Do scripters get ripped off?

As i am on a quest to find another post i only had a chance to read the first post so i apologize if i sound like somebodys parrot..LOL.. j/k yal..

If somebody offers to write a script for a price or "deal" doesnt that mean that they are scripter??.. so then would they be ripping themselves off. I wouldnt think so. This is a free economy.. meaning whoever can make a decent product at a the best price wins... selling yourself just short of slave labor..but if its what you enjoy no biggie right?..lol if nobody is willing to make it for cheaper and then somebody does.. more power to them.. b/c.. if the consumer was complaining about the price now most would be in the future(especially as your product hopefully gets upgraded and the price of the new goes up)... ooorrr maybe it is time to drop the price of the new and bring out the old..lol.. so i wouldnt consider it "ripping off"..more like undercutting..lol... .. ok done rambling.. back to my quest..

later
O



PS: I will be back later to read the whole thread...well most of it anyway..lol

Ahhh yes... I'm familiar with what you're saying, of the Kazenojin. Sorry, I should have clarified further... I mean, I don't ever recall Goodwill coming on these FORUMS and shedding more light on how he feels about all this X-Flight biz specifically (SL Forums matches turned up other fascinating things, but not this). I want to meet him.

Good to hear about your replacement too! You've been handing them out? Can I please have one?

~one minute later~

Thanxies Argent! Got it!

In my experience, scripting in SL is just like clockwork making. I feel like one of the watchmakers of old when designing algorithms and laying out data. I like seeing the looks of marvel, the Ooohs and Aaahs of the people who see it set in motion for the first time.

I second what Torley is saying, in order to make money in SL a scripter also has to build and texture. Except for the spells, I sell the prims and not the scripts that they contain.

(I get contacted more and more often by people asking for a clone of a particular scripted item... which bothers me because I have no interest in making something that someone already made, is already very fine and is affordable, while I could be working on something genuinely original and challenging)

I think the main problem is that there is no real value to time in SL, especially for basic members who are completely free at the moment!
I'm a premium member with 1024m of land, but that's not a big cost to me, that's like £60 a year in GBP, maybe a little more. So I'm quite content to slowly build my shop in my free time and charge reasonable prices for the things that I intend to sell, regardless of how long they take. No rush-built shop with a handful of over-priced items for me!
Some people do scripting for fun, so don't mind giving away their stuff for free, even if it takes them days to perfect.

The thing is that there are a lot of scripters, who enjoy scripting, but aren't very imaginative in terms of what they script (no offence intended to anyone!), they are however VERY good at working out how to solve particular problems, in imaginative and well-executed ways.
The result is that you have a load of scripters sitting around who want to work on something, and if you toss them an idea they immediately form a solution in their head and gladly jump in because they enjoy it. I'm guilty of it too!

A number of my mostly scripted items so far are things that have already been done, but which I have not seen done as well as I believe that I can make them, as I have ideas to make them better (like my advanced door, which can do practically everything a door should be able to do, and has some nifty access controls which are IMO simple to use).
For example, a simple vending item frequently requires 3 or more prims, a settings file and isn't all that easy to use for shoppers (e.g if you are paying the sign and someone clicks the 'next' button then you buy the wrong bloody thing!). So I'm finishing off a single prim one which is designed to be easy to use.
Sure, it's not an original idea, a vending machine, wow. But I believe it to be done in a much better way than any vending machine I've used in world thus-far, and feel that that entitles me to the right to sell it, I'm putting work in to make a (hopefully) superior product.
I could give it away for free, hell, I might if people would start using it instead (it generates zero lag, as it doesn't have a single listen...EVER).

So it's a combination of things, I could give it away for free because it's not costing me anything to make, the RL money invested in SL is low, and I don't consider my time working on it 'wasted' (some may disagree!) as I enjoy making things. So I can quite safely give it away for free because I don't need to make a profit.

I think the answer is it all depends. It's certainly possible for a scripter to get ripped off in SL, both in terms of other scripters copying (I certainly look at some things and think, ah I'd do that like that and do it myself, sometimes I even sell the products on if they're sufficiently different and improved) and in terms of undercharging.

Things that work best are, like Torley and others have already said, usually scripted things. Be it something simple like a single prim with a 'control panel' texture and a radio script inside (sells pretty well), or something more complex like an all singing all dancing super vehicle (that I don't build, but others on this list do), or a fully functional blackjack table or whatever (which I have made for a client shortly before I found there was a glut of such machines, although mine does a few things the others don't seem to as the person commissioning it requested).

