Activesofts as Freeware, All Skills at 4 for free? Options

[Xenefungus]

I know it's an optional rule, but the rules for freeware in Unwired clearly state that programs up to rating 4 may be had for free (they have the copyrighted but not the registered programing options if you care). Now i can see no rule that says Activesofts are excluded from that rule.

So, am i right assuming that everyone with skillwires / MBW can have ALL skills at 4 with no cost? Then, why would anyone ever pay for activesofts? It definetely seems wrong to me, but i cant find rules that agree with me.

Help would be appreciated (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Yerameyahu]

Optional rule, sanity, GM control of the game. Lack of the best options. Degradation. Freeware has a built-in 'don't be stupid' clause. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Search 'activesoft freeware' for the last 6 threads on this.

[Xenefungus]

I did use my search-fu prior to opening this thread (your query btw just finds my thread here (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) ), and there arent any threads that really adress my issue, most were about pirating it for 90% off which wouldnt make any sense if there would be freeware versions available as well (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Yerameyahu]

No, I tested it before I mentioned it. I found an argument between Neraph and Max about freeware, for one. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) 2-3 threads about whether skillwires are overpowered, and 2-3 more about whether they're underpowered; freeware was a side note in those.

But, you don't need them. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) You know without even asking that something too good to be true isn't, and this is the GM's job. In addition to certain programs (or whole categories, like 'ActiveSofts') possibly not existing, the player should also have to take individual Data Searches for these 'actively suppressed by megacorps' programs. The thresholds could be pretty high (if necessary, mwa ha). They could also be as controlled as warez, which actually semi-requires you to have a Group Contact and spend time coding your own programs to trade. You can't code ActiveSofts, so maybe the GM might let you trade across categories… I wouldn't trade an ActiveSoft for a Common Use, personally. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Karoline]

GM: "Sure, you can have freeware activesofts *Muahahaha*"

Do keep in mind this is a program, that you've gotten from an illegal unmonitored node, which is given access to your subconsciousness and motor skills.

Expect at least a few of them to be addictive, or psycotropic, or pull up about 100 ads each time you use it, or suddenly stop working right when you need it most (Would you like to register now? Are you sure? Don't you really want to register? Don't you want to not register right now?).

Sure, you can get them, but expect them to have every single disadvantage in the book attached.

[Neraph]

It definately works, if you're using the optional rule. It is O-RAW (Optional Rule As Written). However, even I highly suggest you heavily bug it out. Lots of bad options - like a couple actual bugs and the Overdrive ability at at least R2.

By the by, if you use that O-RAW, you can also get R4 TacSofts for free.

[Dakka Dakka]

GM: "Sure, you can have freeware activesofts *Muahahaha*"

Do keep in mind this is a program, that you've gotten from an illegal unmonitored node

How is freeware illegal and unmonitored? OpenOffice for example is neither. I'd have a much bigger problem with cracked activesofts.

[Karoline]

How is freeware illegal and unmonitored? OpenOffice for example is neither. I'd have a much bigger problem with cracked activesofts.

Ah, I was thinking cracked. Well, you're still going to have the bugs, registration, untimely 'updates', and possibly some low level side effects.

[Xenefungus]

Freeware is not Open Source Software (aka Free Software). OOo for example is Free Software, so under SR rules it would cost money (50% of commercial version) but would have neither the copy protection nor the registration option. Freeware on the other hand does have the copy protection but no registration.

Thats why it would not matter if there were updates, i'd just get the new version - it's free just as well.

And i dont see every freeware having buggy options at all. If anything and you want to balance it out, it seems most reasonable to me to come up with a "buggy program" flaw for it, just like the buggy ware for cyberware (reducing needed 1's for glitch).



All in all I'd much rather see a system without programs at all, its just a hastle, bookkeeping and not balanced at all while basically offering next to nothing in effect. Anybody worked on something like that already? I could very well imagine just using attribute and skill (yei streamlining!) and just assuming that every hacker has the appropriate tools for his jop. And honestly: Most of them do.

[Yerameyahu]

Get right on that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) In the meantime, definitely don't allow free ActiveSofts, of all things.

[Mongoose]

GM: "Sure, you can have freeware activesofts *Muahahaha*"

Do keep in mind this is a program, that you've gotten from an illegal unmonitored node, which is given access to your subconsciousness and motor skills.

Expect at least a few of them to be addictive, or psycotropic, or pull up about 100 ads each time you use it, or suddenly stop working right when you need it most (Would you like to register now? Are you sure? Don't you really want to register? Don't you want to not register right now?).

