Steam account unlink when?

[finfin]

Some of you might be aware that we are currently trying to not share any copyright protected code.

Approximately four months ago, after discussion with sheeo, downlord, and others to verify it was enough time, Visionik (the owner of FAForever) has enforced a deadline for this to be done by the end of this year.

Since this deadline will not be met we will have to enable mandatory steam-linking for all users from the 31st of January (up to now only new users had to link their faf account to steam).

The mandatory steam link will stay in place until no copyright protected assets are being distributed. [...]

When will the noted deadline be met, and the steam-link be made optional again?

As I do not agree with the Steam account requirement, and the 3rd party data sharing implications of account linking, I have silently ignored FAF for some time now. Since the announcement text clearly implies a temporary measure (...will stay in place until...), I have been waiting for a status change there.

But the announcement topic is locked to discussion, no follow-up information has been provided, and things do look kind of bleak, some six months later.
And as it now seems the Forums will also be going (and, as seems likely, be replaced with some other 3rd party cloud service and a mandatory Discord account with questionable personal-data usage), this feels like a last chance for me to get some clarification here about this future of FAF; or to ask for an update on the current state of things.

If FAF does no longer intend to work as a standalone service, without sharing user-data with-, or requiring accounts at, "free as in free-data-gathering" 3rd-party service providers, I would like to have that stated openly, so I can stop waiting for better days that won't come, and remove the FAF client and related data.

Of course I would be quite sad to do that. So if the reason for the Steam-link is proof-of-ownership of FA, I will happily post or PM a photo of my Supcom box.

[PhilipJFry]

nobody is thinking about requiring any 3rd party info to use the forum

all we want to do for the forum is allowing a user with a faf acc (the one you can create at https://faforever.com) to log in to the forum so people don't have to make two accounts for faf (one for the game and one for the forum)

this does NOT mean that you have to link your acc to steam to log in to the forum (since that would lock out users who have tech issues with linking...)

regarding your actual question - when someone finds time to implement the new updater so we don't share any more copyright protected code
no clue when that is going to happen since faf is a community driven thing my best estimate is soon™

regarding your other verification idea - not going to happen
steam offers an easy solution that allows us to check for the ownership of the game
some picture that we have to verify manually is not an option especially since allowing that would also mean that we would effectively allow each user (with a physical copy) to create as many verified accounts as he likes

[finfin]

Thanks for the reply.
I will not go into the Forum discussion, since it has it's own thread. Suffice to say my fear is that the replacement "forum software" would be some other service I would not wish to sign up with, such as discourse or google groups. Not that it would require steam linking. But thanks for clarifying.

regarding your actual question - when someone finds time to implement the new updater so we don't share any more copyright protected code
no clue when that is going to happen since faf is a community driven thing my best estimate is soon™

Where soon™ is often equivalent to notgonnahappen™ *cough* GW *cough*? Would anyone have something more definite; I mean -in full seriousness- is there anyone working on that, or even planning to work on that? Because, without even any rough estimate -six months on the wrong end of the deadline-, this sounds awfully like we-all-know-this-wont-actually-ever-happen-we-just-cant-say-that-out-loud.

And if anyone could clarify what this deadline and stuff is actually about? I mean the public notice couldn't have been any more muddy than it was. Firstly, I thought visionik had hung up the mantle some time back? An then, "not share any copyright protected code"? Hello, that's inherently impossible in this legal system; unless it was put into the Public Domain, it all is copyright-protected. The only question is who owns the rights.)

regarding your other verification idea - not going to happen [...]
some picture that we have to verify manually is not an option especially since allowing that would also mean that we would effectively allow each user (with a physical copy) to create as many verified accounts as he likes

What you are saying here, is, that the Steam linking is used for multi-account prevention, by requiring a 3rd party cloud identity service (Steam). Which is not, by the way, even remotely covered in the Privacy Policy.
Please explain to me how the eventual removal of any "copyrighted code" (and then steam-linking) would solve any multi-accounting issues? I think, if you're honest about it, you know this reasoning is not applicable here.
Because, yes, you would allow that. And yes you are allowing that in a system, where everyone can create any number of steam accounts, buy a FA copy and have a new FAF account.

What I offer seems like a valid alternative to the thought behind steam-linking, and would IMO be entirely good enough if your reason for checking is actually the reason you said it was, namely owning a legit copy, from a copyright standpoint. This is still the realm where holding a physical copy in hand is valid proof of ownership, right? check check.

Of course if the reason stated is actually just a farce, well then... own up to it, okay?
Multi-account prevention wasn't the reason given, for requiring this linking in the first place. There's the fafid program to care for that, which as far as I'm aware, is still a FAF client requirement.
But this reasoning of yours gives credence to my fear, that Steam-linking is not intended to go away again; people will just adopt the viewpoint that it was always intended for the accounting reason; and, not long after that, public team opinion will be that steam was always going to be a permanent thing, out of simple convenience.
And then not actually working on solving the sourcecode thing is just a good cover on top.

I am still hoping tatsu isn't blowing hot air up my... , but, again, six months on the wrong end of a deadline, how long is "not permanent" going to be (and will there be some community left at the end of it)?

[PhilipJFry]

oh geez that's a lot of assumptions you make instead of just asking about stuff you don't know about

Where soon™ is often equivalent to notgonnahappen™ *cough* GW *cough*? Would anyone have something more definite; I mean -in full seriousness- is there anyone working on that, or even planning to work on that? Because, without even any rough estimate -six months on the wrong end of the deadline-, this sounds awfully like we-all-know-this-wont-actually-ever-happen-we-just-cant-say-that-out-loud.

FAForever is a community driven project - brutus (the guy who was doing most of the work on the new patching system) is currently busy with client related stuff afaik
the only way to ensure that something is being done is doing it yourself

And if anyone could clarify what this deadline and stuff is actually about? I mean the public notice couldn't have been any more muddy than it was. Firstly, I thought visionik had hung up the mantle some time back? An then, "not share any copyright protected code"? Hello, that's inherently impossible in this legal system; unless it was put into the Public Domain, it all is copyright-protected. The only question is who owns the rights.)

the new patching system would basically only share the code lines created by the community and patch the game files locally so we don't distribute copyright protected code

incoherent rambling

account spamming and copyright has nothing to do with each other per se
steam linking just has the positive side effect of not allowing users to spam accounts unless they keep buying the game on steam over and over again

your "valid" alternative is a useless waste of time - steam link does everything you want to achieve but it's 100 times better

And then not actually working on solving the sourcecode thing is just a good cover on top.

maybe we should start selling tinfoil hats

will there be some community left at the end of it

yes - you may not believe it but most people just link their faf acc to steam and enjoy the game

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