Because that is the only way Uru can survive. That doesn't mean we can go and mess with the vault now. In the future, yes, but not now.

kaelisebonrai wrote:

Heaven wrote:

Maybe they don't want people poking around in their proprietary stuff. I know I wouldn't.

If this is the case, why would they claim to want to open source uru? It doesn't make sense.

If it goes to open source, then it will no longer be proprietary, but for now it is. It may sound noble for fans to offer theirs skills and services for free, and it may sound ludicrous that Cyan would refuse this vast pool of resources, but in the corporate world everything is governed by lawyers and contracts.

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Last edited by Heaven on Wed May 12, 2010 12:16 pm; edited 1 time in total

dragossh wrote:

Because that is the only way Uru can survive. That doesn't mean we can go and mess with the vault now. In the future, yes, but not now.

Uh... here's what I was reponding to, just so you and I are on the same page, because either you didn't read what I said, and what I was responding to, you you completely ignored it for your own purposes.

Whilyam wrote:

The problem is that Cyan doesn't just have the two choices of "take Uru down and fix it" or "keep a vulnerable system up." Until I hear otherwise from Cyan, I see "let the fans help fix the security" as a perfectly viable third option.

This is what I'm trying to get at. People are focused on the superficial, blanket statements like "Cyan isn't obligated, etc." That's obvious. But people are acting like that's the end of discussion.

Also, what Kolian said.

Heaven wrote:

Maybe they don't want people poking around in their proprietary stuff. I know I wouldn't.

Then my post.

In other words, why would they "not want people poking around in their proprietary stuff" if their stated intention is to open source uru. That suggestion makes no sense at all.

Open Sourcing uru is the only hope for its future, yes.

However, none of the posts I'm referring to mentioned hacking the vault, they merely use the term "hackers" (By this, we mean "Developers/Programmers", and yes, this is the /correct/ definition of "hacker" regardless of the media's misuse of the term). They do mention using the "hackers" to help Cyan patch the large security flaws in the vault, yes, this isn't what you're talking about. Please, at least /read/ the post before going making accusations.

EDIT: Re: Heaven, if they don't change the culture, theirs, or the fan's, it'll never work. You don't go about "oh, we want to make this open source" and then not want people to stick their noses in proprietary stuff, simple because of it being proprietary right now, especially when they can help their stated goals, and help everyone involved. It doesn't make sense, and I don't believe you can twist it around enough to make it start making sense. Its a contradiction, by its very nature. You either want it to go open source... or you don't, there's no middle ground, there.

What I guess I'm trying to say, and what doesn't make sense to me, is that you will most likely never hear a conversation like this:

RAND: Hey RAWA, I got a letter from urufan@anyemail.com. He says he's a programmer and he's willing to help us fix the security on our servers for free!

RAWA: Awesome, let's give him access to our servers and all of our proprietary code and copyrighted materials since we plan on open-sourcing it in the future.

If you really want to help them, then why not apply for internship?

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Last edited by Heaven on Wed May 12, 2010 12:39 pm; edited 1 time in total

kaelisebonrai wrote:

EDIT: Re: Heaven, if they don't change the culture, theirs, or the fan's, it'll never work. You don't go about "oh, we want to make this open source" and then not want people to stick their noses in proprietary stuff, simple because of it being proprietary right now, especially when they can help their stated goals, and help everyone involved. It doesn't make sense, and I don't believe you can twist it around enough to make it start making sense. Its a contradiction, by its very nature. You either want it to go open source... or you don't, there's no middle ground, there.

I'm never one to pass up such a challenge! There is a very simple way to resolve this apparent contradiction, and that is to distinguish means from ends. Cyan wants to achieve open source as an end, but has its own ideas about the means to achieve that end. Now, one can sputter and get all riled up, as many in the Guild of [THEIR NAME NORMALLY GOES HERE BUT THEY HAVE CHOSEN TO KEEP IT LOCKED AWAY, NYAH, NYAH, NYAH] have done, and one can make an airtight case for why their way is horribly inefficient and utterly alienating, but that doesn’t mean that Cyan isn’t sincere (in their own minds, at least) when they say they want it to be open source as an end.