The exception to that is a swing script I made. I sell a swing containing it, and the script alone (full perms and an 'honour this script, please don't pass it on to your friends' statement which may or may not protect me at all). Sales of the script FAR outstrip sales of swing (about 45:6 from memory), presumably because there are lots of people out there that want to make swings... Am I being ripped off - well if the 45 number is right I've made about US$45 from it. For an hour or two of coding and testing (including inevitably testing it in my swing) it's not a bad rate of return I guess.

I guess it also depends on whether you think SL is a job or not. I started scripting for pleasure and to tweak things so they were how I wanted them. I've added on to that over the months since then. I make things for sale, for fun, and dabble in a few other markets in SL (I'm not expecting it to make a living for me in the near future) and on that basis, no I don't get ripped off: Look at the clothes market - people might moan and bitch about paying L$500 for an outfit, but where else could you get a high quality outfit for US$2?

One of the other reasons people make things already made is that to learn how to do things in LSL a good start point will be simple things - and because they are simple they probably have already been made by someone else.

In my limited tinkering I 'invented' a follower. Then I had a look at the script library and saw how other people had done the same/similar.

Then I went to the particle library in Teal to get a quick particle tutorial, then I made a firework. Then I made a firework launcher, to learn how objects can create and communicate with other objects.

In between, I messed around working the best way to have something orbit my head (at least three very different versions so far...)

I dont think there was anything 'new' there, but given the maturity of SL it will be a lot easier to make new versions of things that have already been done than invent something totally new.

As for should I sell these (re)inventions, and how should I price them, well that Im still trying to come to grips with. That and how to actually sell effectively

patch
ps I'll ditto comments about being able to code being a different skill from being good at having interesting and novel ideas about *what* to code.

Hank Ramos makes a ton of cool things, from his Open-Source, Route-Finding, PTP Teleportation Script to the Touring Balloon Script that I recently picked up and started looking at. I just felt oddly compelled to mention that.

Hmm... do scripters get ripped off?


Let's see. Money... or Power.

Money...
Power....


I'da know. Way I see it, I just make stuff go. L$ really don't mean anything to me doing it.

Yes, exactly. When I write something cool I very rarely get people telling me it's cool, or interacting with it, because there's so much distance between me and the people who ultimately use my software. If you live in Houston, or Washington, or many ther cities... I've had a part in making the software that gets electric power to you. But there's no way you'd ever know that... and you certainly won't ever get to see the font I adapted for the monitors with the aid of a slide rule. The railroad safety gear, the oilfield test equipment, or even the open source firewall software that some of you (or your ISP) may be using... that may have a bigger impact, but you can't see it. To you, it's boring.

When I drop a shower of balls down a 500 meter spiral slide in a sandbox, that's cool. Packaging that into a product that people would buy? That's not fun at all. And it'd actually cost me money to do it.

Scripters getting ripped off, damn sure they get ..

As i read this thread i noticed alot scripters seem to value there products low, to low. A script is a like a child for me, starting from an idea, writting the first functions, first unstable version to finaly walking on there own. Why something like that give away for nearly nothing ? And why the F**** give it away as opensource .. !!!

I see alota productions out there, some just cheap rippofs of others, Cloth, prims whatever ... and all take there money for it. Why should we scripters give our stuff away for free ? And why are there scripters out there thinking nothing of it ??

Ah whatever .. you will do how ya like and i do how i like, if people want something scripted by me it will cost em something and if they want it Full Mod it will cost em even more ...

*walks off to by herself a new dress and wonders if there was a designer out there recreating her that cool dress with full rights for free ... * ( ... )

This thread is old...but it is a good discussion...

...honestly, I believe the reason scriptors get ripped off is because many of us care much more about the challenge of development than the monetary gain received...

...that...and if I were to honestly charge a fair price for an LSL script (as in charge hourly what I make hourly doin' RL scripting)...well...I guess Anshe might be able to afford one...maybe...

Well I hardly call myself a "scripter", but I understand the logic of it all (or the lack there of sometimes with LSL). I have had the pleasure of working with some very good script writers and some not so good. I have never sold anything I have ever written or hacked together. I am starting to, but I charge for the object design that contains the script. I have even gone so far as to include links to the wiki or the thread url that has the base code I have used. I am sure I could make money off the stuff, but the point being I can figure out how to make just about anything in SL with the right help. I don't need to buy much. So I don't need to make much. Aside from clothes/hair/skin and that is more of an upfront cost... I am perfectly happy.

