feature suggestion - all scripts should be readable

Fine, I'll make an example:
Someone creates a game--IP--and implements it in SL. It becomes popular and someone steals the code, copies it and makes a rip off that functions in the exact same way.
A game company comes along and sees it and says, "that's cool, we'd like to produce it commercially" and approaches the theif because that's who the creator was.

So, in the end, the guy who owned the IP gets the short end of the stick as he watches Tringo get made for the DS while the theif makes millions because all scripts were open source.

I would quit SL in a hearbeat if scripts were forced to be open source.
I'm proud of my prim-work, my texture work and so-on, it may not be the best but I will be as annoyed as anyone else to see it ripped off but this copybot idiocy.
But one of the things that I like to think separates my works from other people's is the scripting, I pride myself in delivering functional yet light-weight scripted content with lots of interactivity.
There is no reason to make the secure part of SL insecure as well just because you don't like that geometry and textures rendered on the client are necessarily unsafe from copying.

The only thing I could agree to that would make some scripting insecure would be the ability to write client-side scripts that run independantly of the server on an avatar's machine (e.g as part of their attachments for example) and requests any data that is needed. These would have to be unsafe.

I think that a lot of builders though are underestimating how obvious a copy can be. If you released a product first, and people liked it, then anyone making a copy will more than likely be seen by one of these users who will quickly identify it as a rip-off and with a bit of luck report it to you, or to Linden Labs, or just through word-of-mouth will put others off buying the copy because chances are the "creator" will be banned shortly and not give any product help or support.
It's like buying a pirate DVD, if you do that you've no guarantee it will be as good as the original, and if you want to take it back, there's no refund or anything.
Anyone who gains popularity from copying someone else's work can perfectly easily be called up on it by reporting suspicions to LL, and suddenly their ill-gotten fame is destroyed. The more successful a copybot retailer is, the more quickly they are stopped.

True, rip-offs could very well not get far, but the thing about code is, if you steal a game you can ADD functionality that makes it a little different, maybe better. But the IP is still stolen and the theif should not get credit for it.

I would be for this but only for scripts that ask me to take my money... I really don't trust money games haha it's too easy for them to put a cheat in it and let their friends win.

That's more towards a related issue of a way to verify casino games. There are trusted ones out there, but they are only trusted because everyone uses them and nothing's gone wrong yet. I think there's a whole thread in the Games sub-forum.

I'm mostly a scripter, but have a lot of sympathy for Dianne and other builders. LL's current policy really isn't what most people thought was the way SL would work, and for texture artists and non-scripting builders it doesn't sound very encouraging.

I'm not sure if LL intends everything in SL to be free and open in the long run. Perhaps if this is supposed to become a 3D web, the idea is that the money to be made will be for sales of RL stuff, not in-world products.

Certainly, if people don't have to pay for in-world stuff, it will be more attractive to free accounts, and they would be the customers for people selling RL products.

Not entirely true... Many may not remember nor would many like to remember that dark day last year, but I remember it all too well. There have been many a good scripts that were nailed due to an exploit, a really friggen big exploit at that. There was a hacked SL client that allowed around 5 residents to gain Linden powers and not only gain full permissions on other people's products but one or more used that access to leak out full permissive copies of scripts by many talented scripters. I am not going to say who but believe me, they were hit very hard. I will give an object example, that ZX1 or whatever it is now attack helicopter that is still out there, that was all stolen property, scripts included. To say that scripters have never suffered due to an exploit is wrong.

While I will agree that we need a way to backup copies of products we have purchased, using the Software example, we may not have access to the source code, but we can legally make a backup copy of the medium the application came on. But we do not need access to the source code to do that.

I think this is the crux of issue, so to speak. Many people who get to fully realize it's case for their prim/texture work (can be seen and taken by any other) get the very same reaction -- why should i do anything in SL anymore. To tell them it's 'always been this way' ain't helping them any because the issue and personal reaction to it remains just the same. Something that many people seem to not realize and yes, in lot of cases it comes across as smug.

