I’ve come to the conclusion that you are an idealist.

I don’t really mind what you call me, I’m just grateful that this has got you thinking.

You state that capitalism is one of our most negative traits. I happen to think that idealism tends to cause far more problems within our species.

No, I said that in my view the phenomenon of human greed has been amplified by modern global capitalism – an elite minority of private individuals and coporations control the majority of the planet’s wealth.

I’m reminded of a quote from the late-great William F. Buckley:
“Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.”

Good quote. What’s the source? Title, publisher, page please?

Your “grow some balls” comment at TA was inappropriate. The licensing of a script is not based on testosterone. It is based on one’s priorities and consumers base their choices on what is offered. If any given script appeals to their needs, they purchase/download it.

Sorry if you found the testicular analogy offensive. It was intended mostly as an attention grabber. It seems to have worked.

Consumers used to base their choices on what was offered, but this economic imperative is increasingly challenged on the Web. We’re seeing the rise of consumer agency – people want more. It is no longer sufficient to cater to mere consumption alone. Part of content consumption now involves creating and sharing and this is a good thing. We’re finally beginning to wake up. The Open Source model facilitates this, particularly when it comes to add ons (templates and modules). The current individually owned arcade script market belongs to the old garde. It’s passé. That’s why I’m suggesting that there’s a gaping void in the market right now, ready for someone to lead the industry into the new era.

It is not any of the script creators that have created the trend in poorly-designed, mass-produced, arcades. It is the game domain owners that have done so. PHP is open source. Other codes are learned knowledge. The only thing prohibiting these arcade owners from the such improvements that you are looking for; is themselves. Honestly, any premade script no matter the price or availability actually offers some education to the arcade owner if they are willing to read it.

I certainly agree that people are responsible for their own acts. However, without the scripts there would be no arcade industry at all. The fact that arcades have proliferated is due to the combination of ‘developers’ providing cheap scripts, webmasters buying them and kids playing on them. Script developers saw a clear opportunity for revenue in the arcade ‘bubble’, but they seldom saw beyond that. What we are left with now are the crumbling remains of cheap workmanship. Webmasters embraced the myth that an aracde is somehow an easy source of revenue. This was perhaps true a few years back, at the beginning of the bubble, but today’s market conditions are of course completely different. So the consquence, right now, is that the entire system is a chain of exploitation in which at the final count, only a minority benefit from.

I too support open source scripts. I’m not familiar with this GPL2 license. I know with the original GPL, it was legal for anybody to basically resell the code. Things like that and those people that even rip off the paid scripts are often what prevent programmers from going the OS route.

There will always be a degree of abuse of any system, public or private, we accept this as another irrevocable human trait. However, I still believe that the ope source model offers less opportunity for abuse given that it is open and (often) free by nature. The monetization of the script usually centres around add ons and templates etc. In any case, I don’t think we can say that the majority of webmasters are out to rip people off.

In this day and age of inflation, it’s non unusual for me to buy a cheap($20) script to learn from and not even use it. If that script were free, the creator gains nothing whatsoever from my use of it. My newfound knowledge was most likely not on the coder’s mind while he spent countless hours working on the product.

I suspect this is due to the fact that cheap scripts offer little by way of instruction, except information on what not to do when coding a script. Were you presented with a platform that had been conceived as a canvas for others to work from, one that had been peer reviewed and semantically coded, then I suspect your experience would have been more positive.

The Arcade Market and it’s trends are attributable to arcade owners only. This market is totally saturated and “survival of the fittest” will ensue.

The arcade market and it’s trends are attributable to all those who partake in it. If we break the monopoly of small time script owners with the introduction of an open and extendable platform that offers clear development opportunities and provides webmasters with high quality viable alternatives then there’s a good chance that the market will be healthier as a whole.

An arcade script is a packaged product with a list of features. That is what the internet was founded on; profit. Go pay your bills and try to tell me differently.

The keyword in your blinkered summation is “was”.

If it’s not changing then it might as well be dead.

You state that capitalism is one of our most negative traits. I happen to think that idealism tends to cause far more problems within our species.

I’m reminded of a quote from the late-great William F. Buckley:
“Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.”

Your “grow some balls” comment at TA was inappropriate. The licensing of a script is not based on testosterone. It is based on one’s priorities and consumers base their choices on what is offered. If any given script appeals to their needs, they purchase/download it.

It is not any of the script creators that have created the trend in poorly-designed, mass-produced, arcades. It is the game domain owners that have done so. PHP is open source. Other codes are learned knowledge. The only thing prohibiting these arcade owners from the such improvements that you are looking for; is themselves. Honestly, any premade script no matter the price or availability actually offers some education to the arcade owner if they are willing to read it.

I too support open source scripts. I’m not familiar with this GPL2 license. I know with the original GPL, it was legal for anybody to basically resell the code. Things like that and those people that even rip off the paid scripts are often what prevent programmers from going the OS route.

In this day and age of inflation, it’s non unusual for me to buy a cheap($20) script to learn from and not even use it. If that script were free, the creator gains nothing whatsoever from my use of it. My newfound knowledge was most likely not on the coder’s mind while he spent countless hours working on the product.