Sure, you can get them, but expect them to have every single disadvantage in the book attached.

Yeah, as opposed to the probrams provided by extraterritorial megacorps, who are a law unto themselves, immune to civil suits brought by lesser beings. I'd much rather use those...

I don't think I'd slot ANY skillsoft that wasn't open source, and vetted by multiple independent organizations. Perhaps commercial skillsofts are just that, with the cost going to pay for the safety checking- but if they are open source, what stops you from compiling and using that code?

[Yerameyahu]

Assuming 'open source' is literally open *source* in SR4 (and it really must be, or nothing makes sense), you should indeed be able to debug/upgrade the programs yourself. In fact, I'd require it. There are maybe a half-dozen major, quality open-source projects in reality, and a billion minor and/or flaky ones, so it's fair enough.

[KCKitsune]

Freeware is not Open Source Software (aka Free Software). OOo for example is Free Software, so under SR rules it would cost money (50% of commercial version) but would have neither the copy protection nor the registration option. Freeware on the other hand does have the copy protection but no registration.

Open Office is licenced under LGPL so the source is there. The only difference between GPL and LGPL is that LGPL can be linked to non-GPL'd software without violating the licence like GPL.

As for ActiveSofts as Freeware... sorry that does NOT fly. Hacking programs, Agents, common use program I can see no problem. ActiveSofts (and Lingua and KnowSofts) are so complex that you can't get some slots together to make them. If I was a GM and one of my players asked for free ActiveSofts, then I would first give them the Stink Eye™, and then say no.

[Mongoose]

ActiveSofts (and Lingua and KnowSofts) are so complex that you can't get some slots together to make them. If I was a GM and one of my players asked for free ActiveSofts, then I would first give them the Stink Eye™, and then say no.

I disagree that it can't be done that way. In SR3 and before, the total size of various Skillsofts (in terms of storage memory and required processing power) was pretty much on par with other complex programs of the same rating. Of course, there is a catch...
When I came up with the programing options for skillsofts that were published in Cannon Companion (originally written as one of my freelance contributions for Man and Machine), I did a write up on how skillsofts were programmed. The first step was to do a whole lot of specialized simsense recordings to capture the memory samples that would be edited together to produce the skillsofts "database" of memeories. THAT could take a whole lot of time... but it could also be done as a distributed effort, sort of like wikipedia.
Imagine a site where hundreds of thousands of people daily upload recordings of themselves performing various tasks, and agents sift through them to evalaute their suitability for producing skillsofts, and then programmers are free to download and edit the recording to produce open source skillsofts.
The second step was sort of like editing together a movie, only with a database of scenes that allowed you to play out the plotline any way you wanted. Low level skillsofts would have basic surface plots and a limited variety of pathways through the database; higher level ones provide more nuanced interpretations and deeper detail. Program options apply to the organization of the database and related software. Part art, part psychology, part programming, much like other simsense work is.
Yeah, it would be a big effort to both get the required samples, and get a group to code up the soft. But big, collaborative efforts to organize and enhance human knowledge bases have a pretty strong track record so far- there's even evidence its a basic human impulse, in fact. You'd probably see it happen first for things like medical skills, where doctors would upload the recordings and medical programmers do the coding, with the intent of provinding low cost medical care in the third world. Later on, you might get "wiki leaks" of soldiers uploading combat recordings, and gamer / hackers patching them togehter into combat skillsofts...

Yeah, it would be unbalanced as all hell. That's one of the problems with Shadowrun- the tech realistically converges on post-humanism, blowing balance out of the water if you presume human-level characters.

[Yerameyahu]

The book says the megacorps are fighting a Matrix war against exactly the kind of thing you're talking about, though. It makes sense, but they're not letting it happen that way (and why would they?).

I think it's important to bear that in mind for any open-source programs in SR4:

Though the megacorporations are actively waging a Matrix war against the open source movement, knocking it down to a fringe phenomenon, open source programs do exist.

So, they barely exist, actively hunted and suppressed by the keepers of the world.

With the Corporate Court Matrix Authority refusing to share certain code elements of the Matrix infrastructure (hiding behind megacorporate patents for decades) with which programs are supposed to interact, corporations have effectively reduced the frequency of open source programs.

This doesn't necessarily make sense, because you can crack open commercial programs. However, it is a second explanation for why open-source programs would be spotty and limited in SR4.

