Guy charging U$100 for package containing free rubies!!

AcesHigh

Hi,
This guy never asked me anything. I am really angry.
He says he revamped the icons, but for instance if you take a look at the layer manager toolbar, it's a joke !
I consider him a stealer, and I will put a banner on my site warning everybody NOT to buy anything like his package.
The Ruby Depot is number 1 on top of a Google search with "ruby scripts" as keywords, so I hope, as we say in french "to cut the grass under his feet".

Didier, I think the best thing we can do is to offer a package WITH THE SAME PLUGINS, WITH THE SAME TOOLBARS, and in several languages (the brazilian and portuguese forumers here can help translate plugins into portuguese)... and then we make it available FOR FREE.

one of the reasons brazilians may buy HIS package is because he translated everything to portuguese, and many people are not good enough in english to use english plugins.

in the moment we give FOR FREE what is already free, but also make it available in more languages, and with the nice toolbars, we literally dismantled his market.

ps: i think the most irritating thing is that he is not even charging a moderate value for his work of drawing a few icons and "searching plugins on the internet" and translating them. He is charging A LOT!

PeterCharles

The miserable git has included my one and only Ruby! (drawhelix13)
Wants 'king with the rough end of a pineapple.

Edson

the guy answered my email to him. at first he tried to excuse himself by saying that all he is selling is the work he has done on the toolbars and the translations, since the "scripts are free anyway". that did not go down very well with me. eventually he said he did not mean to cheat anyone and seemed willing to come to terms with all the authors of the scripts he "translated".

i told him he should get in touch with everyone involved immediately if he wants to avoid a campaign against him in several skp-related internet sites. he told me he has not yet started selling the packages, as there is some paper work that must be done and it is not finished yet... let's see what happens next.

AcesHigh

well Edson, apparently his site went offline. (or at least, the links to his pack)

Mike Lucey

Well done Edson. I think your letter must have had the desired effect. Or maybe Didier "cut the grass under his feet" and sliced off his soles while doing it

Anyway, I think it will work out okay. It just goes to show that some doors may be to be closed!

Mike

Jim57

I have no clue how much work ARKZ did on this, but that sure is a long list of other people's scripts. And it is clearly wrong to use other's freely distributed work in a commercial release.

However, I appreciate the idea of it. While his price is steep, he puts together a nice package, including themed toolbars and icons. For someone new to Rubys like myself, it collects and organizes things and adds a context to a hodgepodge of tools available under different terms from a variety of sources. I look at what he offers and I see a better workflow. I'd like something like this available in a fairer way.

Learning SketchUp with this many tools would add a lot to the curve, making it more formidable like, say, Rhino. But for an intermediate level user, it would be handy to have all this stuff put together in one place, updated s new scripts come out.

Is a volunteer up for such an ongoing task, or a group of volunteers? It's asking a lot. Would Google SU take it on? Charging anything for the collection adds immensely to the problems— how can you compensate for scripts— by the piece, the time involved, the lines of code? Try leveling that playing field.

This is as good a place as any to say once again how much I appreciate the thousands of hours the Ruby writers have put in to making SketchUp a better tool. Most of them only get paid by our thanks and the satisfaction of all the creative work they have had an indirect hand in. We owe them a lot.

Jim

Gaieus

Fine, Edson, thanks!

chango70

I believe CadFather is the man to ask.

thomthom

Nice!

ELYSIUM

well done guys!! this just proves the streght of our comunity!

Edson

i am glad to inform you that mr. ezequiel rezende has taken the package containing the scripts not authored by him off his website. he also told me he will not put it on sale again before reaching an agreement with the scripts' authors.

Gaieus

Thanks Edson for the heads-up. Also for arranging this.

Mike Lucey

Great work Edson, 'You Da Man!'

Didier Bur

Thanks Edson, good job.
BTW, if the guy tries to reach an agreement with me, I don't think I will let him distribute my scripts this way. Some others before (japanese CAD magazines and webmasters in particular) have kindly asked for permission to distribute (at no charge) my freebies in the past and I agreed of course.
But without my permission and for 100$, NO !

Note to ruby coders: is there a way to add a copyright notice and an advice that our plugins are free (I mean, not in the code but during execution or something like that)?
Must we use the scrambler ? is it "secure" ?

fredo6

I guess we are protected by the first publication occurrence on a site like Sketchucation or Crai Depot. This at least determines the "prior" date.

Then, I am waiting on Gaieus' advice to see how to protect us against this type of abuse.

In between, I will equip my scripts with the following notice:


# Permission to use this software for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted
# Distribution of this software for commercial purpose is subject to;
#  - the express written consent of the author
#  - the inclusion of the present copyright notice in all copies.

Fredo

tomot

Getting angry is not going to help, nor will a EULA in the front of a script, prevent anyone from copying or selling these scripts. I for one will not change my attitude towards providing free scripts for everyone that uses SU, furthermore I thank Didier for providing a home for all of them. There will always be be rotten apples, and unfortunately as the size of the barrel increases so does the likely hood of more bad apples . c'est la vie!

Mike Lucey

Guys,

Firstly I must apologise for my ignorance about Ruby Script programming. Now I will move on with regard to the IDEA that I proposed to Coen and Csaba when I learned about this $100 Merchant.

The idea is simply this,

**

A Special Place within the Ruby Discussions Forum will be set up. Coen had been working on some ideas for Ruby Programmers but I will let him elaborate on this.
This forum will by invitation only.
The Forum will be monitored by trusted Ruby Programmers from the SketchUp Community. Jim is doing a great job at the moment.
We suggest that, ONLY in this place, would Ruby Programmers post OPEN scripts to be shared and further developed under the ethos that has grown within the Community.
Ruby Scripts that are launched to the public can then be scrambled.**

As I said at the offset my Ruby Scripting knowledge is nil. I would like to hear if these proposals could work. We (SketchUcation Management) will do anything we can to protect the Intelectual Property of our much appreciated Ruby Scripters.

Mike

Chris Fullmer

I personally don't believe that a lockdown is the solution. If someone has a script they don't want shared with the world, then they can PM it to whoever they do trust, or encode it and only give out the encoded version. I'd rather not begin to encourage closed developing, leaving us wanna-be's and up and coming programmers left out in the cold. I think that more publicity for the free scripts is the answer. Make it so anyone looking for ruby plugins will find the depot first, and the forum, and smustard, and jim's blog, and etc, etc, etc. That's my take,

Chris

sepo

@chris fullmer said:

I personally don't believe that a lockdown is the solution. If someone has a script they don't want shared with the world, then they can PM it to whoever they do trust, or encode it and only give out the encoded version. I'd rather not begin to encourage closed developing, leaving us wanna-be's and up and coming programmers left out in the cold. I think that more publicity for the free scripts is the answer. Make it so anyone looking for ruby plugins will find the depot first, and the forum, and smustard, and jim's blog, and etc, etc, etc. That's my take,

Chris

I agree with you. Let's not get overboard with fear. The success of the Ruby forum was encouragement and dialogue between coders themselves and us users. Surely there must be better way to do this.

AcesHigh

exactly. As far as we know the guy didnt even sell any of his packages (too expensive!)

and he agreed to close the site until he reworks everything.

he is ALSO a ruby developer, so instead of ostrcizing him, we should make him see that he has done something wrong (apparently he already did) and, as a ruby developer, he could even beg for forgiveness and then be allowed to participate here, as long as his translations and icons are distributed for free... and IF he wants, he can sell his OWN rubies...