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[CognitiveDissonance]

I wish this game and the backers the best of luck with the kickstarter, I've been following DDA for a while and it looks really promising.  But!  It would be nice if people didn't act like abaraba/LazyCat doesn't have a point.  There is something inherently odd about paying just one guy of an open source project, and IMO anyone who contributed to the game would be entitled to be more than a bit miffed.  Furthermore, such a reaction should have been fully anticipated and tolerated.  What appears to be rather judgemental stonewalling/trolling of his opinions doesn't reflect well on the devs nor community.  Going by this thread alone, he's received far more ad-hominems than he's given.

I definitely don't speak for the community as a whole. That said, what I have seen of this person's behaviour has been very immature. As for paid open source development, somebody elsewhere mentioned that this is not uncommon outside of video games. I did a quick Google search, and it confirms that this is a rising trend:
Google Search link

[Lectorog]

The point of the Kickstarter is to temporarily speed up development.

Nobody currently working on the project can work on it full-time. If the community wants someone to work on it full-time, they have the option to do so; it will cost $7000 for three months. Keeping development exactly the same as it has been is an option, but if enough people want the temporary full-time addition it will happen.

It is paying for a free project, but in the same sense that donating to Toady is. If he didn't receive donations, he would be working on the game part-time - a much slower rate. The community has decided that he should work full-time, so they pay him to do so. The game will always be free regardless of how much money the developer gets.

Anything donated to Cataclysm is going toward development already. This is a structured push.

[Shakerag]

GG, can you confirm/deny/clarify these statements which represent what I think I'm aware of about the situation?

Cataclysm was free and open source and developed by Whales.
Cataclysm: DDA is free and open source and developed by fans of the original Cataclysm since Whales is no longer developing it.
Cataclysm: DDA will continue to be free and open source post-Kickstarter.
The programmer mentioned in the Kickstarter is already working on Cataclysm: DDA part-time for free.
The programmer mentioned in the Kickstarter is a programmer for hire, and the Kickstarter is to essentially "hire" him to work on Cataclysm: DDA full-time for a period of three months. 

[Fniff]

Interesting. I'll donate ASAP.

[hermes]

I definitely don't speak for the community as a whole. That said, what I have seen of this person's behaviour has been very immature. As for paid open source development, somebody elsewhere mentioned that this is not uncommon outside of video games. I did a quick Google search, and it confirms that this is a rising trend:
Google Search link

Yes, I agree, I read the thread on the DDA boards and he does need to chill.

On the open source thing... hmm, Linux and Ubuntu and other building blocks of international business?  I see what you mean, but in those cases whole industries have vested interest in up-to-date and safely coded systems; paid devs makes sense.  I guess Canonical, for example, do just that - make money off other dev's work.  But...

The point of the Kickstarter is to temporarily speed up development.

Nobody currently working on the project can work on it full-time. If the community wants someone to work on it full-time, they have the option to do so; it will cost $7000 for three months. Keeping development exactly the same as it has been is an option, but if enough people want the temporary full-time addition it will happen.

Yes, this is the best way to look at it.  The democratic nature of capitalism is what just about makes this viable... if the fans want it then it really can't be that bad.   

[DeKaFu]

I'm interested in this and hope it succeeds. Probably won't donate myself (just because I tend not to donate to Kickstarters) but I think it's very worthwhile. It's a nonstandard use of Kickstarter, but once I thought about it it made a lot of sense. Neat.

Not that it's likely to happen, but if you ended up substantially over your goal (double or higher) would bringing in a second dedicated programmer be a possibility?

[Willfor]

They've announced stretch goals to backers, but haven't put it up on the page yet. I'm not sure if that means they're secret or what, but 200% funding will mean twice the dedicated development time and new feature inclusions the money will be used to create.

• Scenario System (You wake up in the cold liquid of a cloning vat, deep in a lab. Your body is deformed in unexpected ways. Where are you? What happened? What will you do next...)
• Exotic Biomes/Zones (If you've seen the portals, well, you haven't seen them like this, and flavoured zombie regions sound like great fun)
• Stealth System and Darkness Rewrite (Things are not always as they appear)
• Monster in-fighting - (Ants eating zombies! Zombies eating rabbits! Rabbits... uh...)
• Item and Inventory Rewrite - (containers, modifiable clothing, and more)
• Z-levels Refinement (climbing, jumping, vertical construction across z-levels)

I am greatly looking forward to monster in-fighting personally, so I'm hoping it hits that.

[GlyphGryph]

GG, can you confirm/deny/clarify these statements which represent what I think I'm aware of about the situation?

