FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

There is a dedicated team of mod developers called "minetest-mods" that help people maintain, collaborate on their mods, and organize them.

Minetest-Mods is a github group, that mod owners can join to maintain their mods in a central way, and ensure that in the long run, even when they're not around, their mods will receive updates and fixes.

For users, it provides a single, well established and author-endorsed place to look for often-used mods.

The goal of this project is to reduce mod fragmentation and provide a clear place for popular mods to live, without having to find out which github fork is the best one to use.

Speaking of forks, the procedure to move repositories into minetest-mods does not involve forking, as that would mean issues, PRs and wikis are lost. We prefer a transfer procedure that has been working well.

I have migrated all my mods to the minetest-mods group, and several experienced mod authors and maintainers have joined me in maintaining the minetest-mods team.

The minetest-mods team has an official manifesto, that describes the roles and organization. It can be found here:

https://github.com/minetest-mods/Manifest/blob/master/README.md

This project also serves as a way to boost minetest mod collaboration, and to fix API issues, review other's people code and help test mod changes. Because access is more shared, it will be easier to review changes for mods and find other interesting mods.

Please join me and come work together on your mods! The more mods join, the better they will be!

We actively try to fix outstanding issues and bugs. If you find bugs in any of the mods, please file a ticket. We will work with the mod author to get your issue addressed.

Mod counter: 107
Mod issue+PR count: 104
data as of Feb 2017

sofar wrote:The goal of this project is to reduce mod fragmentation

so you should include all the other projects in the field of mod finding, listing, installing and documenting - or at least be a hub of some sort.
Please do study why the mmdb failed and create a more stable organization that is not prone to stumble over single places of failure.

twoelk wrote:so you should include all the other projects in the field of mod finding, listing, installing and documenting - or at least be a hub of some sort.
Please do study why the mmdb failed and create a more stable organization that is not prone to stumble over single places of failure.

Absolutely.

At this point I'm not aware what the underlying cause of mmdb's failure is, and I only know that the server went into disarray or offline.

My biggest concern for a lot of mods currently isn't the part of the delivery process to end users, but the step before that - the part where people are scattered across the internet and developing and forking by themselves.

That's why the goal of this project isn't necessarily to replace mmdb, but to create some cohesion between mod developers. Everyone loves making their own mod in their own time, but in the end mods become higher quality when more developers take a look at the code, the artwork, the way it integrates, if it's in a location where this is possible. Having no cohesion between mesecons/mesecons and technic/technic, things become difficult quickly.

It also serves as a way for mod authors to say "I really, really want to collaborate". If you deliberately grant others access to your tree by joining minetest-mods, you're saying that you've realized that you can't do this alone, and you may not be able to do it at all in the future.

If this project in the future serves as some component for an mmdb-like mechanism, then it isn't because it fixes where mmdb broke, but it will be because mmdb never created any cohesion or community.

As for becoming a HUB, I do not wish for minetest-mods to become a dumping ground. If there's no quality, then it's not collaboration material. As such, I am explicitly stating that things like modpacks and unofficial forks are not desirable. Modpacks have the effect that people include unrelated functionality and include mods that will create conflicts, and unofficial forks will similarly create a mess later on, both are very un-cooperative ways to create mods and distribute them.

The voluntary part of joining minetest-mods is the crucial bit. Once the code is good and well-behaved, an mmdb-like thing should be easy.

I was a contributor to mmdb. (I also made the mod database before that but it sucked)

mmdb failed because:

1. It was hard to upload mods
2. It was unfriendly to new developers imo
3. It went offline for ages due to a database bug. thexyz was hosting it and didn't want to keep fixing database problems. The forums then get transferred to c55 who now hosts the forums, c55 hasn't got around to setting it up.

rubenwardy wrote:I was a contributor to mmdb. (I also made the mod database before that but it sucked)

mmdb failed because:

1. It was hard to upload mods
2. It was unfriendly to new developers imo
3. It went offline for ages due to a database bug. thexyz was hosting it and didn't want to keep fixing database problems. The forums then get transferred to c55 who now hosts the forums, c55 hasn't got around to setting it up.

Thanks for the background.

With minetest-mods we'll be likely able to have several people that can maintain an actual index (the github.io integration seems like a good candidate). So I think we can certainly add something that exports data for the in-client mod tool.