When they're down, maybe it's not bad idea to show some restraint and empathy, and just keep mouth shut up and don't further kick them. They get much less incentive to try and bite you on the ankle this way. --;

(this isn't about this thread specifically, but regarding attitude shown over last few days by many)

Think of it another way:

If someone rips a texture it doesn't put other people that bought that texture at risk of direct financial losses. (you might contrive some 1 in 10,000 way of proving me wrong on that)

If a script is cracked open, exploits will be glaringly obvious. The channels it uses, the key words it may be listening for to debit or credit money... I would bet that most scripters aren't security experts and that a great percentage of scripts have gaping holes in them that would allow exploitation.

Did you purchase a vendor script for your products? Has someone seen the code and certified that it's something you can trust with Direct Access to your L$?

Or... in the name of fairness... are you willing to risk giving the key to your cash register drawer to any random script-ripper?

On the flip side... A script ripping exploit would probably put every casino in SL out of business, so it's not all bad. And they wouldn't be closed merely in protest.

--
Joe was an orphan... Bob has a rich uncle. Let's rob and kill Bob's uncle so that any competition between Joe and Bob will be fair and equal.

Scripts are internally arranged into "procedures". What I was suggesting is that the headers of any procedures might be required to be published but not the code within contained within them.

This would reveal the events which the script responds to (the xxxxx event is responded to by an Onxxxxx script procedure) without revealing precisely how the response is coded (in other words you know what the object the script is attached to responds to).

The other reason for protecting scripts is some idiot may edit a script and the possible damage that would cause is unlimited. I know they can write their own but not having a template to work from will make the whole process less likely to produce serious problems IMHO.

The other point is protecting textures is akin to making it illegal for a third party to publish your photograph without your permission. Are you seriously suggesting that there is any real case for this? There may be a case for protecting pictures taken where privacy can reasonably be expected but that's not the discussion here. What I am saying is that if you appear in public, then anyone else has a right to take your photograph and holds the copyright (IPR) on that photograph. If it applies in real life there can be no justification for not applying it in second life.

Just my 2p's worth.

I've tried to read most of what you wrote, Dianne, and I have to say it just sounds like bitterness to me. I fully agree that IP is IP and that any creative endeavor should be protected. But just because some have chose a medium in which IP protection is not feasible does not justify the penalization of other innocents who have chosen a medium in good faith in which IP protection is feasible.

I think that the following analogy is quite apt. Say your home was burglarized. But mine wasn't. You go to the police who say they will do the best to catch the thief, but of course cannot promise anything. You, frustrated, unable to bring the thief to justice, and unable to hold anyone else accountable, cry "unfair!" and call for me to be required to unlock my door, or that the government should deliberately "subvert" (your word) my security, so that anyone who wishes can come in and take whatever is in my home.

"Fair is fair?" So if someone stabs you, rather than stabbing him back, you stab me. And that makes it fair? I'm struggling not to type something sarcastic here.

Further, say that I am a lock smith. You blame me for being in the same profession that produces tools that permitted the thief to pick your lock and gain entry, thereby making me not only unfairly privileged, but also complicit, and that by virtue of being in the same profession or however loosely associated a profession, I implicitly endorse the thief's actions or philosophy.

Not only have you failed to address the real source of your problem -- the thief who stole your property and is still at large -- but you have also actively sought to compromise the innocent, irrationally directing your bitterness at those who bear no responsibility for your predicament. You have subsequently denied lumping all scripters into the same class, but your initial post clearly states your opinion. As does this:

It's quite obvious that you have an axe to grind when it comes to some scripters:

And even though you admit that you admire some scripters, it's plain that only those who would give away their code, and therefore be willling to be in the same boat as you, are the "true leaders."

Perhaps you should pull your head out of SL for a second and consider this: Maya, the graphics and film industry's most illustrious modeling/animation package, that sells for more than US$10,000 (it used to go for triple) and represents years of research and development by teams of sleepless programmers and scripters, can readily be found for sale in the alleys of Hong Kong for HK$200 (which is about US$25) -- or the plethora of other similar software packages that can be bought for similar prices because someone managed to crack the encryption.

