Scratch

kevin_karplus wrote:

There is no way that a project can be truly undownloadable. The .sb file has to be readable for the java applet to run it, and so it can be explicitly downloaded by name, even if there is no download link provided.

i'm not sure about what you are saying but what if
1. .sb files were stored in a hidden directory that only the applet can access.
2. .sb files were encrypted and only the applet can decrypt them.

Last edited by fandebiao (2007-05-29 01:05:17)

Some thoughts:

Scratch is supposed to be an open platform. Mechanisms to "Protect your IP"/prevent plagiarism are counter to the spirit of this openness. 

Try to think in terms of how your projects will benefit the scratch user group as well as the project itself, rather than in terms of "they are taking *MY* stuff". 

A few years from now, nobody will care that who wrote the whatever scratch application.

In part because of the surge in popularity (due to Digg and other exposure), and partly because of the (how to say this politely?) maturity level of many of the scratch users, plagiarism at this time is going to be rampant.

I am also a developer of Yahoo! Widgets, and the same sort of thing goes on, for the exact same reason: the platform is just so open.

Over time, many of the new found developers (mostly the plagiarists) will get bored and move on to something else.

Last edited by ernestpazera (2007-05-29 10:33:33)

Do we complain because the rose has thorns or because the thorns have roses.

If you really think about it all the great technical developments have been built on plagarism, one could argue the Wright brothers plagerised Lenardo da vinci, but in the spirit of getting off the ground I dont da vinci would have been too bothered and probably would have taken great satisfaction in seeing someone bring his work to realisation, we would also not have windows if it was not plagerised from xerox (or so I'm lead to believe, just in case Bill's legal beagles are watching).

I'm sure at some point scratch will turn a corner and consider its self to be mature enough to be a chargeable and profit making entity, at that point I can think of no better reference then who, date and time of posting to the scratch website as a legal reference for the persuance of intellectual property or otherwise, as a result all subseqeunt postings using the same or copied code would lose any claim to IP.

So the only real consideration is weather MIT are maintaining a strict enough data retention policy for submissions so as to support any future IP reference is all that is needed to satisfy any legal arguements.

There is of course the other cop out which is to present posters with a 'you post at your own risk, do you wish to continue Y/N'  option to the upload capability.

I rest my case m'lud

Last edited by PeterB (2007-06-01 09:44:03)

fandebiao wrote:

1.When submitting a project, the author can choose to make it undownloadable.
2.After a project is downloaded, it may be modified and re-uploaded, but the author remains same.  Modifiers have their names saved under a different tag after called "modifiers".
Feel free to add more.

i disagree with the first point.  i think all work should be downloadable. i frequently download projects just to see how they have done a particular thing.
the second point on-the-other-hand is a very good idea.  it could either be that modifiers are shown at the side or under the project it could say 'projectname' submitted by 'origionalcreator' modified by 'modifiername'.  it could also be made that this new version cannot recieve love-its or can only be accessed by a link from the origional.