It's a very short headache, you only have to make that decision once. There are a couple of options out there but if you don't particularly care what happens with your code just copy the MIT licence in there and be done with it. It really is that simple.Hellaciouss wrote:For me, I just mod for fun, all this licencing crap to me is confusing and seems dumb (to me). I just like to do random stuff, I don't expect to ever get payed for it. I do it to add things into the game I feel should be in the game, or make balancing adjustments. I then openly share those changes with people who might think it's cool. Why should someone like me care what licence to use or even care about licensing? It seems like a huge headache that I'd rather avoid.
However if you don't spend those few minutes of your life you are essentially forbidding everybody from doing anything with your mod other than using it for themselves. It has nothing to do with getting payed (In fact expecting to make money off a mod would be one of the few reasons not to include an open licence). If you don't include an open licence it means I am legally forbidden from putting your mod on a USB drive and give it to a friend. Or host it on my local server and automatically send it to people who want to join my game. It severely limits the ways I can use your mod. It's like giving someone a toy and forbidding them to put in new batteries when they run out (which is ironically exactly how Apple marketing works…). And obviously it also completely forbids me from publishing any changes I might make to your mod. All of those limitations exist automatically and can only be resolved if you actively specify an open licence.
This might actually be a reason why the upcoming mod portal will require a licence. Without it there could be legal problems when the mod portal automatically shares mods. (Not sure about this)
Git, as well as most other version control tools, is quite easy to learn. What scares you in those screenshots of the Github homepage is the fact that git is typically used via command line. Many users, especially on Windows, are not used to command line tools, so they look scary and complicated. They are not, it's just an unfamiliar way of communicating with your computer. Instead of clicking buttons you type words. It's basically like writing code, which you're already doing, except the code gets executed immediately. And even if you still find it too intimidating there are a wide range of easy to use graphical interfaces for git for all platforms.Hellaciouss wrote:Secondly, GitHub. This also seems like a huge headache to me. It looks like a bunch of extra stuff I have to do that I'd also like to avoid. I do this for fun, not to be super serious about all the etiquette super serious modders follow. Why should someone like me care about it? Why should I go through all the extra headaches when I can just make changes to the code on my computer and eventually upload the updated mod with a readme of what was changed?
Learning the basics of git takes less then an hour. After that you can take your time getting to know it better as you see fit. The great thing about git is that once you know how to use it it actually save you a great deal of time. For example, consider all the steps you have to take every time you make an update to your mod with your manual workflow: You have to create a zip of the folder, open up the forums in a browser, find your thread, upload the new zip file, and edit the thread (or create a new one) with the link to the new version. Compared to that with git you have to type two simple lines ("git commit" followed by "git push"). Or click two buttons, if you're using a graphical interface. 99% of the time this will be faster than manually zipping and uploading.
And so far I've only highlighted the reasons why git is easy and fast, the real reasons come into play when your project grows (which is almost never what the creators of big projects were expecting).
Edit: xkcd is always relevant (https://xkcd.com/1597/):