By your logic, everyone in the world who has not suffered the same injustice should be forced to somehow place themselves at some voluntary disadvantage, simply to asuage your indignation. And moreover, that anyone from Hong Kong is a hypocrite and a thief, except for those "true leaders" who would martyr themselves as an endorsement of your personal (and frankly, quite warped) sense of justice.

Well said!!!

The OP's suggestion is absolutely preposterous!!! I would love to go on a very long and well-reasoned treatise on why I think so, but I believe it has been done sufficiently already and I do not think I could improve on what's already been said.

Just wanted to add my 0.02, I guess.

I think since people's cars can be hit by a train a lot easier than houses can, that houses should be built on train tracks. That will level the playing field!

I think this has to be my favorite analogy on the thread so far.

...and also level a few houses, I'd imagine ;)

Mine too. Locksmiths have the tools and the knowhow to pick locks, infact, much of what they do is picking locks that people lost the keys too so that they can unlock, uninstall, and replace them.

just my little summery

1 its already happened last year, tag your it

2 when someone snags your texture its in a reduced quality, it doesnt give you each and every step to reporduce the image in photoshop, where as open scripts do

3 while i do beleive copybot really sucks, that ability has been inworld from when i joined untill fairly recently, noone really had issues with making items when anyone could just edit the objects and copy the numbers out of the little boxes, which was very ez-ly done with LSL to (and might still be i havent tried)

4 in the limited world of LSL theres always some jackass that see's your object and thinks "i can make that" and reproduces your script anyways (i do it frequently) without even seeing it, all it takes is some LSL knowhow and a idea ...

Exactly. Scripts don't need to be visible to be copied, and scripts are copied all the time. This thread occured recently: /327/00/146721/1.html



Yes, it's true that you can't easily decompile a script from Second Life, but it's by no means true that scripters don't have to worry about their work being copied. In fact, prior to CopyBot, they had to worry about it far more than builders or clothiers. (Texture artists, though, have always had the worst deal. )

I'm not a scripter. I couldn't be even if I tried. I'm a texture gal.

I was way against CopyBot and still am.

(K, now that that's out of the way....)

This is like saying... some yahoo gave me a cold because he had it and I have a lower immune system than you, so now the rest of you should get it too to be fair to those of us who have a cold. If I have a snotty nose and sneezing and coughing, you should too. It's not fair that you get to be healthy and I don't because of someone else.

That wouldn't provide any useful information whatsoever.

This wouldn't reveal any information that wouldn't be obvious to anyone with moderate familiarity with the way SL works.

It might be useful actually. That way you could see that a script does something on the money event, or is configured to use sensors. Either of these things in a script that you don't think should be using either of these things could be useful to know.

I don't know if you remember the Ginko uproar when people found out that the terminals were using sensors to detect people and return information on them even though they aren't using the ATM.
Although it could lead to a degree of witch-hunting, I would put it under tools. Or more usefully have a debug tool that you can use to monitor a script, say to tell you when a script you're suspicious of triggers a sensor, and who it found.

But I think that's probably veering away from the original point of the thread, which was that because textures and objects aren't safe, scripts shouldn't be either because clearly that's a good idea (sarcasm)

You can see whether a fair number of events are present just by running your mouse over the object and looking at the last line in the hovertip. "Script Touch Money", for example, means it's got a script in it, the script responds to touch, and the script responds to being paid. There are other ones, too.

not trying to speak anyones voice, but i assumed they ment the llGiveMoney() function

does it give change or clean your bank? thats abit tricky, but could be solved with a certificate program (thats a different thread tho)

Honestly, this post just seems kind of bitter and pointless. Just because other things are broken does not mean that you should break the few security measures that work, and furthermore, I script but I have never once stolen anyone's IP. Why should I be punished?

This is one of those proposals I'd vote against were the option given.