Having said that, this statement is true with a vengeance:

kaelisebonrai wrote:

if they don't change the culture, theirs, or the fan's, it'll never work.

I’m not sure why you stuck in “the fan’s [sic]”, as I would say without qualification, if Cyan doesn’t change their own culture, open source will never work, period. One could then ponder the question of whether someone is or is not sincere when they proclaim their desire for a particular end yet refuse to utilize the means to achieve that end. I suggest you all read the philosophy of John Dewey, and then you'll find out.

Heaven wrote:

RAND: Hey RAWA, I got a letter from urufan@anyemail.com. He says he's a programmer and he's willing to help us fix the security on our servers for free!

RAWA: Awesome, let's give him access to our servers and all of our proprietary code and copyrighted materials since we plan on open-sourcing it in the future.

LOL :D

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Heaven wrote:

What I guess I'm trying to say, and what doesn't make sense to me, is that you will most likely never hear a conversation like this:

RAND: Hey RAWA, I got a letter from urufan@anyemail.com. He says he's a programmer and he's willing to help us fix the security on our servers for free!

RAWA: Awesome, let's give him access to our servers and all of our proprietary code and copyrighted materials since we plan on open-sourcing it in the future.

If you really want to help them, then why not apply for internship?

In point of fact, I had just such a conversation recently.

I am a retired I.T. Director with many years of managing development projects (but not games) behind me. RAWA passed my information to Tony Frye, who very nicely said in effect, "Thanks for the offer, but not at this time. We'll call you if we can use your help". I fully understand. Sometimes managing the work of volunteers is a lot more effort than the benefit you get from the volunteer labor, particularly when the is a huge learning curve to become familiar with a complex software environment.

Let's quit assuming that we can do a better job of running Cyan's business than they can!

Walt

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Heaven wrote:

What I guess I'm trying to say, and what doesn't make sense to me, is that you will most likely never hear a conversation like this:

RAND: Hey RAWA, I got a letter from urufan@anyemail.com. He says he's a programmer and he's willing to help us fix the security on our servers for free!

RAWA: Awesome, let's give him access to our servers and all of our proprietary code and copyrighted materials since we plan on open-sourcing it in the future.

If you really want to help them, then why not apply for internship?

Of course, and your assumption is that others have not tried, and as Walt has said, they have been turned down, regardless of their knowledge of the engine, which is not something walt has, but /others/ do, and some haven't even gotten a response.

Lets put this in perspective... Cyan went out of business, in '05. They reopened, soon after.. but... Not everyone came back to Cyan, after the closure. Some of the people that didn't come back are people responsible for bits of Uru.

Then, more recently, after the closure of MO:UL, in '08, still more people left/are no longer with cyan, for one reason or another, in the two years or so, between then, and now.

People have passed around the internship idea before, long before you, Heaven, and people /have/ tried it, it just hasn't happened, because almost no one has gotten an internship, regardless of knowledge of the workflow, or the engine.

But, once upon a time, Cyan did acknowledge the hackers, as they have some patches in the KI... But, why not now?

Again, if you want to make statements, realise the issue is not black and white, and is NOT simple. It is complex, and if you don't understand the issue, and its complexity, don't claim to have a solution, especially not one that's been tried.

Theoretical scenario. Let's say that Cyan were somehow able to make public various chunks of the code in a way that would not violate their licenses with the various middleware guys. What would they really lose? I don't think anyone would be seriously interested in paying to license the Plasma engine at this point. It's somewhat buggy, outdated, and probably poorly documented/unsupported. There are better alternatives out there for any sort of commercial venture I can think of.

So what does Cyan actually lose from exposing their "proprietary" stuff? I would argue that they don't lose profit that others could make off of it or competitiveness in the industry. At worst they lose the ability to continue to sell Uru as a singleplayer game.

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kaelisebonrai wrote:

EDIT: Re: Heaven, if they don't change the culture, theirs, or the fan's, it'll never work. You don't go about "oh, we want to make this open source" and then not want people to stick their noses in proprietary stuff, simple because of it being proprietary right now, especially when they can help their stated goals, and help everyone involved.

So, if someone announces their intention of, say, giving all their money to the poor when they die, it's okay for one of the poor to steal it from them while they're alive (and then give it to their friends) because they were going to give it away anyway? (and please don't say what you're doing isn't stealing. I know it isn't. That's not the point.)

