tfishell: Is there wailing and gnashing of teeth over this release? ;)

juanitogan: Yeah, that's hilarious. Why would you? That was your one valid complaint.

I normally don't bother with people who find free to never be free enough, but here's how I see it:

You want to be the expert disseminator of information, telling people what I do or do not provide:

"Also, even though it's hosted on github, it doesn't appear to include source so it's not possible for anyone other than the author to fix." "your closed, binary installer file" "you don't document what you actually did so I can't fix it. It's not like you're alone in this sort of thing..."

And, yet, you know little about what I provide:

"I couldn't stand to read it long enough"

You complain that I'm too verbose:

"painfully verbose installation instructions"

And, yet, I don't say enough:

"very little actual information I might find useful ... maybe a few lines explaining what the mod actually is/does ... In fact, I'm not sure your wiki page states *anywhere* what all the patch is supposed to do."

"Is there another page that does?"

I make it pretty clear in the first paragraph on the main GitHub page for RBXIT, in the troll-notice footers on GitHub, on the YouTube videos, and on itch.io, that the main site for information on my patches is here:

https://namethattech.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/fixing-up-old-computer-games/

If that is not enough, read the issue threads where I think I explain pretty well what is going on to anyone who asks.

"When I said "no source" I mean that you do not apparently publish all of the materials you used to make your closed, binary installer file that actually contains all the patches."

Closed, binary installer? Most I've talked with don't have trouble figuring out that my EXE is an SFX and they simply unzip it to see how it works. I think the 7Z SFX icon on both the file and in the launch window header gives that away pretty well. The suspiciously-named setup.bat file is there for all to read in plain batch script code. I build this way because I believe the only way to fight all the dangers on the net is through transparency. I also build unfriendly and low-level patchers like this because it is faster, easier to test, and there is less to break over time -- which leaves more time for fixing other stuff.

To understand the other tools that led to the patched files in the SFX, you need to read the documentation in the code of those tools. To understand the binary edits to the DLL, read the blog and other stuff I've written on it and then do a diff on the DLLs -- there's no source code for this because it was all done directly with the bit code. It's all there ready to be audited by anyone who cares. If I haven't made things easy enough for everyone to understand, well, bummer, I'm just one man trying to fix some cool stuff in my spare time.

"Abandonware is not a legal term." I think I make it astoundingly clear that I don't think it is by linknig to the Wikipedia topic on it in the first line of the first install instruction. I then recommend buying the CD and resorting to ISO downloads only when the CD fails (much like my recommendation if the GOG download fails to make someone happy). I think it is pretty obvious that if I felt "abandonware" was legit, I would have saved myself a ton of trouble and work by distributing prepached copies instead of complex and bulky patches and install instructions.

"Downloading the ISOs is not an option if you want to stay legal." I find this to be arguable. If you already own legal rights to the contents of the ISO, then is it illegal to download a backup copy if your copy fails? I've seen debates on this but not a definitive answer yet.

"Sites which host these are also generally untrustworthy." Often true. Hence, my caution with them.

"Emulators as a whole..." Emulators? What does my patch have to do with emulators???

But, yeah, I totally don't expect you to apologize just like to don't expect you to believe that any of my verbose content that is out there is actually out there.

When I had less verbose install instructions, I had to waste much more time answering questions. So, um, try hosting something like this yourself someday and see where it goes -- see what kind of people emerge from the woodwork trying to lord over your work.