Like Kenn has said I think most true scripters enjoy the development, design, brainstorming and completion. SL does lend its self to turning Lindens to Cash so there is some merit to this topic, but again like Kenn says.. how would you charge? cost/hour? Would it really be worth it?

Maybe the best thing about all this is that If you are creative you can make some pretty neat products that would be worth selling for a small fee and have a lot of fun doing it. Or you can just have fun and enjoy the thrill of making it all happen. You can choose.

The best model IMHO is one that is well scripted, designed, developed and marketed. While you maybe able to sell a script most buyers will not know what to do with it. They need to be handed the finished product with easy to follow instructions. I think this requires collaboration. The best Products in SL are built by more than one person, all contributing their best.

Happy Holidays!

What I've found, as a scripter, is that someone will say "I need X" and I'll give them a price, and then a day later, when the product is ready, they've changed their minds.

However, on the concept of hourly rate, any work I do, I reserve to resell, so an hourly rate isn't always appropriate.

Horribly frustrating.

Hmm... I can only speak for myself, but I suffer from a severe form of NIH or Not Invented Here syndrome. What that means is that I feel a strong need to create everything i use from the ground up. I frequently reinvent the wheel because I enjoy doing so.

This is not to say that I won't reuse a method I see in someone elses code, or take suggestions. I do that frequently. However even if I see someone do something new and different and possibly better, I still have to rewrite it from scratch without any cutting and pasting to make sure I understand it from the inside out. I also frequently think I can improve things that have already been done. Sometimes I'm wrong, but more often than not I'm right.

That cheep knockoff comment rubbed me a little wrong because when someone writes a script to do something that's already been done, it's usually for a good reason. That reason might either be education, fun, to improve what's been done, or to make a profit. There's nothing wrong with any of those reasons. The only wrong thing to do is reuse someone's code without their permission, and it's even more wrong to make a profit doing that. Reusing code means CUTTING AND PASTING or TRANSCRIBING, not just thinking something is a good idea and reproducing it independantly. If you see a flight assist attachment and then decide that rather than buying it you'll right your own and end up selling it, it's just what happens in an open market. It's competition. Value is dependant on scarcity vs demand. If anyone can make something as good or good enough, an item is no longer scarce and it's value is lessened.

People frequently have trouble with the above concept. The X-Flight script is a prime example. The code is open meaning you can cut, paste, and read as much as you want. It also has comments in it that amazingly enough have stayed put in almost every revision I've seen, that say not to resell anything based on this code. That's plain enough... or is it? so if I copy a single line that does a little math from X-flight and put it into my 500 line flight enhancment script, am I now morally obligated to never make a profit from the other 499 lines of code I've written? What if it's an all important line of code? what if it's 49% of the code I copied and 51% of the code is code I wrote from scratch? what if I just read through X-Flight once then threw it away and wrote all my own code from scratch? did just reading it make any future code I write along those lines "based" off of x-flight?

Heh, I don't think this kind of thing has every been completely resolved. GNU Contracts and licenses help because they spell out exactly how you can use open code, and how much modification constitutes an original product. So in sl, the creator would have to write specific terms and quantified bounds to make an effective not for profit open source distribution. There are even problems with that though. In a language like lsl it's entirely possible that two people might right code that when run through a comparative analysis application might show as having 95% of the code in common even though the two people had never looked at the other's code. So... ya, little bit of a difficult subject there.

There is a difference between rl and sl though as far as economy goes. In rl something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. In sl something is worth what the least profit minded person is willing to sell it for. This is because in rl things have a material and production cost. there is only development cost in sl, no material or production costs.

So in conclusion. SL is cool for exactly the same reasons people frequently claim they're getting ripped off . Aint that a bugger.

And if I left any points unfinished above please let me know. My ADD is kicked in and I'm not sure I closed all my opened points.

-Rickard

I can say that getting together with someone else who fills the voids is essential. I started in SL mostly doing textures since I have a Photoshop background. But I am also a programmer in RL so I decided to learn LSL.

My buddy and business partner, Darrly Chang, joined SL and became an outstanding builder, mostly due to his eye for detail and mathematical brain. We joined up and created D&D Dogs, with Darrly doing most of the building, and me doing the scripting/textures.

Now we make a great team since I don't really have to worry about making prims and he doesn't have to worry about the details of the code. Of course, we do critique and test each other's work so that we make sure things are designed from more than one person's point of view.

