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Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

kotaku.com.au

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Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#81

Post by Zash »

uxp wrote: post #76
thom wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this case is particularly egregious, you are still accepting data from an untrusted remote client.

Yes, but you can fine grain permissions so a unique client can alter a high score that they previously held, but not alter everyone's scores, which is difficult if not completely impossible in MySQL directly, as well as sanitize data to reject wildly incoherent submissions. The possibilities of pre-formatting data are endless with an API. Not so much with an INSERT statement.

It is entirely possible to build this kind of API in a SQL server with constraints and stored procedures.

Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#82

Post by incision »

phoboslab wrote: post #53
smosher wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pirates is way too heavy a term here. This is for-profit and closer to true piracy than file sharing is. It could be unintentional, but if they've already been contacted about it they really should be quicker to resolve the situation. They're also shooting themselves in the foot, No surprise there, see http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/1641/itsfinetrustme.png for an example of the judgment they've shown.

Tommy Refenes has stated in an interview[1] that he said "it's fine" just because at the time he couldn't do anything about it. The level editor was programmed in a rush and he didn't think that anyone would exploit something offered to them for free. In the end, the guy who warned him that an "evil hacker" could compromise the system, turned out to be that evil hacker himself. For us web devs it pretty obvious that…

>The level editor was programmed in a rush and he didn't think that anyone would exploit something offered to them for free.

There's simply no way he actually believed that. It reads as a way to further shift blame to the exploiter by painting him as someone who hasn't just exploited an indie game darling, but has taken advantage of their altruism.

>In the end, the guy who warned him that an "evil hacker" could compromise the system, turned out to be that evil hacker himself.

I really wonder if Mr. Hacker would have gone ahead and done that if Tommy hadn't been so smug about blowing the guy off. If "it's fine" was asking for trouble, "I've done this for a while now" was positively begging for it.

I vaguely recall this incident from when it happened, but having recently watched Indie Game The Movie puts a new perspective on it.

That chain of events fits the personalities demonstrated in the documentary like a glove.

Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#83

Post by fingerprinter »

evmar wrote: post #64

I tried for nearly a year to get Google Chrome into the Ubuntu store. Each time I asked about it I got answers like "the relevant person is on vacation", "we'll get back to you", "sorry, forgot to respond". I eventually gave up. While I remain cranky about it I try to believe they are just not well organized and it wasn't anything malicious, which I hope is also the explanation here too.

Well, I highly doubt that, to be honest.

It's pretty simple and known why Chrome is not in software center: Google. They won't allow it. Chrome would have to go in the partner repository, hence needs collaboration with said partner. Think Skype.

Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#84

Post by fingerprinter »

http://www.formspring.me/EdmundM/q/406960226210700795

dpitkin from canonical: "Hi, I just looked into it and the check to Tommy and Edmund from Canonical is in process for the 77 copies of Super Meat Boy. We have been working together since November to get it resolved, no piracy here just some miscommunication. David Pitkin Canonical"

edmund: "they got it from the HIB, HIB gives all the linux builds to Ubuntu during the promotion and does a blanket statment to all involved, we said we were interested in putting smb in the store but never heard back and never got a contract or exchanged information (hence why we were never paid) they never contacted us back after that and we simply never knew it was in their store."

So, which is it? Have canonical and edmund been communicating to fix since November? Or has this literally NEVER (edmund's statement) happened?

Given the HIB involvement, I'm very inclined to think that a massive miscommunication happened and that, frankly, edmund is just massively whining and whinging. Listen, I get it, he might be frustrated, but Edmund spoke in absolutes and we know how often absolutes are correct.

Either way, "pirating" is the wrong word. It's obvious there was no malice from Canonical. And I honestly don't know what Edmund was trying to achieve...he just looks bad in this whole exchange.

Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#85

Post by simonk »

fingerprinter wrote: post #83
evmar wrote: post #64

I tried for nearly a year to get Google Chrome into the Ubuntu store. Each time I asked about it I got answers like "the relevant person is on vacation", "we'll get back to you", "sorry, forgot to respond". I eventually gave up. While I remain cranky about it I try to believe they are just not well organized and it wasn't anything malicious, which I hope is also the explanation here too.

Well, I highly doubt that, to be honest. It's pretty simple and known why Chrome is not in software center: Google. They won't allow it. Chrome would have to go in the partner repository, hence needs collaboration with said partner. Think Skype.

The above poster is a Googler on the Chrome team so I'm guessing that he was doing that work on behalf of Google.

Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#86

Post by Fargren »

fingerprinter wrote: post #84

http://www.formspring.me/EdmundM/q/406960226210700795 dpitkin from canonical: "Hi, I just looked into it and the check to Tommy and Edmund from Canonical is in process for the 77 copies of Super Meat Boy. We have been working together since November to get it resolved, no piracy here just some miscommunication. David Pitkin Canonical" edmund: "they got it from the HIB, HIB gives all the linux builds to Ubuntu during…

Edmund didn't use the word piracy. That was just some editorializing by the Kotaku reporter and has since been removed.

I think what Edmund wants is to rant a bit about how Canonical says he "declined to make their game available" when it was Canonical who didn't accept the game in the first place. It makes it look as though he has a problem with Ubuntu, which he doesn't.

Honestly, he just ranted about it on his formspring. He didn't make a press release or press charges. He's understandably annoyed that they made him look bad to save face and that they didn't pay him some money they should have.

Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#87

Post by xsmasher »

thom wrote: post #73
benwerd wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One obvious, safe way: set up an API on their servers, abstracting away the need to send actual MySQL calls over the Internet.

While this case is particularly egregious, you are still accepting data from an untrusted remote client.

Every public web site on the planet is "accepting data from an untrusted remote client" - but allowing public db access is something else entirely.

Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#88

Post by jlgreco »

Zash wrote: post #81
uxp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but you can fine grain permissions so a unique client can alter a high score that they previously held, but not alter everyone's scores, which is difficult if not completely impossible in MySQL directly, as well as sanitize data to reject wildly incoherent submissions. The possibilities of pre-formatting data are endless with an API. Not so much with an INSERT statement.

It is entirely possible to build this kind of API in a SQL server with constraints and stored procedures.

It's also entirely possible to write a webserver in bash.

Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#89

Post by hdra »

frujka wrote: post #49
hdra wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are still amazing though. especially Dungeon Defenders with its DLCs. :)

Which sadly happens to be buggy under linux

well, that sucks. I can't even get it to run on my Mint install, but I think my problem was my graphic card driver,

Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#90

Post by thom »

xsmasher wrote: post #87
thom wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this case is particularly egregious, you are still accepting data from an untrusted remote client.

Every public web site on the planet is "accepting data from an untrusted remote client" - but allowing public db access is something else entirely.

Not every public web site enforces its business logic in client-side JavaScript and just accepts as valid the data that's submitted to a server. Every game that wants to submit a score to a central scoreboard has this problem, and it's a little absurd to debate the exact protocol by which an insecure-by-design architecture gets exploited.
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