One aspect I do like of all this is the sense of open-source being 'underground', persecuted, traded amongst members of shadowy 'warez groups', etc. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) In any case, the basic rule should be TANSTAAFL. If you want 'free' programs, your should have to pay another way, and the more valuable (ActiveSofts), the bigger the sacrifice. If that means a couple of expensive Group Contacts, or another idea of the GM, then that's what's fair (and, ultimately, fun).

[Mongoose]

The book says the megacorps are fighting a Matrix war against exactly the kind of thing you're talking about, though. It makes sense, but they're not letting it happen that way (and why would they?).

I think it's important to bear that in mind for any open-source programs in SR4: So, they barely exist, actively hunted and suppressed by the keepers of the world.This doesn't necessarily make sense, because you can crack open commercial programs. However, it is a second explanation for why open-source programs would be spotty and limited in SR4.

One aspect I do like of all this is the sense of open-source being 'underground', persecuted, traded amongst members of shadowy 'warez groups', etc. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) In any case, the basic rule should be TANSTAAFL. If you want 'free' programs, your should have to pay another way, and the more valuable (ActiveSofts), the bigger the sacrifice. If that means a couple of expensive Group Contacts, or another idea of the GM, then that's what's fair (and, ultimately, fun).

I agree- that's why I said "I disagree that it can't be done that way." I meant to elaborate on the reason it probably was not being done that way, but got sidetracked... and you nicely wrapped that up.

I have my doubts about corporate ability to crack down on the open source movement (witness the continued success of "The Exhange" - a bigger threat to corps and even the cash economy than any open source software) but then I don't live in a megacorporate dystopia... or at least, not the one described in Shadowrun.
If you had the right connections to the right geeks, and did them favors, you might get access to beta test some open source skillsofts. Which is pretty much like earning them any other way a shadowrunner would acquire similar software...

[Yerameyahu]

I agree that it makes great sense as an ongoing (even unwinnable) war. It's very appropriate to the setting, in my mind, and it fits with why Contacts R Gud. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Saint Sithney]

AFAIR, Skilsofts are run from chips - Specialized hard-coded chips, which wire-users have to switch out physically.

Just going to say that you don't get free hardware, ever. It's not a non-rival good.

[TheScrivener]

Yeah, I'd see getting any useful gear for free as something runners should look askance at, whatever its provenance... While having a freeware producing warez group or open source alliance could be useful for these sorts of things, in the end you either spend money to get something, or effort, or future trouble. Finding freeware Activesofts is the same as the GM leaving the keys in the Westwind 3K in the parking lot next door - it better be done for a reason other than "I want my players to be happy." Keep giving them everything they want and they run out of challenges fast.
Plus, who wants every cybered character to have 4 skill in everything? Boring.

[Yerameyahu]

Not in SR4, Saint Sithney. Nothing is, not even BTLs. (That is, BTLs *can* be on chips, but they don't have to.)

[Mongoose]

I think they can be restricted to running off specific hardware if the programmer wants them to be, although this would be more like building in a dongle requirement than any basic limitation of the hardware / software funtioning. And yeah, if you don't do that, you pretty much end up in a situation where if any one character has a copy of a program, they all do.

[Ascalaphus]

I must admit I'm leaning more and more towards a "Runs On Chip" format, where any higher-rated software is pretty much only available on these chips. Sure, you can put a program online for people to copy, but the CC actively opposes that. Most of the time you have to buy "rocks" from shifty-eyed people in dark alleyways.

Of course, part of that is that I like the retro feel of having to physically buy programs as a hacker.

It could go so far that the CC even disallows sending programs over the Matrix without a special license, claiming that it's necessary to keep Deus from coming back (which may even be somewhat true).

[Mistwalker]

How many runners actually use skillwires? Personally, I don't recall seeing one.

However, I don't think it would be unreasonable to say that each of the activesofts needs to be tweeked for each individual. Unarmed combat is done differently if you are a 4'10 skinny individual compared to a 6'4 hulking brute. For most skills, your own body plays a part.

So, even if two players want to trade actisofts, a GM could still require either time to adjust a lot of points in the software, a cost to do so, or both.

[sabs]

Wait
Open Source is not viable because the Matrix Authority is hiding behind patents to block api's and shit.
Then how can I write my own programs? or my own System?

[Yerameyahu]

Yours degrade. Perhaps they keep changing things to be annoying; it happens in real life. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

You know better than to apply logic to the rules! Why does everyone keep trying to do that? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)