Not only has this been a breach of trust from the team keeping the mod DB safe from malicious code, now that this individual represents the development of Vintage Story as a whole they NEED to be held to a much stricter standard than any other user. Regardless of the intent behind this particular piece of code, it was undeniably obfuscated to a level that very obviously indicates Maltiez was very aware of the potential reaction were it to be exposed. Now that the cat is out of the bag it is, in my opinion, in Tyron's ultimate interest to let Maltiez go. He should also give the rest of his team a stern talking to when it comes to PR in the future. Every Discord posting I have seen from this particular drama has been unprofessional at best and directly inflammatory at worst. A team needs a unified front. You can't have 5 different people all giving their personal opinions on the matter while the issue is still being resolved. Ridiculous. If Maltiez is not removed from the dev team soon I will likely be requesting a refund on the principle that I cannot trust a developer who would endorse the actions of someone who introduced a malicious mod to his users.
And in response to 'Teh Pizza Lady', this is not a debate on 'utilitarian ethics'. This is a game that we have purchased under the impression that the stewards of this product are acting in our best interests as clients/users. The argument of 'well just don't cheat lol' falls flat on its face when you consider this situation similar to the .xz hack not too long ago. Just because Maltiez's scope was, as far as we are aware, more narrow does not excuse or minimize the fact that they introduced malicious code into their mod. A library mod. One that other modders depend on. It obfuscates itself, crashes your game if you run mods that the mod developer doesn't agree with and is a perfect launching point for something much worse than that. It is NOT a single modder's responsibility to inject his own sense of ethics or restrictions into the game without the complete consent of those involved. This is malware, plain and simple, and it needs to be reacted to as such. The road to Hell is paved in good intentions and I, along with many other users, do NOT trust the trajectory of the game with someone like this directly contributing to actual game code rather than voluntarily installed mods.
