Staredit Network

All the other unprotectors were basically useless.

Says you, but all the other un-protectors still work on a large number of maps.

Well nobody has been advertising them and called them good so far.

The old map unprotectors are extremely hard to find, while OSMAP is really easy. Also, OSMAP has a totally different way of unprotecting the maps. Making a new protector would be nearly impossible.

OSMAP is the leader in a category of generally terribly coded devices. I've never even heard the name of any unprotector except OSMAP. Anyone here, if they wanted to protect their maps, would use Uberation to protect from anything except OSMAP. Otherwise, you don't care, so you don't need an unprotector.

I've seen many sites hosting SCunprotect and replay2map. Mainly when I was hunting for StarCraft beta. But hey, I found it after all.

Well, I think SeN should be neutral, as opposed to being super anti-open source. A while ago, I was warned for merely mentioning OSMAP for someone to learn from a map. I think that's over the top. I mean, what's wrong with learning from maps? I learned 90% of what I know from rush, merely because everything else is protected, and I don't have the guts to download OSMAP and get into it.

My apologies for the poorly redacted post, it was originally a reply which I hastily converted into the thread.

As Chu, Moose and IP have all partially said, no one can dictate what you can do, but my point still stands that OSMAP has never had a discussion, it's always a bunch of people pointing fingers and telling each other what to do.

I've seen good posts which describe the pros/cons of unprotection, but the discussion is always dismissed. People will always resort to examples, examples which are always outdated because they've been around since before Starcraft first came out, making them null.

The OSMAP discussion cannot be brought together for the simple fact that you will only be trying to convince another person, and that is not a discussion. What can be done, however, is to discuss the ethics, laws and other such things which the Unprotection situation brings about.

For example:

If one wishes to do so what he/she pleases with an object, why can't another person do the same? (Note that you do not own a .scx/.scm file, it is the sole property of Blizzard and therefore you cannot do anything about someone protecting a map so that you can't see it or someone unprotecting your map)

In the end, I don't see any moral problem with OSmap considering that practically every single idea for a map derives from something in real life that we did not create. I believe shouldn't complain if people "stole" a person's map because I view as that the map creator stole an idea first by simply adding a twist or whatever. I don't see any problem with rigged maps or versions people don't like because if they don't like them, then they have the power to delete them and not play them. And who cares if somebody puts their name on a person's map? Are people afraid that they're going to lose the attention and admiration from absolute strangers to the other? I think all that matters is what a person and his friends think about his or her map.

Besides, before OSmap, if a person really wanted to open a map, they would just use Hex Workshop. Just my view on OSmap, but as far as discussion goes, it's pointless. I'm certain that neither Legacy or MindArchon will get rid of OSmap, so what's the point on discussing it? It's out there, people have it, there is nothing you can do about it because if you just happen to make a program that protects a map, then they (or maybe others) will simply update OSmap. I believe OSmap debates only serve one purpose now: getting people to accept the fact OSmap is here and that there's a chance that some of their maps will be unprotected and edited.

I already annouce my quitting in map making due to osmap...so..you cant take an idea i did not create...whatever happened to Patents

You announced your quitting in map making because you're too lazy to make good maps, not because of OSMap. Honestly, don't even try to pull that =/ No one is going to steal YOUR maps.

Id like to quote DTBK on this:


I agree, and it is the bases of the map makers choice to release their map protected or unprotected that divides this arguement.

I support open source mapping. Not because i believe in battle.net as a community mature enough to make a better version than anything i could put out. Not because i believe that any noob is going to learn from what i did. Not because of why most people release their maps openly. I support it because it has a better chance of helping the battle.net UMS community than damaging it (I believe this factor is very very small for the record). I dont think it will help in any drastic manner, nor will it harm it in any drastic manner. And we cant prove that OSMAP or open sourced maps are harming/helping anything. If every map on battle.net was protected, theyd still be played. If they were all open just the same.

I also believe part of why this arguement is so flame fested and debated so passionately is because for so long we took for granted that our maps were safe. LW, the man who is now responsible for the unprotection of our maps, used to keep them out of the hands we the makers deemed unfit, and we took that in its entirety for granted. Now, we have no such safe guards, we dont even have the person who was there to help us. I said when LW admitted to making OSMAP that i wished so greatly it was someone else, so we might have stood a chance. But such as it is, that is the situation.

But all the same, if i release a map, i want my credit. If there was a way for me to keep my name on my map and leave it open i would have no problem what so ever. It may not legally be ours because the policy blizzard has setup, but it is as DTBK put it our intellectual property, and to that we have rights. Honestly, were not lawyers, or atleast i hope were in some degree above the squabblings of law interpreters and those around them.

It isnt right to fight about it either. OSMAP is there. No amount of forum flamming and caps lock is going to fix it. No matter how well you tell off someone in this topic your not changing anything. But i believe there is one effect OSMAP has had that no one seems to realize:
A definate division in the map making community.
LW and MA if anything have achieved in making the community squabble and be divided more than any issue ive seen in my time on SEN, Battle.net, or anywhere else having to do with starcraft.

OSMAP is better known, more widely distributed, more frequently updated, and less buggy than the unprotectors before it. And this worrys some, and brings joy to others. Its where you stand on this issue and how you let it if at all affect you that is the outcome it is having on the map making community as a whole. We are all one piece of a large puzzle, SEN or no SEN, map makers exist in other places.

Do we need a new counter for counter, version for version protector?
Perhaps, perhaps not.
Would such a thing do anything more than heat this arguement?
I personally dont think so.
I believe all we can do, is make our maps, protect them best we can, release them as far and wide as we can with our names on them, and hope that our map stays closed.
Does that give me any peace? Is it good enough for me?
No. But what choice do i have, thanks to OSMAP.

Yea I do.

Here's a question I have for many anti-OSmappers, after each game you play, do you open an editor to look at the map you just played? Probably not. What would make the average player so different such that he does in fact open each map he plays and edits the map? Nothing really. Stealing is a minimal chance now considering that Starcraft has died down greatly. Besides, we know which people steal, and the maps "worth stealing" are generally too complicated or too well known within Staredit.net.

OSMAP doesn't steal your credits. OSMAP doesn't rig your maps.
In regards to the orginal discussion of this topic, which I think is mostly about my recent OSMAP topic, the point of the discussion was to defeat the problems OSMAP "creates" and tries to solve.
Look at it this way: Should author credit be perserved even if the map is unprotected?
Yes.
And the map is unprotected as is, OSMAP is irrelevant in the question!

Should the author credit be preserved if the map is protected?
Yes.
Does OSMAP make it so that there's a chance that it won't be?
Yes.

This conversation has nothing to do with open source mapping. Of course OSMAP doesn't apply to open source mappers - but most of us on SEN are not open source mappers. So we argue against something that reduces our control over our creations (not mine personally ).

Guns make it so theres a chance someone could kill someone else. But it's not the gun that does the killing, and if you take away the guns, people will only find another way to kill each other.

Except for the time being there was nothing other than hex editting a random Battle.net person could do. And let's be honest, how many people here know how to hex edit? :0

Golden-Fist, before OSMAP, when's the last time there was a global unprotector?

Yo.

So having ignorant mappers makes the community better? "Let's just keep everyone stupid so they don't steal maps"

It's censorship.

Nobody is keeping you from learning in the other 100 ways. Staring at a map is just a small segment of learning.

That is true, nobody can deny that. However, it is still a segment of learning, and if someone prefers that over the so called "100 others" who's to stop them?

As you guys like to say, its a matter of "choice".

Shouldn't the choice lie on the map creator, who put his time into the work, and made it for other peoples entertainment..?