In any case, as a coder I have not "contracted" myself out much. I have done some simple scripts for those who don't know how. It's fun to help. But as a business, it's best to be a part of a project or put out a product.

I think much of the problem is that scripts can be more offuscated in their use than objects or textures or more visual things. Most likely any significant scriptor whom been on here for a decent amount of time has had their scripts ripped off without permission. I know I have. I know Francis has. I know many countless others have. While it is easy to spot when Jim's Supercar has been copied and resold by sight, scripts can be easily hidden within objects and never found.

Torley has a point - an excellent scripter teaming up with an excellent texturer/builder - however unfortunately it can be a flawed point. In this wild wild world of SL trust is something that can often be misguided, since in effect you can't really "know" the person your dealing with. All it takes is for someone to post your code in a public place to completely devalue your work. The problem is people's mindset is that this is much less of an atrocity than having someone's skippy texture posted. While I have heard of textures being removed from player's inventory (due to copyright issues), I have yet ever hear of a script's copyright being enforced.

There is also the denyability. I wonder how many people's objects utilize free scripts that they take credit for "No, this is not an open source thing, it is something I created). Or for that matter a closed source thing someone managed upon. There is no way to confirm whether they wrote it or someone else. Someone can blatently rip off a script, change the few verbal prompts, and then they will be completely safe.

Finally, scripting is a little more black and white than the other skills in SL. Textures and objects are more gray - one person may like one look more than another - however typically there is only one "best" way to create a script. While a well written script vs. a badly written script have more of a impact on the over SL experience, the sales value seems less than a well textured obejct versus a bad.

Another point that was made is usually we are more interested in the thrill of innovation and outdo each other than the value of the L$ behind our work. However, I do feel that often this goes against us, and degrades the value of our skill.

Anyways.. I should stop ranting and stop trying to post coherent comments when I first wake up and don't have enough coffee in my system.

You've definitely hit on something with the lack of value-difference between well-written and poorly-written scripts...and the problem lies in that it takes a)familiarity with scripting languages and b)the ability to actually look at the code being offerred to determine whether or not a script is of a high quality.

It's easy to see the problems with valuation. Often, I'll spend extra time on a script making it efficient and "clean", but my extra time essentially has no value, as someone can write a script that does the same thing--albeit slower and "dirtier"--in less time and charge the same amount for it.

I have tried to "solve" this problem by starting to offer free, open-source scripts at my store so that customers are able to see the care I take in creating something. Additionally, these free scripts come heavily commented in an attempt to help the common non-scripter understand at least some of the concepts behind good scripting. I've only started this attempt...so we'll see how it turns out.

Yumi,

A few observations of what I see as facts:

1) Scripters only get ripped off if they allow themselves to be. There is a time to know when to decline a job. Know your own price-point before negotiating.
2) Reverse engineering is flattery.
3) Many people are great scripters and have no interest in lindens.
4) Most people are not-so-great scripters and are too interested in lindens.
5) Innovation will always pay more than repetition.
6) Don't fear open source! Open scripts are almost never exactly what a customer really wants.
7) Trust from your customers is vital. The best way to assure that is by selling IPR on delivery (they will always need updates as they change the goal-posts/project scope).
Commission deals on larger projects/resellable items that use your scripts are often a good way to keep the customer outlay low but ensure proper remuneration for your efforts.

/esc

1) Scripters only get ripped off if they allow themselves to be. There is a time to know when to decline a job. Know your own price-point before negotiating.

Not entirely true. there have been instances where people had completely non permission scripts get released. Not many but a few. The permissions and tools in sl make it pretty easy to slip and accidently give someone something with more perms than you meant to. Collaboration can also lead to the release of a perms script without permission, but you might call that last one allowing themselves to .

2) Reverse engineering is flattery.

Yes, but then again so is being stalked, attacked, and used... flattery isn't always a good thing (tm). However, as long as they worked out how to put something together themselves without using script/prims they had no right too, then all they've stolen is the concept, not the work. And concepts are pretty much fair game.

3) Many people are great scripters and have no interest in lindens.

True. But that's exactly what the scripters who are intereseted in lindens are complaining about .

4) Most people are not-so-great scripters and are too interested in lindens.

True about most people are not-so-great scripters, but I dunno, if nobody was interested in lindens why would the honest good and profit motivated scripters produce anything?

5) Innovation will always pay more than repetition.

