Helpfulness vs. devaluation

So, I'm walking through the Ahern Sandbox when I see a chap who's having trouble with scripting some stuff. I try to help him out, answering a few questions and writing a sample script. He takes the sample script and uses it in a couple of other things.

A few days later I meet him again and he calmly tells me he's made 3000+ Lindens out of selling the things with my script in them - one of which was just a textured lamina with one version of the script in it and a sign with his name on it. He is apparantly surprised when I am annoyed.

Now, I was happy to help him because he was a newbie - but dammit, I'm a newbie too, and I'm also trying to break out of the "newbie loop" of "need money to make/sell stuff, need to make/sell stuff to earn money". Sure, helping other people out of it is a cool thing to do, but getting walked on is rarely a cool thing.

When I mentioned this to the NCI one person there commented that at some point an established content creator had needed a script, and rather than paying for it, had headed over to the sandbox, pretended to be new, and hoped to get it written for free.

Now, I wouldn't mind this, except that who in the sandbox is going to take a texture I drew and make it look better for me? Who is going to teach me to draw? When I asked for help improving the look of my avatar, I was told that doing this would cost between 1500-2000 Lindens and I'd wind up with a shape and skin I couldn't modify. If I'd been skilled an art instead of programming and wanted help with a script, chances are I'd have gotten it handed to me for free with copy/modify set and the source code fully exposed.

I know it's bad to say, but are we killing ourselves by helping too much?

No.

I'm always willing to be friendly...but people also always know up front that I'm going to charge for what I give them.

Additionally...if I do something for free, I'm very UP FRONT about what I expect the person to do with what I provide for them. If I had been in your situation in the sandbox, I may have offerred the free help, but would have stipulated before hand that I would either a)offer the help free of charge if (s)he would not take the script and sell it or anything containing it or b)offer the help for a fee...that would be well below the 3000 this avatar had made off the script.

How do I ensure the person doesn't sell the script anyway if I help for free? I don't. But (s)he then has to live with the moral consequences of not being an honest human being--and if I ever discover their dishonesty, my dealings with them will stop.


In working this way I have found myself not stuck with mooches AND have developed some mutually beneficial relationships with people ("Hey, I can't do this script!" "Oh, well, I see you're good at textures...make me an x texture and I'll make you a y script.".

I would feel very gratified if someone could make money from a script I gave them. Seems like some ppl are just very good at knowing what to sell and how to sell it. Some ppl actually find junk in the sandboxes and junkpiles and make money selling them.

I enjoy making things and improving my craft and I never mind helping others if I can. So in answer to you question, no. Obviouslly, I don;t give away scripts I intend to sell, but I will never feel poor by helping others.

Seconded. And thirded.

It's not like the person took those 3000 L$ from you It amounts to, what, about 11$ ? Also, now that you know there is demand for this, sell it yourselves as well

I'm not really complaining about the fact that someone made money off the script. What I'm complaining about is the disparity of help for scripting as compared to other things.

If I was a person with existing art skills, who arrived in SL without knowing scripting, there would be sources of freely modifyable scripts for me to copy and modify and people almost lining up to help me, usually in detail ("need to make a tracker? ok, do a call to llSensor, and the parameters are as follows."

In my actual position - having existing programming/scripting skills and arriving bad at art - there seems to be an utter dearth of any equivalent. Yes, there's plenty of people who'll refer you to the templates and similar, but that's the equivalent of helping someone scripting by telling them how to start the editor and giving them a link to badgeo. I haven't met anyone who'll say, for instance, "need to make something look organic? you photoshop or PSP? ok, head over to the color picker, pick something suitably skin-like, #D07070 is kinda good, then grab the paint tool and..."

Same with other skills, too. Where are the on-line marketing classes?

I'm not saying they don't exist, but they don't seem to just be standing around in the sandboxes like script helpers are. Ask on scripting tips how to make something and you'll get specific function calls; but look at the "how do I.." threads on the Design and Textures forum and they're all about how to fit things into the system, but nothing on how to make things actually look good.

Don't say this it has to be this way because art can't be taught, by the way. There's plenty of RL institutions teaching it, just like there are for programming.

Very interesting...

Don't stop helping people out. That's why we're here.

I totally understand your miffed-ness, turning free help into profit. It might've been a kind gesture if your helpee offered a few SL$Lindens or goods or whatever as a Thank-you...