The nice thing about minetest-mods is that we already have 4 experienced developers on board that could all do this (and certainly maintain it), so the single-point-of-failure problem is already solved.

As for the other concerns: I don't think uploading mods to minetest-mods is hard, it's a github fork away, and likely replaces the need for people to even host their own github. In the future we may even have people start out directly from minetest-mods. New developers just need to be able to use github, we can take some of the hard work away from them as well.

I have a question about adding mods to this Github organization. Say I already have my own Github account, and my mods are hosted on it. How would one of my mods be added? Would it simply be a fork?

It would be forked to minetest-mods.

So if it is forked to minetest-mods, changes will be pushed to the original repository and I won't have to change any links, correct?

In the OP you say that it is a place for popular mods. How would someone determine if their mod is popular enough for this project? I have a number of mods. Some are a little popular while others are not. I have no problem submitting my mods but do not know if any are popular enough to be added to this repo.

If you mean this:

sofar wrote:For users, it provides a single, well established and author-endorsed place to look for often-used mods.

I think you can just ignore that, it doesn't mean the mods need to be popular - http://minetest-mods.github.io/README.html doesn't mention it.

My opinion is that this shouldn't be a mod repo really, but more of a way to help mod authors make their mods better for end users, and to help mods work together better.

@rubenwardy - That and this

The goal of this project is to reduce mod fragmentation and provide a clear place for popular mods to live, without having to find out which github fork is the best one to use.

I understand that this project is not the place to put silly mods that no one uses. I am wondering what criteria is used to decide on what mods would fit in. I can see the benefits of this and it would make Minetest much better. I am just unclear on what mods I would add. I do not want to add anything that does not work with the goal of the project.

Can we get some clarification as to what mods are wanted/needed so that we do not blindly add mods that are not worth adding. For example mydoors might be a good addition but mytorches is a specialized mod and might not be something that works in this project. I am not even sure if mydoors fits in.

Evergreen wrote:So if it is forked to minetest-mods, changes will be pushed to the original repository and I won't have to change any links, correct?

No, unfortunately that doesn't work automatically. You could, with some automation, but I think it's likely not worth your time (it's prone to be unreliable due to the way that git works).

I would indeed suggest changing your links to your projects (as I did for mine) to point them to the new location.

Don wrote:I understand that this project is not the place to put silly mods that no one uses. I am wondering what criteria is used to decide on what mods would fit in.

These are great points. And I admit I haven't necessarily given it too much thought just yet.

At this early point, we may decide to have a different policy than, say, in two years, if the project appears to be successful. So there's that to take into account.

I do however indeed agree that we want to be extremely careful, especially in the beginning of the project, to not host any mods that are clearly unfinished, or are lacking in quality (and where it would be difficult to fix that up).

Popularity isn't important. We're more than happy to host any high-quality mod.

Here is a forum button I made for this:



I can change stuff about as I still have the gimp files. This could be used in a signature, but it could also be used to signify a mod that is a part of this repository.

Evergreen wrote:Here is a forum button I made for this:



I can change stuff about as I still have the gimp files. This could be used in a signature, but it could also be used to signify a mod that is a part of this repository.

We have a git tree where we could upload things like this. Can you make a few size? These are really cool!

For users, it provides a single, well established and author-endorsed place to look for often-used mod

s.
Although I love the idea of a mods repo/archive, although findability arguments is not a very valid one.
Krock has made a search engine for mods (http://krock-works.16mb.com/MTstuff/modSearch.php) which seems to be using the forums as source and is excellent for finding mods, from the often used ones to the more obscure ones. I don't see how a git repo could improve on that.

Now, as an archive of mods past and present, and to preserve or to continue to develop mods after the authors stops developing it for whatever reason there may be, the repo would be awesome. And I fully support it, but the findablity argument is a weak one at best.

Fritigern wrote:

For users, it provides a single, well established and author-endorsed place to look for often-used mod

s.
Although I love the idea of a mods repo/archive, although findability arguments is not a very valid one.
Krock has made a search engine for mods (http://krock-works.16mb.com/MTstuff/modSearch.php) which seems to be using the forums as source and is excellent for finding mods, from the often used ones to the more obscure ones. I don't see how a git repo could improve on that.

Now, as an archive of mods past and present, and to preserve or to continue to develop mods after the authors stops developing it for whatever reason there may be, the repo would be awesome. And I fully support it, but the findablity argument is a weak one at best.

