Hubris, was Re: [sldev] Cache politics: performance vs obfuscation

ordinal.malaprop at fastmail.fm ordinal.malaprop at fastmail.fm
Mon Jun 9 14:22:10 PDT 2008


On 9 Jun 2008, at 11:34, Thomas Grimshaw wrote:

> Dante Tucker wrote:
>> Lets all just stop pretending anyone who wants to steal textures  
>> can't with the current system. Anyone who wants them can already  
>> get them. The only thing storing data raw would do is make them  
>> more accesable to people who don't want them and have no knoledge  
>> of how to get them currently. And if they don't want them then  
>> whats the harm?
> Agreed.
>
> I tire of people moaning about IP security.
>
> Your stuff is already stolen, deal with it.
>
> ~Tom

Not to pick on Tom particularly here, but this is the sort of m  
message that reinforces my opinion that:

(a) the people involved in discussing assets don't understand what  
those _creating_ the assets want or think;
(b) they don't care.

The level of snobbery applied here is breathtaking, endless references  
to pitchforks ho ho, you know, they're all irrational peasants. But  
even in the current situation, textures not being instantly obtainable  
by just going to the right directory and dragging to somewhere else is  
a disincentive to pirates.

YES, we do all know about glintercept and all the other ways to get  
hold of textures. YES, we know that there is an intrinsic problem  
here, that displaying the damn assets implies that they are received  
by the client. YES, we've all heard these teenage extropian  
"information wants to be free" tropes, thanks all the same.

Amazingly enough, people appreciate the practical issues. What they  
don't like is the idea that they are being treated as idiots and rubes  
by LL and assorted geeky types because they dare to get worried about  
the reason that they are there and building the world for you lot to  
play about with in the first place. Because, you know, if it wasn't  
for people who make content, you and I would not be here discussing  
this stuff, as I've said before.

If you can't offer anything to content creators apart from "ha ha your  
stuff has already been stolen stupid n00bs" then you might as well  
close the whole company down right now.


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