Cataclysm was free and open source and developed by Whales.
Cataclysm: DDA is free and open source and developed by fans of the original Cataclysm since Whales is no longer developing it.
Cataclysm: DDA will continue to be free and open source post-Kickstarter.
The programmer mentioned in the Kickstarter is already working on Cataclysm: DDA part-time for free.
The programmer mentioned in the Kickstarter is a programmer for hire, and the Kickstarter is to essentially "hire" him to work on Cataclysm: DDA full-time for a period of three months.

Yes. Though it technically wasn't licensed as such until he requested it.
Yes, mostly. There's quite a few contributors who never actually played the original version now.
Yes. Both will continue to be true, from my end. There's nothing in the license that prevents someone from selling the game, though, nor can we prevent it - but the code has to be included, and they can't restrict people from redistributing, so I don't see it being likely.
Yes, he's already working on the game. So is the backup programmer/secondary if we vastly overfund programmer. (I think this also answers DekaFus question)
Right, both of them are contract workers at the moment, who will basically be picking up a contract to work on the game if needed.

[GlyphGryph]

They've announced stretch goals to backers, but haven't put it up on the page yet. I'm not sure if that means they're secret or what, but 200% funding will mean twice the dedicated development time and new feature inclusions the money will be used to create.

I intended it as a public update, not a backer specific one. If I did make it backer-specific, my bad. But yeah, feel free to share.

[Shakerag]

Shakerag: He has already confirmed all of those, either in this thread or on the Kickstarter page. Directly addressing them may still be nice though.

Part of that is that I'm lazy, and part of that is me trying to lay out simply and logically what this is about for others to see (and perhaps clear up some confusion).

GG, can you confirm/deny/clarify these statements which represent what I think I'm aware of about the situation?

Cataclysm was free and open source and developed by Whales.
Cataclysm: DDA is free and open source and developed by fans of the original Cataclysm since Whales is no longer developing it.
Cataclysm: DDA will continue to be free and open source post-Kickstarter.
The programmer mentioned in the Kickstarter is already working on Cataclysm: DDA part-time for free.
The programmer mentioned in the Kickstarter is a programmer for hire, and the Kickstarter is to essentially "hire" him to work on Cataclysm: DDA full-time for a period of three months.

Yes. Though it technically wasn't licensed as such until he requested it.
Yes, mostly. There's quite a few contributors who never actually played the original version now.
Yes. Both will continue to be true, from my end. There's nothing in the license that prevents someone from selling the game, though, nor can we prevent it - but the code has to be included, and they can't restrict people from redistributing, so I don't see it being likely.
Yes, he's already working on the game. So is the backup programmer/secondary if we vastly overfund programmer. (I think this also answers DekaFus question)
Right, both of them are contract workers at the moment, who will basically be picking up a contract to work on the game if needed.

Excellent, thank you for your reply. 

I don't see an issue with this at all myself.  I did play the original and while I haven't tried out DDA yet, from everything I've heard it looks like it's going to be even more excellent.  I'd donate today if I wasn't completely out of money, so that'll have to wait until July.

Also, can we avoid a second visit from Toady please?

[CognitiveDissonance]

Does anyone know of anyone who might be interested in hearing and talking about the game or the Kickstarter? Internet personalities, magazines, etc. and so on?

Have you approached Rock Paper Shotgun? They seem to LOVE this kind of games, and they also seem to like kickstarters.

[Mephansteras]

Oh, yeah. I need to donate to this.

[Xantalos]

Aaaaanyhow, I'll be trying to spread the word of this thing as it definitely deserves support.

[jhxmt]

Not wanting to directly quote (both to avoid feeding and to avoid the inevitable nuke), but for those interested in copyright more generally it might be worth noting that, in the UK at least, my understanding is that software that's not specifically licensed is still protected by copyright (ref: http://www.out-law.com/page-5633 and various others).  DDA obviously doesn't have any problems in that regard if Whales agreed to CC-BY-SA.  Which is kinda the whole point of licenses - they license you to do good stuff like continue to develop someone's code (for commercial use if desired) if the original developer doesn't want to/can't carry on.  It's a positive thing.    If there is no specific license in place...well, then you should be wary of copyright concerns.  Again, this is only my basic knowledge as far as the UK goes, and I Am Not A Lawyer etc.

I may well contribute - I haven't made up my mind yet (no reservations about the project/reasoning behind it, I'm simply restricted in my funds at the moment!).  And if another project, duly licensed, were to be as fun and enjoyable to me as DDA has been, I might choose to donate to them too - or buy them, or support them in some other way.  They'd have to prove their worth, though.  DDA's already proven its worth to me from the many hours I've spent on it.

...mind you, by that metric I should be giving Toady about half my annual income by now! 

Edit: spelling.  Blargh.

[Cthulufaic]

If I had a disposable income that didn't come from my parents I would totally donate to this!  I can't wait to see a fully fleshed out DDA would look like.
Glyph, you should try and make some sort of arrangement with popular people on youtube or something to spread publicity of this because it REALLY deserves the attention.