Hey Moogle.
You won't answer me in private messages, so I'll write here.
It's not nice of you to ignore, kick, and disrespect people who try to work together with you on a free project.
I've talked to various people who have dealt with you in the past, and it paints a sad picture: you treat collaborators poorly with paranoid accusations and blame, and then exploit them to work for free while you enjoy the success - and as soon they speak up or opposes your view, you get offended and boot them out. Not only that, but you take other peoples source code, brush off their names and pretend it was made for BMP all along.
This is not how open-source, collaborative work should be treated like, and I feel sorry for the community. They will use software that has been tainted by an abusive leader, and the fact is, most users will never know. But I am most sorry to collaborators that came after I let go of BMP, those who passionately worked for free and ended up kicked by you. I sincerely wish they would have been treated better.
Your leadership is flawed, and your personality is weak. Grow up and learn how to communicate with people properly.
- Paru
In 2018, I started developing Bard Music Player (then Bard Macro Player) to automate performance in FFXIV. My work was created and distributed for free (1), without asking for anything - no money, no personal attention, no advertising, nothing. My goal was to make a creative tool to help people perform for or together with others. It was that simple. As you know, many, many people have used it, and some have even helped improve it. The genuine appreciation felt rewarding, and I happily stood for running cost and help establishing community rules and structure together with volunteers.
When I started this project, I had just begun college with plenty of free time. As open-source developing and collaboration continued over the next year, the community exploded in numbers, and as you can imagine, suddenly being in charge of over 20 000 people can feel intimidating. Social anxiety issues aside, collaborating with other programmers also took time, time that was being increasingly occupied by all the more complicated and demanding college tasks.
During my leadership, I learned of Moogle who had been leading the Moogle Troupe, a FFXIV Performance band using his own automation program. We initially talked to join our programs together, so we discussed our thoughts on the implications of automating performance, meaning, how these programs actually helps people to socialize and to grow new relationships. We agreed on many points, were on amicable terms and felt positive about collaborating together.
As development went on with BMP, with the community growing even bigger and (what I thought then) expectations mounting, my enthusiasm slowly waned, and even more so as the financial and time constrained reality of college kicked in full force. However, I kept my hands on the community leadership until I had found someone to replace - and I asked Moogle if he would be willing to take over.
Moogle ended up purchasing the intellectual property of the source code, the ownership of the discord server as well as other databases and scripts for $1000. From my life situation at the time, that sum made sense, and I felt safe knowing a trusted member would continue carrying the torch. Until then, I had only ever meekly suggested donations - but nothing I could sustain myself with.
The sum included two additional demands: to license the code for GPL, and to have a "Founder" vanity role assigned to me in the discord server, for as long as I'm there. (2)
1) By licensing the code for GPL, I ensured the public availability of the program for the future as the license demands the source code and its changes to be made available.
2) The "Founder" role was only for decorative purposes and had no practical implications, but it was still part of the trade agreement.
Unfortunately, Moogle broke the second demand last year (3) (4) by removing the role and refusing to politely communicate with me. However, the reason why I created this page wasn't because of that, it was because I could see that he had become a leader that I wish I wouldn't had let take over BMP.
I ended up talking to various community members who described his competitive, un-cooperative behavior and the disrespectful, egoistical, and reckless interactions between him and them. I experienced that too, by him misrepresenting my/my friends' words and creating his own made-up ideas of how I feel and why my actions were taken and telling others that. He forcibly desired to keep the established hierarchy up by kicking off dissendants, even well-meaning criticism - seemingly for his own emotional accomodation, rather than what's best for the community.
I feel a bit of remorse that BMP went this way. But meh, life goes on. I'm not angry or bitter after all these years, but rather concerned for how you, the performer, the community member feels. Hopefully you can understand that I did consider the impact of my program to you during and beyond my leadership time. I could've closed the source and started charging money for BMP, I could've caved from the pressure and erased the website, server, and midis, but I didn't - I just wanted you to enjoy performing in FFXIV.
