waiting for resolution RAZBAM Situation Post Archive (will be deleted)

[MAXsenna]

1 hour ago, NineLine said:

We have some solutions in place that we should now be able to keep older modules working even if no longer supported by a 3rd Party, I cannot go into detail on this as I do not have all the technical information, but the important thing is older modules which are abandoned by a 3rd Party should remain working as last left. Updates, improvements etc could not be done though. 

We do have a stipulation in place for source code, but if the contract is older than when that was added then we rely on the 3rd Party doing this, who has or hasn't I do not have any info on. 

That's great news!

[Hammer1-1]

3 hours ago, NineLine said:

We have some solutions in place that we should now be able to keep older modules working even if no longer supported by a 3rd Party, I cannot go into detail on this as I do not have all the technical information, but the important thing is older modules which are abandoned by a 3rd Party should remain working as last left. Updates, improvements etc could not be done though. 

We do have a stipulation in place for source code, but if the contract is older than when that was added then we rely on the 3rd Party doing this, who has or hasn't I do not have any info on. 

I would believe that all contracts would have been amended immediately following the backlash from VEAO and agreed on by every party. Why would that not have been the case? That to me sounds like a very serious oversight.

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, Hammer1-1 said:

I would believe that all contracts would have been amended immediately following the backlash from VEAO and agreed on by every party. Why would that not have been the case? That to me sounds like a very serious oversight.

Why would the 3rd party agree to an amendment? It’s not really in their interest to do so.  The amendment protects ED and its customers, not the third party 

[Hammer1-1]

25 minutes ago, wombat778 said:

Why would the 3rd party agree to an amendment? It’s not really in their interest to do so.  The amendment protects ED and its customers, not the third party 

Much to the same way that you can cancel a contract when a service changes its terms and conditions if you dont agree with it. Yes, you can do that by the way. Its a common business practice performed the world over, if you dont agree to it you can back out of it and go elsewhere...and in this case, its not really that big of a deal to begin with. You cant port EDs SDK to any other platform, so you arent losing anything by agreeing to the new terms and conditions. Hell Ill even cite an example: Adobe just changed its T&C recently to where they have absolute rights over your work so they can put it to use with their new AI system. Users have been running away sprinting from Adobe recently. They didnt say specifically itll go to use in their new AI, but nobody believes it for a second.

Edited July 11, 2024 by Hammer1-1

[FNZ]

Hi,

I am interested in the Mirage 2000 but apparently following the current conflict it seems that the module is encountering some small problems.
I can't figure out which ones in particular and if it will get worse, so as to make my decision whether or not to buy the module, at least for now.
Do you have any advice?
Thank you.

[Guest]

34 minutes ago, Hammer1-1 said:

Much to the same way that you can cancel a contract when a service changes its terms and conditions if you dont agree with it. Yes, you can do that by the way. Its a common business practice performed the world over, if you dont agree to it you can back out of it and go elsewhere

Err, not so much.  I say this as someone who has reviewed and written hundreds of these kinds of agreements.  We aren't talking about a boilerplate EULA like the Adobe T&Cs.  We are talking about negotiated license agreements between businesses that almost certainly have many mutually binding terms and conditions that prohibit one party from making arbitrary modifications or demands from the other party -- especially for something so important as rights to the third party's source code.

Edited July 11, 2024 by wombat778

[Hammer1-1]

Yes its their source code, but its source code based on ED's SDK. At the end of the day, they arent losing anything as they cant transfer those files to another platform.

[tripod3]

Imagine old abandoned modules running in a built-in emulator and maybe they don’t even know what year it is, and what MT is.

Edited July 11, 2024 by tripod3

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Hammer1-1 said:

Yes its their source code, but its source code based on ED's SDK. At the end of the day, they arent losing anything as they cant transfer those files to another platform.

I'm not going to get into a back and forth on this because it's honestly not useful or even possible for me to explain the nuances of copyright law, derivative works, background ip, etc (and that even assumes US copyright law is what applies here, which it may not).  Please just understand that these issues do not in any way, shape or form work the way you've described.

[Hammer1-1]

1 minute ago, wombat778 said:

I'm not going to get into a back and forth on this because it's honestly not useful or even possible for me to explain the nuances of copyright law, derivative works, background ip, etc (and that even assumes US copyright law is what applies here, which it may not).  Please just understand that these issues do not in any way, shape or form work the way you've described.

ED has guaranteed that the situation with VEAO would never happen again. How else would they have been able to guarantee this otherwise?

[Ala12Rv-Tundra]

4 minutes ago, Hammer1-1 said:

ED has guaranteed that the situation with VEAO would never happen again. How else would they have been able to guarantee this otherwise?