Heh, frequently, but then again small innovations are not always appreciated by the non technical consumer.

6) Don't fear open source! Open scripts are almost never exactly what a customer really wants.

Very true. However, since it's open source, they can either modify it or ask somebody else to modify it for them... There are two places where open source causes problems however. If scripter A releases a closed source product and wants to charge people for it, then scripter B releases an open source alternative and since it's open source charging for it really doesn't work after the first slightly less than honest person buys it. So scripter B has just undercut scripter A even if he had the best of intentions. The second place where open source causes problems is when scripter A releases a script as open source, and then scripter B does very little work only modifying it slightly, and turns around to sell it as closed source. That can happen because either the consumer doesn't know about the open source version, or scripter B claims their script is much better than the open one (who's to argue since the code isn't visible now). Even if scripter B improved it fairly significantly, if most of the work was done by Scripter A, It can cause a bit of friction .

7) Trust from your customers is vital. The best way to assure that is by selling IPR on delivery (they will always need updates as they change the goal-posts/project scope).

Intellectual property rights? In Progress? Anyway, customers wouldn't be customers if they didn't trust you at least enough to pay you money.

Commission deals on larger projects/resellable items that use your scripts are often a good way to keep the customer outlay low but ensure proper remuneration for your efforts.

Very true, however it involves collaboration which has already been brought up as asking for trouble.

There's a quote I like a lot, by Oscar Wilde. It goes something like this (not sure on the wording exactly):

"When I write my plays, I write for nobody but myself. After, if people wish to act in them, I might just let them do so."

This is my philosophy on coding.

I do not script for other people, really. I script because I enjoy it, because I want to create something. I build and script 90% of what I use from scratch. The other 10% I usually end up re-making myself because I'm dissappointed with how it works currently. Occasionally I will use someone else's script if I don't really care how it'll turn out... for example, I've got rotating lights in my club that I didn't script, simply because rotating lights are obscenely easy to script and thus I see no point in redoing what's already been done.

I script for myself, I build for myself, I design and create things for myself.

Afterwords, if people want to buy them, I just might let them.

I own a mall, in which my friend Winter Hatfield and I place our stuff up for sale. We don't force you to buy the stuff, nor do we get upset if you don't. But if you are interested in buying our work to use for yourself, that's up to you.

I don't believe scripters can get ripped off unless they believe that they can get ripped off. If you script purely for money, you're going to get ripped off. But if you script for fun, then sell your stuff, you'll always be delighted at the amounts you make. I've made $500 USD overnight, I've made $300 USD in 3 days, and I've also made $10 USD a month. Regularly I've made $35-40 USD per month. All of it goes to tier. I make no profit. But do I care? Not at all.

I enjoy the art of building and scripting interesting things.

Beautiful refresh!

As soon as I saw that comment I closed the script window and deleted my copy of X-Flight, and worked on making my own flight script from scratch.

The comment clearly says that it's not supposed to be given to anyone who isn't a member of the group. It was pirated software, basically. And the author has recently come on the forums and let people know that he really meant it. And people were arguing that he should just suck it up and not even try and undo the damage.

THAT is what I consider getting ripped off.

Someone showed me another flight script that had some of the the same variable and subroutine names as mine. I had never seen that script, and I'd even used different names in different versions of my script (it's on the third rewrite-from-scratch now).

That's true for software in the real world too, really. Since everything in SL is software, that's why Linden Labs is fighting an uphill battle trying to make the economy work the same way it does in RL. It's not a doomed battle, but they really need to take it a bit more seriously.

Oh, man, some of the code I've found in free scripts. It's not pretty. I'm not talking about "not clean", I'm talking about "someone went out of their way and spent a lot of time to do something the wrong way".

I solve this one by telling people they're allowed to do this. If you "buy" my open source scripts they're covered by the BSD license, which basically says you're entitled to do whatever you want with it so long as you leave the copyright intact in your code and documentation. Microsoft and Apple are both using BSD licensed code in their operating systems, and you can too.

And the people I see using GPLed scripts against the GPL make no attempt to hide what they're doing. They probably don't realise they're breaking the rules... for example, anyone using Franimation Overrider who doesn't make the script AND the object it's in modifiable is violating the GPL. Giving them a separate mod copy of the script isn't good enough... the GPL says that the script must be delivered in a way that allows it to be modified and used, so (for example) if someone wants to fix a bug in it and use the fixed version in the object they bought they must be able to use the fixed script in place of the original, with the same objects and animations.