It is a matter of means and ends, as Zardoz says, but it's also a matter of jumping the gun. This point has been made over and over again and you haven't acknowledged it, much less addressed it. Uru is proprietary right now. It matters. And yes, you do do exactly that. You do enforce your proprietary rights right up to the moment when you relinquish them. If I'm selling my house and moving out, I do not want the buyers bringing in their furniture and repainting the walls till the day contracts are exchanged. Even if I think it looks better that way. Even if they fix the pipes.

Yes, Cyan have accepted help from you, and as far as I can see you're in a fair way to make them regret it.

You don't like their attitude. There are three things you can do. One, change yours and maybe they'll change theirs. Two, carry on as you are now and expect no change. Three, give up and go away. Personally, I'd hate it if you went for number three, but number two plainly isn't working. Is there any possibility you might be induced to consider number one?

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MOULagain KI 1090046

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walt_scrivens wrote:

Let's quit assuming that we can do a better job of running Cyan's business than they can!

Walt

Exactly, Walt, I couldn't agree more! Personally, I have more faith in the clock maker than the little boy who pulled it apart in order to find out what made it tick...

And I really hope Cyan will be able to make use of your expertise soon, for the benefit of us all!

_________________
The time has come for us to move on. Thanks for the wonderful friendships, pleasant interaction and 7 happy years in URU. Above all, thank you Cyan for bringing Murray and myself together. Be well, everybody

Kolian wrote:

Theoretical scenario. Let's say that Cyan were somehow able to make public various chunks of the code in a way that would not violate their licenses with the various middleware guys. What would they really lose? I don't think anyone would be seriously interested in paying to license the Plasma engine at this point. It's somewhat buggy, outdated, and probably poorly documented/unsupported. There are better alternatives out there for any sort of commercial venture I can think of.

So what does Cyan actually lose from exposing their "proprietary" stuff? I would argue that they don't lose profit that others could make off of it or competitiveness in the industry. At worst they lose the ability to continue to sell Uru as a singleplayer game.

If I understand correctly, that's exactly the theory behind the decision to go open source in the first place. I assume that if it were easy, they would have done it by now.

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if i recall one of the recent interviews with rand correctly, there are a bunch of legal issues (along with other issues) involved with open sourcing the code. i'd imagine these issues take a lot of lawyer wrangling which i'm sure doesn't come cheap or happen very fast.
but anyway, what would the mo:ul forums be without drama and rampant speculation gleaned from tiny shreds of info?

Sophia wrote:

walt_scrivens wrote:

Let's quit assuming that we can do a better job of running Cyan's business than they can!

Walt

Exactly, Walt, I couldn't agree more! Personally, I have more faith in the clock maker than the little boy who pulled it apart in order to find out what made it tick...

And I really hope Cyan will be able to make use of your expertise soon, for the benefit of us all!

Next time just spit in our eye. It's less subtle. I think some people missed the insult.

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Kolian wrote:

So what does Cyan actually lose from exposing their "proprietary" stuff?

Time spent on more profitable ventures as they figure out what chunks of code they can release and the strategy of doing it.

A long time ago, during the failed MORE period, when I was posting my ideas in support of open source and alternatives (when few people thought that was acceptable), I wrote that, if not completely open, Cyan could create an SDK and provide Plasma and game development services; make some money out of licensing and services with their technologies beyond their own games. MagiQuest kind of fits this, but there's much more to the development and support service Cyan provides. A proprietary, licensed SDK might leave their current licensing more intact, but it's not as good a deal for the open source community. It seems to me the open source plan might be the more difficult road in some ways, but I like it better.

Cyan went beyond thoughts of an SDK when they announced a Hail Mary to fully open source. Now with open source, presumably, anyone who has the skills could build an SDK and documentation. That said, proper licensing and possible management of the main trunk still leaves Cyan in a good position, if they use it, but it takes time and money to develop and maintain - without guarantee of any return unless they can set up contracts first. So they're back to losing time and the income and revenues generated while doing more certain things when they would have to look through all that code, research licensing, make changes, and/or get clearances. Which I think they are doing, just not as quickly or in the manner you would like.

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