Back in the day I didn´t follow the VEAO case. Are both cases exactly equal? Because it might be different having a developer closing business(VEAO), than stop giving ED products support(Razbam).

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Hammer1-1 said:

ED has guaranteed that the situation with VEAO would never happen again. How else would they have been able to guarantee this otherwise?

They made no such guarantee.  Please carefully read the statement here: DCS modules by VEAO (digitalcombatsimulator.com)

"To avoid such issues in the future, all future 3rd party agreements are now required to make the game files available in case they are no longer able to support their product." (emphasis added)

They said nothing about products developed under past or existing 3rd party agreements.

 

Edited July 11, 2024 by wombat778

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, tripod3 said:

Imagine old abandoned modules running in a built-in emulator and maybe they don’t even know what year it is, and what MT is.

 

I'm actually hoping that is the kind of solution ED has come up with.  Basically sandboxing old modules into a virtual DCS environment within the regular DCS environment.  Its the only way I can think of that would really allow confidence that old modules would work no matter what happens to the core.

[Hammer1-1]

7 minutes ago, Ala12Rv-Tundra said:

Back in the day I didn´t follow the VEAO case. Are both cases exactly equal? Because it might be different having a developer closing business(VEAO), than stop giving ED products support(Razbam).

VEAO just up and left stating that ED's terms and conditions were draconian plus a number of other complaints...mostly of the SDK being difficult to use. I barely kept up with VEAO outside of that because even though I bought the Hawk, I didnt really care for it much. I believe I was more interested in flying helicopters at the time, but again its been a long while.

3 minutes ago, wombat778 said:

I'm actually hoping that is the kind of solution ED has come up with.  Basically sandboxing old modules into a virtual DCS environment within the regular DCS environment.  Its the only way I can think of that would really allow confidence that old modules would work no matter what happens to the core.

So basically, ANY model that Razbam has made during their tenure here can be just abandoned at any time by both ED and Razbam.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Hammer1-1 said:

So basically, ANY model that Razbam has made during their tenure here can be just abandoned at any time by both ED and Razbam.

Absolutely. In fact, every module and and DCS itself could theoretically be abandoned by ED at any time.  I am not aware of anyone being contractually obligated to keep giving us customers updates.

Also, in response to your comment that 3rd party code is useless outside of DCS, I doubt Heatblur would agree.  They released an F-14 for MSFS (https://store.heatblur.com/products/msfs-f-14-tomcat) and I think its pretty safe to assume it reuses a lot of code from their DCS version

[Hammer1-1]

17 minutes ago, wombat778 said:

Absolutely. In fact, every module and and DCS itself could theoretically be abandoned by ED at any time.  I am not aware of anyone being contractually obligated to keep giving us customers updates.

Also, in response to your comment that 3rd party code is useless outside of DCS, I doubt Heatblur would agree.  They released an F-14 for MSFS (https://store.heatblur.com/products/msfs-f-14-tomcat) and I think its pretty safe to assume it reuses a lot of code from their DCS version

The 3D model can be ported over from DCS to any simulator via any CAD software. At least thats how I understand it considering that a lot of modders bring in their own aircraft without the use of the SDK...but without the SDK its heavily neutered. Theres a lot missing in the MSFS F-14 that had to be scratch built specifically for MSFS. In the case of the IDF F-16, they use the F-16 to plug in their ability to use smart weapons, but like the A-4E you cant use any smart weapons that are in DCS that aircraft can use in the real sense.

Edited July 11, 2024 by Hammer1-1

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Hammer1-1 said:

.but without the SDK its heavily neutered. Theres a lot missing in the MSFS F-14 that had to be scratch built specifically for MSFS.

I am sure that is correct. But there is a big gap between “a lot missing” and “at the end of the day, they arent losing anything as they can’t transfer those files to another platform.”  If Heatblur reused ANY code from the DCS version in the MSFS then your statement was wrong 

[Hammer1-1]

19 minutes ago, wombat778 said:

I am sure that is correct. But there is a big gap between “a lot missing” and “at the end of the day, they arent losing anything as they can’t transfer those files to another platform.”  If Heatblur reused ANY code from the DCS version in the MSFS then your statement was wrong 

Not being on the dev team for it, I can at least say the only thing useful in DCS that could have been ported over was just the 3D model itself. The physics model alone wouldnt work in MSFS in any way, shape or form either. If it were that simple, just about every single module in DCS would already be in MSFS. Im also certain that even the sound files would have to be reformatted.

