No, it is stealing. It's taking something without the permission of the originator. Graal's content policy protects each server's unique content; taking it without asking is stealing. Do I have to define the word any more?

Open source companies usually rely on donations. It's not a very profitable business model. :D

Just because you don't care if some schmuck builds success off of your hard work doesn't mean that everybody should be forced to give out their scripts. It also doesn't make somebody who wants to keep their hard work exactly that -- theirs -- selfish.

No, they do not.

Look can you just stop posting or something? This is not going anywhere.

Name some multi-million dollar open source companies. I can guarantee that they don't give away everything and let you do whatever you want with it.

I'm not going to stop posting just because you can't come up with retorts.

Don't even let him change the topic to open source companies. I think the last thing he wants to do is have to argue about whether or not open source servers are a good idea or not.
And whether or not you suggest it to future development, you're absoloutly right, 'this is not going anywhere'. So don't bother.

That's not how free software works.

Given that, I don't think it's appropriate to apply business concepts to Graal servers since they're not even remotely comparable to conventional companies.

You people keep posting "what if..." nightmare scenarios. Frankly, I've never seen any of these things actually happen in the real world, which is why I believe your have nothing to be afraid of.

Also, it's not called stealing; it's called copying. The effect on the victim is only indirect.

I have seen them happen. I've had my own scripts stolen from ex staffers wo went to work on another classic server. Fortunately for me Graal servers are still closed source, so I could have PWA step in. If they are open source I don't have that option anymore. When I create something, I like the idea that I can choose whether or not to make it opensource by posting it in the code gallery, or keeping it private to that server.

And as far as wheter it's called stealing or copying is completely missing the point. It doesn't matter what you call it; you're still taking someone's hard work and making it so it's not -their- hard work anymore.

What exactly is the downside of asking "what if"? No decision should ever be made without knowing all the possible consequences. The scenario I posted is a very possible scenario if anyone had access to any server's scripts. ;)

But, realistically, there is nothing to be afraid of, because servers will never be forced to be open source.

Why exactly was it a bad thing that they copied the scripts? Oh no, they are trying to make a better server, they must be stopped at all costs.

"Making it so it's not their hard work?" I really have no clue how that is even possible. I generally leave it to Bill Gates to pretend that 'work' is like a substance that can be sold for a fee.

It's not bad that they're trying to make a better server. It's bad that they can't make a better server without leeching off of the work that the rest of us do. What reason is there for anyone on graal to learn to script if all you have to do is copy/paste from other servers and make minor changes?
And like I said before, it's not about private servers. There is a competition between the servers for graal's player count, that would be completely lost if all you had to do on a classic server was take another server's scripts. Classic servers would evolve to look more and more similar to each other every single day.

And yes, just because you don't mind that people take what you work on and use it for themselves without your permission does not mean the rest of us should not have the choice to keep what we make for our servers.
That's not selfish, again, I point to the code gallery.

I think we can rebrand the copying and pasting of a server as "forking." Contrary to your intuition, forks are a good thing in most open source environments.
I wish to propose the hypothesis that originality will be more important than ever when clones are easy to make.
And regarding learning: people generally don't copy and paste as a substitute to learning. Most of the time they make stupid threads asking for someone to "maek" their game for them.

Actually, I'm not really arguing for a draconian approach to this.

Forking may be fine in an open source environment, but that isn't going to persuade anyone that making graal servers open source in the first place is a good idea. You said yourself that people don't substitute copy/paste for learning. That's exactly my point. People who can copy/paste won't even bother learning because they won't need to. They'll just blindly copy/paste whatever they need into their server and let that be that.

We can argue the pros and cons of making everyones work accessable to everyone all day long but in the end I very highly doubt that it will ever be implemented.

I'm not convinced that such an individual would even be capable of doing so and get good results. Are you doing this argument out of genuine concern for these people?

I completely agree.

Nobody is going to get a classic server by copying Valikorlia. I'm tempted to release the scripts just to prove the point.

If they finished their server before we finished ours? I wouldn't say never.

Not for concern for these people, for concern that people like that would be able to use what I've worked on to advance their classic servers.

@Inverness: No one has to get classic. Servers that are already classic will benefit from using your scripts without knowing anything about how they work, and do it without your permission.