But here's another angle to think of it. In RL, broadly speaking, we "scripters" are able to get more than a couple of US$Jacksons for our efforts, while "texturers" are -- again, broadly speaking -- often struggling a bit harder to turn their skills into enough US$Washingtons to get by. (Pardon my US-centricism, but my meaning is clear, no?)

So I think it's nice, no, better than nice, *wonderful* and *utopian*, that SL is a world where visual beauty and such artistic skills can command a high price, a couple of SL$Lindens.

(And thankful every day that my childhood fetish for logical thought is valued here in RL. Speaking of which, time to get of the forums and write some RLCode.) Cheers!

Hi Yumi, I'd argue that it's your choice what you choose to give away. It could be that you under-value what you know, or are not business minded. In any case, just because you aren't making money, it doesn't mean you can stop other people doing it...

<digression>I recently gave help to a relative newb. I not only wrote a script for them but I then watched, assisted, and allowed them to make a very close copy of an object that I was making using some functionality of that same script. Their object went on sale the next day. Am I upset? Not in the least. It was my choice to share.</digression>

...one last thought: Reverse engineering is a fact of life. You can't and won't stop it using ethical arguments. Your best protection is to innovate faster than your "competitors" are able to reverse engineer your valued products.

I had a nasty spat with a friend about this time last year, for a couple months he hounded me for script help with code logic and debugging. It drove me nuts. One day i write him a script to show him how this one task could be done; a month later i find him selling it. I was nonplussed. He knew i did commercial scripting. I wrote the script for him to learn from, not profit. We settled the dispute, but our friendship was gone afterwords.

I get angy when people take advantage of my kind nature.

On a legal standpoint you own the copyright to the code you write; even if you don't place a copyright symbol on it. The only time it goes into public domain is if you release it into public domain (or if the copyright expires, unlikely to happen any time soon). A software license is a contract. A breach of contract is grounds for contract termination. If the verbal contract was for non-commercial use then they need to stick to that.

Yumi i did talk this through with you , i used your script on somthing i didnt sell...

Now you obviously dont like that so mabye we shouldnt talk to each other, i learnt alot out of your scripts more than anything i could imagine.

So im hoping that, that wasnt targeted at me also i am a "She" thanks.

Ginge

Sadly, the actual or implicit answer from people who do this would be "so sue me". That way, they can sit back and watch while you don't take action.

IMHO, your greatest ally and protector is innovation, not ethics. I consider that just a fact of second life (and indeed of internet orientated development in general).

You can always serve LL with a DMCA takedown notice.

First answer, Marketing Classes at Phoenix Spa with Persephone Phoenix.

Second, though the clothing designers are not "standing around in the sandboxes" waiting to help you, that doesn't mean that they will not do it. Many skilled artisans are very helpful, particularly if you have specific questions they can address. I am still going to reply, though you don't want me to, that it is difficult to teach someone how to "make things actually look good". It is also difficult to teach people the art of scripting efficiently. Either way, just keep asking, don't be offended when the answers aren't readily available, and help others in return.

You know, Strife, from... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act
Takedown example

Here's an example of how the takedown procedures would work:

1. Alice puts a copy of Bob's song on her AOL-hosted website.
2. Bob, searching the Internet, finds Alice's copy.
3. Bob sends a letter to AOL's designated agent (registered with the Copyright Office) including:
1. contact information
2. the name of the song that was copied
3. the address of the copied song
4. a statement that he has a good faith belief that the material is not legal
5. a statement that, under penalty of perjury, Bob is authorized to act for the copyright holder
6. his signature
4. AOL takes the song down.
5. AOL tells Alice that they have taken the song down.
6. Alice now has the option of sending a counter-notice to AOL, if she feels the song was taken down unfairly. The notice includes
1. contact information
2. identification of the removed song
3. a statement under penalty of perjury that Alice has a good faith belief the material was mistakenly taken down
4. a statement consenting to the jurisdiction of US Federal District Court of Alice, or if she's outside the US, AOL
5. her signature
7. AOL then waits 10-14 business days for a lawsuit to be filed by Bob.
8. If Bob does not file a lawsuit, then AOL puts the material back up.

Sounds like a lot of work, and Step 7 assumes legal recourse.

