations flying. The main claim is that Midboss got the code from FFC.
Hopefully that's a more or less brief rundown.
—-
I have examined copies of the deleted snippet and one of FFC which was provided to me. The code in the snapshot for FFC was dated in 2004 and bears very little if any resemblance to the snippet Midboss uploaded. So the claim that he took the code directly from there does not appear to be valid.
I then proceeded to hit up Google looking for possible independent sources for the 3x3 mapper code, using two of the function names within the FFC code to see what came up. The results were sparse, but there are a few.
One was for Circlemud, credited to Edward Felch, located here: http://www.circlemud.org/pub/CircleMUD/c... The credits indicate a 2001 date, so the 8 or so year timeline is in effect. Edward credits someone going by the name mlkesl@stthomas.edu - and indicating the Circle code derives from an earlier version for Rom.
That earlier Rom version was much harder to track down, but I eventually found it: http://web.archive.org/web/2003122001103... (click on Ascii Automapper) There's no date on this but archive.org lists the snapshot of the page as 2003, but clearly in order for Edward to have used it the code needs to be older than April of 2001.
Going through those two, the FFC code, and Midboss' upload reveals they all share some things in common as far as variable names and routines within functions, even though some of the function names are no longer the same. It's fairly easy to spot the similarities.
The problem as I see it right now is this.
The code in FFC is not properly credited, in any way. So there's no way to know who wrote what and would be reasonable to assume it belonged to them. If Midboss was in fact given that code to work from, he'd have no idea where it originated. Josh may not even have been able to tell him that. Midboss was in the right to add his own credits to the file for the work he did and as far as he was able to determine was also within his rights to distribute the results.
If Midboss was working from some other copy provided, that code also lacked the proper credits which clearly should have been there since all parties I've been in contact with acknowledge derivation from the older snippet by Kroudar.
Either way, it's my opinion that Midboss has done nothing wrong here and the accusations made against him were entirely baseless.
However, the second issue remains. The code was in fact not properly credited, and even though that was unintended, the snippet itself is going to remain deleted.
If anyone wants to discuss my findings with me, please do so via PM. This thread will remain locked.
The mapper code that Midboss uploaded was claimed by Runter to be derived from his code.
Runter has told me that his code was most likely derived from another previous source. Davion believes it to be from this one. The initial work he did was on Feltain.
Somewhere along the way, how we don't know (and frankly don't care) Kai was in possession of Runter's code. This worked its way into FFC.
Runter and Kai had a dispute, they parted ways, the code remained there apparently under a "no distribute" agreement.
Kai later left FFC and transferred control to someone named Josh. Midboss enters the picture here.
Midboss works on the mapper code, coming up with the version he posts here under the snippet that was since deleted.
Runter eventually notices and reports the file. Davion sees that it is either an exact match, or very close to the code Runter last knew of.
This thread results - accusations flying. The main claim is that Midboss got the code from FFC.
Hopefully that's a more or less brief rundown.
—-
I have examined copies of the deleted snippet and one of FFC which was provided to me. The code in the snapshot for FFC was dated in 2004 and bears very little if any resemblance to the snippet Midboss uploaded. So the claim that he took the code directly from there does not appear to be valid.
I then proceeded to hit up Google looking for possible independent sources for the 3x3 mapper code, using two of the function names within the FFC code to see what came up. The results were sparse, but there are a few.
One was for Circlemud, credited to Edward Felch, located here: http://www.circlemud.org/pub/CircleMUD/c... The credits indicate a 2001 date, so the 8 or so year timeline is in effect. Edward credits someone going by the name mlkesl@stthomas.edu - and indicating the Circle code derives from an earlier version for Rom.
That earlier Rom version was much harder to track down, but I eventually found it: http://web.archive.org/web/2003122001103... (click on Ascii Automapper) There's no date on this but archive.org lists the snapshot of the page as 2003, but clearly in order for Edward to have used it the code needs to be older than April of 2001.
Going through those two, the FFC code, and Midboss' upload reveals they all share some things in common as far as variable names and routines within functions, even though some of the function names are no longer the same. It's fairly easy to spot the similarities.
The problem as I see it right now is this.
The code in FFC is not properly credited, in any way. So there's no way to know who wrote what and would be reasonable to assume it belonged to them. If Midboss was in fact given that code to work from, he'd have no idea where it originated. Josh may not even have been able to tell him that. Midboss was in the right to add his own credits to the file for the work he did and as far as he was able to determine was also within his rights to distribute the results.
If Midboss was working from some other copy provided, that code also lacked the proper credits which clearly should have been there since all parties I've been in contact with acknowledge derivation from the older snippet by Kroudar.
Either way, it's my opinion that Midboss has done nothing wrong here and the accusations made against him were entirely baseless.
However, the second issue remains. The code was in fact not properly credited, and even though that was unintended, the snippet itself is going to remain deleted.
If anyone wants to discuss my findings with me, please do so via PM. This thread will remain locked.
Did you just draw that? :P
One second, you missed it by 1. I got 100. :)