We don't claim that "findability" is an issue.

As part of joining minetest-mods, mod authors explicitly grant permission to minetest-mods admins to maintain their project. That is the crux: The mods hosted in minetest-mods' github area are setup in such a way that if they decide to stop spending time on minetest today, without notice, that their mods are going to be taken care of.

Without forking the git tree, and moving locations.

@sofar Thank you! I still have the gimp files for the badge I made. I suppose If I create other badges they could be put in the website repository, and could be mentioned somewhere on the web. I don't have time to make other sizes right now, but for now, what sizes do you want?

Evergreen wrote:@sofar Thank you! I still have the gimp files for the badge I made. I suppose If I create other badges they could be put in the website repository, and could be mentioned somewhere on the web. I don't have time to make other sizes right now, but for now, what sizes do you want?

Maybe one that's 2x as large as well? that should be plenty, I think.

We're at 15 mods currently, and more coming! I'm very excited to see these mods appear and people put some extra work in them. Thanks, and come help us maintain these!

edit: make that 18!

Want to help fix stuff: You can view the entire open bug list and all PR's pending here:

https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=user%3Aminetest-mods+is%3Aopen&type=Issues&ref=searchresults

Feel free to submit PR's, ping me or other people if you see bugs that are staying open too long, or PR's that need to get merged.

Quick update: We're at 22 mods and growing. I would love to see some more mods but I'm pretty happy about mod quality thus far. Come help maintain these nice mods wit us!

I alredy tried to help, but my PR seems to get just ignored
https://github.com/minetest-mods/maptools/pull/1

addi wrote:I alredy tried to help, but my PR seems to get just ignored
https://github.com/minetest-mods/maptools/pull/1

We give mod authors and maintainers time to tend to pull requests. I check daily to see if PR's and issues go unanswered and when they're overdue (usually older than a month) I take care of them.

Your PR is 20 days old. It'll be merged soon.

Very good project. That's what we need to develop Minetest mods.

I have not a lot of mods to share, only valleys_mapgen, and it's now less useful since it has been merged in the core. But I can give it to minetest-mods if you want, even if duane maintains it.

Gael de Sailly wrote:Very good project. That's what we need to develop Minetest mods.

I have not a lot of mods to share, only valleys_mapgen, and it's now less useful since it has been merged in the core. But I can give it to minetest-mods if you want, even if duane maintains it.

Well, with it being merged in core, it would quickly be obsolete. I tend to keep those mods out of there for now.

However, isn't there a lua addition to the mapgen for the extra plants and trees that is still useful?

sofar wrote:However, isn't there a lua addition to the mapgen for the extra plants and trees that is still useful?

Yes but few people seems to be interesting in it. And now we try to more or less reproduce it with the core biome system.

Maybe valleys_c but that's duane's repo.

Gael de Sailly wrote:

sofar wrote:However, isn't there a lua addition to the mapgen for the extra plants and trees that is still useful?

Yes but few people seems to be interesting in it. And now we try to more or less reproduce it with the core biome system.

Maybe valleys_c but that's duane's repo.

well, ultimately both are quite welcome - especially since both are finished and usable mods. That and being Open Source are the only real requirements at this point.

45 repositories as of today. Come join the fun!

This project sounds interesting, but I am not sure what to think about it.

So, how does this work, exactly? Do you accept just any mod which is compliant to license stuff or are there certain quality requirements? Which kind of mod would not be accepted?

Also, how would you handle mods which provide conflicting APIs to solve the same problem? Would you include both? Just one? None? And which one?
How is your repository going to solve mod fragmentation? If I see correctly, you are simply limiting the set of all mods to a subset of mods in your repo. The thing is, mod fragmentation does not magically disappear if you just make a repo. Or how exactly have you imagined to solve the fragmentation problem?

Also, I'd argue it will be increasingly harder to “legally” add a mod to the repo since one requirement states that no mod in the repo may conflict with another one. This means that mods which managed to get in early had good luck whereas newer, perhaps better mods might have a hard time to get in. I can foresee that bad things happen as soon as the first mob mod is added because the current situation with mob mods is a big fucking mess. xD
Also, do you plan to remove mods from the repo in favor of another (better) one?

Also, have people other than the original author already worked on mods (which seems to be the main motivation behind this project)? Can you point me to some examples?

I am interested to see how this project works in real life (not just in theory).