On January 4th, Crrio was made aware that a developer that previously worked on our team, Andy / Inumedia, had removed an MIT license from a self-hosted version of our MapleStory Wiki project's repository. The issue was voiced by a developer who was concerned about their safety using the code; as with the removal of an open source license, rights and legal protections are stripped away from anybody using this code. Read more about this here.
As the removal of the license violates licensing laws and also endangers developers (which we can't condone nor support), it was in our best interest to send a DMCA to GitLab to request for strictly the removal of just the MapleStory Wiki repository. We consulted GitLab's DMCA Policy which specifies that only in cases of repeated infringement will additional actions be taken as follows:
We will review your submission and take whatever action we deem appropriate under the DMCA, including removal of the challenged content from the website. Further more, we may, in appropriate circumstances, disable or terminate the accounts of users who may be repeat infringers.
A copy of our DMCA request can be viewed by clicking here.
Upon receiving the DMCA request, Andy stated on his Discord server that he felt it was a personal attack against him. He then proceeded to shut down all servers associated with IO (and their other projects). On numerous occasions, he has stated that the loss of his GitLab account was the cause of this shutdown and that Crrio's actions were directly to blame for any services (including MapleStory Design) losing functionality due to this.
In messages following, Andy informed others that his GitLab's closure meant the immediate need to shut down all servers for his projects (including IO) and that without his GitLab everything was doomed.
Prior to Andy hosting code associated with his IO project (and other MapleStory-related projects) on GitLab, it was hosted on a private instance of GitLab that was used to host all Crrio projects. For a majority of its existence, Crrio paid for the servers that housed IO-powered projects, including: IO, the Wiki project, Design, and the GitLab instance itself.
This instance was personally set up and maintained by Andy, who had a great understanding of its infrastructure and requirements. Additionally, this instance was used to deploy and update all of our services (IO included) using continuous integration (CI).
Andy's statements regarding his account's closure, as mentioned above, are not a valid excuse for shutting down all servers. GitLab is designed to allow for transitioning between gitlab.com and private, instanced setups with little to no effort. Only a one-time setup is required to enable continuous integration, taking more than an hour of time.
After becoming aware of this page, Andy responded briefly to a few concerns brought up in this page, in addition to banning a member of the Crrio team based solely on suspicions of providing screenshots. It is saddening to hear of attempts to silence transparency, but fortunately, there are many individuals of good morals willing to continue this conversation.
1. "And ye, I don't have prior dmcas against me"
This conflicts with GitLab's own policy, so unless their legal team was caught on a bad day, we can't validate this statement.
2. "And the problem is Tyler is liable to send other false DMCAs"
I'm confused by this statement, and Andy has not responded to my inquiry for more information.
3. "And it would take hours to setup a new Gitlab, hours I don't have"
You mean this one? Andy updated the email address of this account to match the now closed account; showing activity within the last couple days and contradicting the above statement.
It is important to note that Andy received payments for working on Crrio projects and was legally considered an independant contractor by the IRS. This includes work on Maple.fm, Wiki, Henesys Chat, in addition to Design and IO. A significent amount of time was put into building the APIs to support Design, adding new functionality based on Crrio's and MapleMation's communities, which are managed by Crrio.
(with this in mind.. everything that was slapped with a Crrio brand, was in fact, a Crrio project and legally owned by Crrio.) It was Andy's duty to contribute to, maintain, and uphold Crrio's services. As no service can function without the dependency of IO, it is legally sound to assume that without IO, Andy's duties would not be unheld.
When Andy left the Crrio team last year due to disagreements over the direction of Wiki, he made statements to the rest of our team that Wiki had always been his project and that Crrio did not own any rights to it. This same belief has been voiced following the aforementioned events, and Andy has publicly stated he intends to take legal action against our team (or me personally) for sending a falsified DMCA.
The following section will provide numerous screenshots and statements confirming this as false, and that Andy's attempts to mislead the MapleStory community have only caused harm.
I believe Andy shows a greater understanding of MapleStory development than most in the community, and it was a privilege working with him throughout the years. I believe we created some outstanding projects together.
However, as our individual visions with the projects changed over time, scenarios in which conflict arose became unavoidable. I acknowledge there were times that he might have felt pushed aside because of my public figure within the community. I believe that I could have better facilitated a healthier open forum for discussions and project growth.
From one developer to another, I feel terrible for the impact that the DMCA has had on his account. That was never the intention, and I wish GitLab had treated the issue less severely. If there were prior infringements against Andy, I was not aware of them nor had they been communicated.
Most importantly, I feel awful for the impact this has had on the MapleStory community as a whole. I don't think anybody gained from this, and I can acknowledge that my actions, while I feel justified, did not result in a positive outcome for the communities that I uphold.