Ethics of the Ecosystem actions.

[Red]

Okay, I love this new feature! It's brilliant and my hat is off to those that made it a reality! I positively love being able to have an in-editor system to search for actions that aren't stock.

That said... I'm wondering about the ethics of it... Not in the "Is it okay to use in a game and sell that game" kinda way, more in the way of using them in asset-packages to sell on the asset store. Of course it would assume that the person selling the package isn't taking credit for the actions themselves but I'm wondering what kind of ethical issues there may be?

Reason I ask is I'm working on a system for a game that I'd like to sell the template for on the asset store and it's using some ecosystem actions (and the conditional expression system which is absolutely FANTASTIC!!! Seriously, it's awesome!) And I'm more hoping to do this the right way without risking causing ill will or anything of the sort.

The method that I think I'd use would be to package them up as a unity package (just the not-playmaker-itself bits so only the actions that are used from the ecosystem and the conditional expression system) that the user installs before beginning... And of course I haven't asked the Unity Asset-store team themselves on this issue but I'd like to get the 411 from the Hutong staff/contributors on this first.

And yeah, this also extends to assets that use ArrayMaker as well... Basically anything that is "After-market." (and to Jean, if you're intending on selling an ArrayMaker+ like I think I remember you talking about, let me know.)

[jeanfabre]

Hi,

 Sorry, I seem to be missing what you are trying to say

 Do you mean to ask about the rights one would get when using actions downloaded from the ecosystem?

Do you mean, what if someone is "selling" through the ecosystem?

Let me make some bullet points to be perfectly clear about the ecosystem as it is and how I hope it can become:

- The ecosystem is only a more convenient way to access content that otherwise is spreaded amongst the forum and the wiki, so there is no extra rights or usage issues with what you get from the ecosystem.

- you are free to reuse these custom actions as part of a package you will sell. I don't see anything wrong in this. We are selling projects that use Unity and PlayMaker, and this is fine. I think the same goes one level down where it's fine to sell a tool or a sample that use custom actions you found on the forum, they are for you to do great stuff and if you become rich thanks to that, this is great! Let's draw the line where someone would just sell a bunch of custom actions taken from the wiki or forum or ecosystem, that would be lame and silly.... but we've seen this in other fields for sure...

- I personnaly don't plan on selling anything through the ecosystem. Everything MUST remain public and freely accessible.

- I am currently brainstorming how I can scan your project for let's say Ngui or else, and then when you search, you would get ngui related actions listed, so that I am sure that if you download that action, you wont' get an error because Ngui is missing.

- IF I get to that point, I think it will be fine too, because it will be clearly stipulated that an action requires this and that from the asset store or else, and you won't be able to download it if I haven't checked your project that indeed this asset is present, so you are safe here too.

- I may ( and that's going to be passed through Alex in all cases) begin to provide advanced features that I would charge monthly, so you would register as a member of the ecosystem, and access premium features such as favorites, custom packages bundles, custom ways of searching, etc etc. but in no way that's going to give you access to content otherwise hidden to non paying members.

- I am also tinkering with the idea of providing a way for people to sponsor the ecosystem with a convenient paypal button or something, because I do believe a lot of you appreciate the amount of work behind this ( custom actions dev and support in general) and would happily share back or invest in a way into this to become bigger and sustain.

- In all cases, ALL CONTENT WILL REMAIN FREELY ACCESSIBLE TO ANYONE. Since the basics of the ecosystem is to host EVERYTHING on public github repositories, so people that are ok with github can actually synchronize the very sources of the ecosystem and shunt the browser all together. and I am fine with this, I actually encourage it, the ecosystem browser is simply to get an action quicker in your project.

- In case some authors step in and start committing a large amount of actions and various content ( which I also encourage and will work on features to allow for this), they will understand the nature of the ecosystem as being delivered for free, so I don't think that anytime soon, you would get cornered into having to pay for this service. Even tho, I must say that it would be better in an ideal world... The amount of work and effort to maintain all of this is really something that Alex is backing up big time, and this is not something that can sustain the way Unity and PlayMaker are growing. I mean I paid 100$ 3 years ago... that's all Alex got from me so far... while I spent about more than $6000 to Unity in license in those 3 years and Unity 5 is already on pre sale... there is something to address here for PlayMaker to sustain. That's of course my humble opinion.

- If one day it becomes clear that some custom actions have such a great value that they must be purchased, I would think that either it would be a departure from the ecosystem and be rebranded somehow for clarity. I would think that this case would mean a lot of changes in Unity world as we know it. There is more and more pressure ( it seems) from alternative and micro payment is a good business model after all, so what if some actions would be charges  few cents or even a dollar? would that be a terrible move? would that be positivly perceived as a way to make the ecosystem sustain and be encouraged and embraced like the huge success Unity has with its asset store business model? That seems to work for IOS, Windows, Android, this "store" model, Could the ecosystem adopt this model too? some stuff free, some stuff not?


- I still think that the asset store is lacking many critical features, and ideally, the ecosystem could be a way to address that. But the task is just overwhelming for little me... so I'll go easy and step by step, but if you think about that the ecosystem could become, this is awesome! So during that time, it's very important that you express your feelings, needs and worries on all of this.

Bye,

 Jean

[Lane]

I think all of the actions on Eco are also on the forum at this point. For now, even new ones we author are being attached on the forum before we put them on git for Eco to see. Since that is the case, there really isn't any problem with packaging the actions with your kit unless there is a specific EULA that prevents it and I haven't seen a single action imposing a custom EULA.

You could run into versioning problems though. As Unity updates and the API changes sometimes we have to changes actions and if you've copied actions into an assetstore package then you'll have to keep an eye out for updates to them to keep your kit current.

There are lots of art packages that ship from the asset store with free shader kits like Hard Surface Free, for instance, and there's no issue there. This is basically the same thing. I guess it depends on how deep the custom actions go and whether or not you could have links to download them but basically theres no reason to remove them in this case. Its generally courteous/expected to credit the source of any free stuff you include in the kit, though.

It would be a big no-no to sell a package of actions that are available for free by themselves, but in your case with a template kit... by crediting the sources in your docs and clearly having your own content in the kit its not a problem.

[Red]

Okay, thank you both. That does help clear things up.

And to be clear, what I'm hoping to do isn't to just package them up and sell them. That's not how I want to be known as (as "the guy that steals stuff.")

What I'm aiming for is to use them in a package (and a game to hopefully release as well) that uses them but isn't just them. So, they are making this package capable of being made to the standards that I've set for myself but they (the actions themselves) aren't the meat-and-potatoes of the package itself.

As for keeping current on version differences, that's definitely something I'll have to keep on top of... But that's on me and it's something I'm willing to do if it means I can be sure that my potential customers are completely satisfied with what I'm hoping to offer them.

[jeanfabre]

Hi,

 Yes, versioning is high on the list, Alex mentionned it to me as something important too. And for this, the big "issue" is that I have to go all out with a proper database to maintain versioning. So I need to take a deep breath here and work it out. Indeed critical in my opinion too.

So, indeed go ahead, and reuse custom actions you can find on the ecosystem and ship them into a package you will sell. We know you mean good here and you are not selling the custom action themselves but something that is a lot more than just that, and that's great! Keep us updated on this and I'll make entries in the rss feed to promote you.


 Bye,

 Jean