[ReaperMan]

Radar 100 Watts, on 05 March 2020 - 04:15 PM, said:

I dunno, afaik there were 2 different scuffles he could be referring to. Meltrojan is based on the Yang source code, so it is GPL violating. Yang subsequently went closed source after this (which IMO was an incredibly short-sighted decision that damaged the client's viability way more than anything Poda did). There was another scuffle later on when Poda DDoSed Yang for whatever reason. It was a program called GAYANG that was shared with other users in the Meltdown chat lobby. Somebody recently sent this program to me again. Dang, all these memories flooding back. Here is the readme......

I think it was the stolen source code. But holy shit that other stuff is just horrible.

[Steve 64]

Question you know Duke Matcher is that a trust worthy port?

[Steve 64]

Duke Legacy, on 14 March 2020 - 06:55 PM, said:

Question you know Duke Matcher is that a trust worthy port? the reason why I ask this I would like to play new coop stuff with a friend of mine since we basically played every coop thing on Megaton Edition, and was wondering if it is a trusty thing.

oh fuck press the wrong thing I mean to edit it not reply to it hahaha sorry.

[Radar]

Duke Matcher is ok, but I think the best option right now is Yang.

[Steve 64]

There only one thing I need help with on that and that is Port Forwarding I tried to do it and I fail each time.

[Radar]

Port forwarding is unique to each router. My own router (Arris model) has it under Firewall > Virtual Servers/Port Forwarding. Some routers make it hard to find, so I would look everywhere you can under security settings. If that doesn't help, google "port forwarding [your brand name] router".

The ports are:
TCP: 8501
UDP: 23513


If that fails, try using the Yang Port Mapper tool. You will need UPnP enabled in your router for it to work.

[Steve 64]

I have tried it but it doesn't work for me.

[Radar]

As a last resort, you can try enabling DMZ in your router. Please don't ask me how to do it. You need to Google the instructions for your router, because the process is unique for each one.

[Steve 64]

I know it been a couple of weeks just going to say I can't do it I have tried and failed, Wish yang was more like the old Mupen64 emulator was so easy to get online and play.

[NY00123]

ok, now as I re-open-sourced YANG and it felt even more like a farewell (even with me mostly stepping down in 2010), this might be a good opportunity to clear up certain bits related to YANG and Meltdown.

I won't refer to the original topic in question, but to other details.

Initial background:

Spoiler

As I mentioned in the YANG thread, this program used to be open-source before August 2009. It then went closed-source, and it had been in this state until last week.

In the initial incarnation as an open-source program, as people had been migrating from Dukester X to YANG in early 2009, Poda wanted to get a binary compatible with his Windows 98 machine. So, he downloaded the YANG sources. After some time, he decided to create the fork of YANG known as Meltdown. This was related at least in part to YANG itself not having updates for a month or more, and possibly also to the lack of responses of mine to certain feature requests and feedbacks from other people done in forums. I was careful with making promises and seemed to prefer to not respond at all, especially while having higher priorities unrelated to video games.

Presence of sources:

Spoiler

The first release of Meltdown or so indeed lacked sources. Thus, I was letting Poda know. I recall him wanting to make a clean up of the sources first. Either way, he did release the sources not long later.

One thing I didn't recall before additional reminders was that, a bit before making YANG closed source, I actually did discover that Meltdown used an implementation of pinging which wasn't GPL-compatible. It's (an old version of) the C++ class CPing from PJ Naughter: http://www.naughter.com/ping.html

I assume this wasn't done on purpose. In fact, I can't say I'm perfect, either, even if I generally did try to follow terms of use of code bases.

Spoiler

The YANG website would generally let you download modified versions of the GeoIP library and wxWidgets' wxGetOsDescription implementations, as used in YANG. Reason being GeoIP being available under the GNU LGPL license, and wxWidgets using a variation of the LGPL known as the wxWindows Library License. If you don't recall the modified wxGetOsDescription code being offered from the website, at least not with YANG v0.95, my guess is that's due to v0.95 using wxWidgets' own unmodified wxGetOsDescription function in the released Windows and Linux builds.

There was one mistake I recall from the time of distributing YANG versions 0.54, 0.57 and 0.58, the first 3 closed-source releases. It's related to the GeoIP library. There's also an explanation for a modified version of GeoIP eventually being used.

While I was using MinGW for making Windows builds of YANG, TURRICAN was using Visual Studio (at least initially). Version 0.53, the last open-source release until recently, was the first to make use of this Visual Studio solution file and GeoIP, with GeoIP itself being statically linked. Nothing wrong as long as YANG was open-source (as it is again these days). After getting closed-source, though, my understanding was that static linking was still ok, assuming the presence of a way to replace (e.g., upgrade) the GeoIP library. The main way I now think it could theoretically be done by a user of YANG, was by looking for function entry points in the YANG exe and patching them to redirect to an external DLL.