The Arcade Market and it’s trends are attributable to arcade owners only. This market is totally saturated and “survival of the fittest” will ensue. An arcade script is a packaged product with a list of features. That is what the internet was founded on; profit. Go pay your bills and try to tell me differently.

Joomla
Moodle
Drupal
WordPress
Linux
PHP
Apache
FireFox
etc… I could go on for hours. You would have to be insane not to think that there’s no money in Open Source. Joomla alone has mutliple commercial add-ons from large software orporations, and is one of the most popular CMS’s out there.

And to say that not a single build of Linux has turned a profit?

I don’t see how that happens. An example would be forum software. vB and IPB, both paid products, are still the most popular board softwares around. Webmasters seem to prefer those products rather than free ones such as SMF or MyBB.

A lot of good forum software out there. Tight market. Hard to tackle the competition. A lot of substandard arcade scripts. No real competition. Easier for a high quality script to gain control.

Another example would be arcade scripts themselves. There are plenty of free arcade scripts around (eg. AVArcade), yet they haven’t ‘absorbed the competition’. I didn’t notice any license in AVArcade, but their list of restrictions sounds pretty similar to a GPL license. I didn’t read anything about modifying the script, so I’m assuming you’re free to do so.

The free arcade scripts are pathetic.

Maybe I’m taking your statement too literally

Yes, you are.

“they want to give genuine recognition to your achievement”

Most OS products still require the user to maintain a reference to the creator, usually a link to a site.

I must have been lucky then.

“gained indirect financial benefit”
From where?

Read it again then think about it.

I doubt that the quality and success of a product depends on whether it is open source or not.

That’s your extrapolation. I doubt it too. We doubt it together.

I think a point you forgot to mention is that ‘open source’ does not necessarily mean free (unless you go by the opensource.org definition). A GPL product does not always have to be gratis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_Libre]. PHP scripts are harder to classify since when you buy a script, you also get the source (unless it’s encoded), so by definition, they are all literally ‘open source’.

Actually I did mention it, but thanks for reiterating, it’s all too often overlooked.

Cheers.

I don’t see how that happens. An example would be forum software. vB and IPB, both paid products, are still the most popular board softwares around. Webmasters seem to prefer those products rather than free ones such as SMF or MyBB.

Another example would be arcade scripts themselves. There are plenty of free arcade scripts around (eg. AVArcade), yet they haven’t ‘absorbed the competition’. I didn’t notice any license in AVArcade, but their list of restrictions sounds pretty similar to a GPL license. I didn’t read anything about modifying the script, so I’m assuming you’re free to do so.

Maybe I’m taking your statement too literally, because I’m sure you’ll gain a nice piece of the market share, but what you said does sound a bit incredible.

“they want to give genuine recognition to your achievement”

Most OS products still require the user to maintain a reference to the creator, usually a link to a site.

“gained indirect financial benefit”
From where?

I doubt that the quality and success of a product depends on whether it is open source or not.

I think a point you forgot to mention is that ‘open source’ does not necessarily mean free (unless you go by the opensource.org definition). A GPL product does not always have to be gratis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_Libre]. PHP scripts are harder to classify since when you buy a script, you also get the source (unless it’s encoded), so by definition, they are all literally ‘open source’.

Glad to finally put a name to the whole thing.

It’s hard not to reduce this debate to a series of binary choices. So let me make it clear once more. This is about stepping away from the status quo, questioning the state of the market and attempting something different for the benefit of all.

You ask for examples. Well there’s one right here powering this blog. Think of the numerous works by the Mozilla Foundation, think of Flock, Camino, Umbraco, Koha, Greenstone, Compiere, Sugar CRM, Open X etc etc

As for commerical licenses, of course they’re restrictive, their main objective is to protect their products from replication. It’s like building a wall around your house, it functions to delineate territory and to protect the house from potential intruders. Whether intruders existed before the building of walls is another matter. But it also leads to rivalry or in market terms competition. Competition in the arcade market would be a healthy growth factor were it not for the fact that the current market is driven by profit over product at the detriment of the end user.

What I mean by ‘desperately restrictive’ relates to the specific scenario whereby you purchase a script or a template or a module and the license obliges you to maintain a link back to the author’s site or pay a premium fee to remove it.

Ask yourself why the arcade script business is in the state that it’s in. One answer that I’ve already suggested is that developers are looking to reap maximum financial gain from a minimum amount of effort. This culture is also mirrored by arcade webmasters.

Now I’m not suggesting that we come up with a solution to human greed. Unfortunately that is one of the impermeable negative traits of our species, amplified in modern times by the rise of global capitalsim. However, what I am suggesting is that whoever has the courage to take a stand against this arcade culture, to stop promoting and partaking in it by offering a viable alternative, could bring about some real change.

The question is, where do your intentions lie? Are you out for a fast buck or do you actually care about what you’re getting into? I mean really care. You may come up with a successful script, and indeed I hope you do, but without conviction and vision your project will ultimately be contributing to the status quo.