So I still prefer my suggested "protection by innovation" route

With respect and regards to you

I'm not about to sue Linden or anyone else. Yes, I did give the code away freely (and yes, it was to Ginge). And I don't have an individual problem with Ginge, why is why I didn't mention her (sorry about that) name. My problem is with the disparity in teaching/learning support between scripting and pretty much everything else.



Great. Now, where is the thing out of which I get to learn "more than anything I could imagine", about the area I have trouble with? I know you did try to help, and I appreciate that, but telling me "hey look, that's a cylinder" isn't really that useful - the question is, how did you know to make it a cylinder at the time before you had already built it.

You now have a regular non-stipend income, which is a big sticking point for a new player. You have it after two weeks. I have been here twice as long and am not even close, because any script that's not so obvious it doesn't fall into the "that can't be marketable because if it was someone else would have already done it" category takes a lot of work and debugging, and because it's not visually obvious I don't have the option of leaving it lying around in the sandbox and having people offer to buy it. As I said, new scripters have it tough enough already without the learning disparity.

I was in your position not too long ago, so I can relate. Some random bits of advice... Find/make some friends/mentors. One area that would help is if someone who owns land gives you permission to build/experiment on their land. That'll take care of the sandbox problem. Someone with scripting experience could also help you with scripting issues. You're more than welcome to IM me any time, and I'll help with anything I can. I obviously don't have the level of experience that some of the people here do, but that might also mean I have more free time The tricky thing is coming up with an idea that's new and fun and marketable, and isn't horrendously difficult to script. I struggle with that all the time. I've met some people who are amazingly creative in that area. I wish I had a fraction of the ideas that they have Walking around the sandboxes can sometimes help, you might see something that gives you an idea to try for yourself.

I'm pretty handy at textures and getting better. Let me know if you ever need one, Yumi, and maybe we can barter. It is true that help with scripting is not as common as with other stuff. There are all kinds of online resources one can use to learn GIMP for example. I would be happy to help you make a gorgeous avatar, if you could help with a scripting issue I have. Cheers! ~ GP

PS... Persephone Phoenix teaches a marketing class for SL. Give her a shout in world and I'm sure she'll be happy to provide you with notes from it.

Guys.

Let's pretend you write some code and gave it away, and a big company like Microsoft or Apple took that code and used it in an operating system that made them millions. How do you feel?

Personally, I feel fine. Other people get upset and try to figure out how to keep from being taken advantage of. That's why you end up with the GPL and other licenses that restrict proprietary versions of open-source software. I'm over on the other side and my software is all BSD licensed... "here you are, no charge, don't pretend you wrote it and don't sue me if you break it".

When I help someone out with scripting, I often get offers to pay me for my time. I'm kinda unsure what I should say. I generally tell them they probably can't afford my fees (with US$-L$ exchange rates? there's no way) and ask them to "pay it forward" by helping someone else out. I try to avoid just plain writing scripts, though that'd often be the quickest way to make them happy.

Should I charge some nominal fee for this kind of thing, am I devaluing the currency for other programmers?

Sorry about your experience Yumi, that's one of the reasons I dont go to the sandbox anymore.

As to your observation about graphics help vs. scripting help, I would be happy to "swap" that kind of help as I am sure a lot of others would.

The only caveat is that a lot of graphics jobs take a great deal more time than a quick script write. Making a custom skin from scratch can be an immense project (although those that already make them should have pshop templates that would turn it into a rather quick job).

Heh. A "quick script write" can take a great deal more time than a quick script write, too.

Agreed...I've often had people who don't write code comment about how they'd like something that "just <insert seemingly simple thing that requires long hours to write>". I don't know if people realize how much goes into coding sometimes...especially when you're taking care to make the script as dynamically functional and efficient as possible.

I will help people script but i will not write the script for them. I believe the best way to learn scripting is through yer own mistakes with a little guidance. This way you will understand "why" something works instead of "this is how its done". Once you learn "why" it works you open many more creative avenues.

Right, or making sure it doesn't suddenly change behaviour in a different sim, or at different altitudes, or when it's in an attachment, or not in an attachment, or when the sim is really busy, or when the person who touched it isn't the closest AV...

Well me and Yumi work together now as Yumejin scripting , this thread servers no purpose

im not sure why shes upset.....
is it that she wished she would have done it?
why would a generous person be upset that what they gave multiplied...
" Give and it will be given back to you...pressed down, shaken together and running over..."