So, I wanted to fix this. We also opted for getting GeoIP to build with MinGW instead of Visual Studio, in order to restore support for Windows 9x that got broken in v0.53 (due to the use of Visual Studio). This required changes to the GeoIP library, eventually leading to the modified GeoIP library code being used, with the sources being offered via the YANG website.

To finish, due to bringing up YANG client guy (presumably me) and Meltdown client dude (must be Poda) in a single sentence earlier in this thread, I've written the following:

Spoiler

Not all details are mentioned. What I'll say is that the way I see it, it was first and foremost me who even leaded to the situation being possible.
How? By originally releasing YANG as an open-source project back in 2008, thus paving the way to the creation of forks of it, emphasis being on Meltdown here.

Poda and I had different goals for the launchers, and also other differing priorities. A few examples:
- I started YANG because I wanted a cross-platform alternative to programs like Dukester X and Dukonnector. Poda was a Windows user, like almost all players, and got a significant inspiration from Kali.
- I wasn't really playing Build Engine games online back in 2009, and I often didn't have enough motivation to code for YANG. Poda was still playing Duke3D, and showed clear interest on actually working on Meltdown and handling feedbacks. At times, from what I heard, he wasn't always coding everything on his own, with at least a subset being done by coders hired by him; But he still showed interest.

It's not impossible that I wouldn't mind Meltdown as much if it was closer to a natural continuation of YANG, say by being cross-platform, the main reason which made me start YANG. But, different people, different priorities.

Basically, from my side, open-sourcing YANG was a good example of an action with consequences (forking it into Meltdown) that couldn't really be reversed.
Given different goals and other possible factors, it felt at times like maybe, the work I did on YANG was not even worth the time and efforts for me, if this would eventually lead to a fork like Meltdown obtaining most of YANG's userbase.

So, open-sourcing YANG was an example of an action that someone would very clearly regret at some point. Thus, you can guess what had been occurring later.

If I remember correctly, not long after Meltdown was released, I mentioned somewhere that the hosted YANG master server wouldn't officially support modified forks of YANG not under my control. I indeed didn't want to feel responsible for maintaining differing forks or following their developments in terms of code, so this made sense; But there could maybe be a bit more into it.

One day, I told Poda (along with other few people) that I might change YANG into closed-source software. Again, one can guess what would happen later, but in retrospect, it would probably not matter if I told this or not, in the long term.

Even before mentioning the idea, I think it was clear that at some point, the two programs would eventually not really be network-compatible with each other.

Of course, if I had the interest, I could backport network protocol changes as done by Poda; But, it wasn't the case, and I admittedly felt like it was an example of losing control over YANG's direction. Additionally, there were still pending additions to YANG itself from TURRICAN, worked on independently and generally incompatible with Meltdown.

Shortly after the release of YANG v0.53, there was the aforementioned instance of locating GPL-incompatible code for pinging in Meltdown. I didn't just request Poda to temporarily take the Meltdown exe down until the GPL violation was fixed, but even suggested the possibility (never actually done by me) of asking forum moderators to remove links. I was maybe at least a bit harsh here, but this was what happened.

Not more than a mere few days later, I decided to go closed source, even if I knew this would probably not matter in the long term, with more people eventually migrating to Meltdown.

Regarding any Meltdown sources being unavailable after July 2009, I ceased to have the interest in enforcing the original license for older YANG versions at this point.

Unsurprising, especially during the short period surrounding the end of July 2009 and a bit later, this was a quite emotional situation for me. But, as hinted earlier, it was me who made the situation possible in the first place.

[NY00123]

Small correction to my preceding post. I said that I heard about Poda hiring multiple coders for Meltdown in the past. Well, that's not entirely correct from what I learnt. I probably saw "coders" and then inserted "hired" in my mind, possibly due to hearing in the past about the possibility of this being done on a smaller scale from some source.

In reality, Meltdown does have a credits list, but rather than listing hired coders for most, it shows various people who contributed to Meltdown in differing manners, say in terms of external libraries being used. Also other related people that Poda decided to add, plus companies behind the supported games.

I realized this after having a conversation with Poda. Yes, we had a chat last weekend. He saw a recent Duke4.net post of mine related to YANG and Meltdown, and was looking for me. This had been our first direct online contact in more than 13 years. I think it's been good for both of us to have this chat.