At The FIRST Alliance we’re pumped for kickoff so we’re inviting you all to join us for our live stream and live chat of the kickoff! We’re also going to mirror the game manual once it’s released too, so be sure to look for that.
Next, make sure to follow us on Twitterand like us on Facebookto get real-time updates of all the exciting TFA news!
One more thing! You’ll also notice some minor changes we’ve made based on the excellent feedback we’ve received from the community.
It’s very important that FIRST, and only FIRST, host FIRST content. That is to say, rather than taking the documents and files you can find through usfirst.org and hosting them on your own sites, we need teams to link to our information instead. There are two main reasons:
Version control. Our documents and files may change over time. If a 3rd party host links to the original content instead of the original content, any updates we make will carry through. If the content is hosted instead of linked, the content may become obsolete, but with no notification to the user.
Intellectual property. While we’re not particularly possessive of our content, we do have a responsibility to protect FIRST IP. it’s not all created by FIRST, but it’s created for FIRST. So, re-hosting content may or may not infringe on donation agreements, licensing agreements or other matters that may not be public knowledge.
No I can read just fine Andrew. Thanks for your concern though. We’ll be looking into this. We’re concerned about FIRST DDoSing themselves and are aware of their official response to people who’ve inquired about this in the past.
That problem can be fixed by letting everyone know to download the encrypted file from FIRST’s website now, and then on your site host a notepad with the password.
I was un-aware of those specific regulations, and therefore will not be hosting the document on our site. We will however link to usfirst.org with a copy of the password on our site. However I would like to state that there are many more ways that the aforementioned notice could have been stated other than asking if we have trouble reading.
I have honestly never seen any messages in previous years about not hosting the manual. All we were trying to do this year was make it easier for everybody to get the manual.
Trouble seeing, eh? That’s the most prominent one I can think of from last year. I recall similar messages for the past several years, including one on the FIRST web site.
All we were trying to do this year was make it easier for everybody to get the manual.
It seem to me that the only people who would know of these unauthorized mirrors are the ones reading the Chief Delphi forums. They would obviously already know to download the files in advance of the rush.
That’s the most prominent one I can think of from last year. I recall similar messages for the past several years, including one on the