Edited July 11, 2024 by Hammer1-1

[Guest]

37 minutes ago, Hammer1-1 said:

Not being on the dev team for it, I can at least say the only thing useful in DCS that could have been ported over was just the 3D model itself.

 

I am not on the dev team either but per their website for the MSFS version it has “Accurate aircraft systems simulation featuring: The Automatic Flight Control System (AFCS). The variable wing geometry, wing-sweep, system. Detailed electrical, hydraulic and fuel system. JESTER: An AI backseater fills the role of RIO when flying single-player and helping you to fly the aircraft!This is the product of several years of passion and dedication.”

I would be shocked if all of that was rewritten from scratch for MSFS.  I expect that systems, avionics, Jester and similar items are mostly handled by code that is largely independent from the ED SDK and could be reused with minimal changes.  Demonstrating why that code has value to the third party even outside of DCS.

 

Anyway, its been a fun discussion but I need to get on with real life so please feel free to have the last word if you want it.

 

Edited July 12, 2024 by wombat778

[Hammer1-1]

1 hour ago, wombat778 said:

I am not on the dev team either but per their website for the MSFS version it has “Accurate aircraft systems simulation featuring: The Automatic Flight Control System (AFCS). The variable wing geometry, wing-sweep, system. Detailed electrical, hydraulic and fuel system. JESTER: An AI backseater fills the role of RIO when flying single-player and helping you to fly the aircraft!This is the product of several years of passion and dedication.”

I would be shocked if all of that was rewritten from scratch for MSFS.  I expect that systems, avionics, Jester and similar items are mostly handled by code that is largely independent from the ED SDK and could be reused with minimal changes.  Demonstrating why that code has value to the third party even outside of DCS.

 

Anyway, its been a fun discussion but I need to get on with real life so please feel free to have the last word if you want it.

 

 

word. If Im wrong, and I often am, then I am wrong. I learned humility a long time ago.

Edited July 12, 2024 by Hammer1-1

[NineLine]

3 hours ago, wombat778 said:

I am not on the dev team either but per their website for the MSFS version it has “Accurate aircraft systems simulation featuring: The Automatic Flight Control System (AFCS). The variable wing geometry, wing-sweep, system. Detailed electrical, hydraulic and fuel system. JESTER: An AI backseater fills the role of RIO when flying single-player and helping you to fly the aircraft!This is the product of several years of passion and dedication.”

I would be shocked if all of that was rewritten from scratch for MSFS.  I expect that systems, avionics, Jester and similar items are mostly handled by code that is largely independent from the ED SDK and could be reused with minimal changes.  Demonstrating why that code has value to the third party even outside of DCS.

 

Anyway, its been a fun discussion but I need to get on with real life so please feel free to have the last word if you want it.

 

 

Guys, let's leave Heatblur out of this please, as I know some are trying to drag them in this is not a discussion about them, nor are they currently having any sort of dispute with anyone. Thanks all.  

[killjoy73au]

 

DCS: F-15E Suite 4+ by RAZBAM Simulations

• Radar inoperative problem fixed by Eagle Dynamics.

 

People getting their moneys worth here with this change log... Guess i can kiss my harrier goodbye as well.

[draconus]

Thx for the fix With the radar back on without workarounds or mods we're back to "just" no updates/fixes.

[draconus]

9 hours ago, FNZ said:

I am interested in the Mirage 2000 but apparently following the current conflict it seems that the module is encountering some small problems.
I can't figure out which ones in particular and if it will get worse, so as to make my decision whether or not to buy the module, at least for now.
Do you have any advice?

Check and ask on the forum for details (https://forum.dcs.world/forum/248-m-2000/) but afaik no show stoppers are there. The module is pretty mature. It's your decision in the end - buy it if you really like the aircraft.

[WipeUout]

1 hour ago, draconus said:

11 hours ago, FNZ said:

I am interested in the Mirage 2000 but apparently following the current conflict it seems that the module is encountering some small problems.
I can't figure out which ones in particular and if it will get worse, so as to make my decision whether or not to buy the module, at least for now.
Do you have any advice?

Check and ask on the forum for details (https://forum.dcs.world/forum/248-m-2000/) but afaik no show stoppers are there. The module is pretty mature. It's your decision in the end - buy it if you really like the aircraft.

And to add to this about future support, if you look at the second post made by Nineline on the second page of this thread, ED will continue support no matter what :

On 7/1/2024 at 8:58 AM, NineLine said:

For example we know what causes issues with updates and modules, we will make sure to make adjustments to our updates to not break the older modules if they remain unsupported. This is why we are not offering refunds on the older modules. One way or another we plan for those to remain working into the future.