
Never ever write software for Oculus - colinramsay
https://medium.com/@pragu/never-ever-write-software-for-oculus-9587266a979f#.lln18oglp
======
bio4m
This is for user submitted content; not items put up for sale by a developer.

From the linked document

 _In the event you are a developer who submits User Content to Oculus, you
acknowledge and agree that our agreements with you as a developer may
supersede this section of the Terms._

~~~
metafunctor
Right. So, the viewpoint in the article is basically based on an incomplete
(an apparently angry) reading of the WRONG DOCUMENT.

~~~
vrfcodf
Read it again. Author is concerned about how Oculus threats their users,
therefore as a developer he/she decided to not contribute to that system.

------
Dashron
Looks like Steam has similar conditions:
[http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/](http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/)

"YOU AND VALVE AGREE TO RESOLVE ALL DISPUTES AND CLAIMS BETWEEN US IN
INDIVIDUAL BINDING ARBITRATION."

"You grant Valve and its affiliates the worldwide, non-exclusive, right to
use, reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit,
transcode, translate, broadcast, and otherwise communicate, and publicly
display and publicly perform, your User Generated Content, and derivative
works of your User Generated Content, in connection with the operation and
promotion of the Steam site."

One key difference is which services this applies to.

Steam: "in connection with the operation and promotion of the Steam site"

Oculus: "in connection with the Services". Where services are defined as "use
of physical goods, platform services, software, websites, applications, and
content"

~~~
vrfcodf
As a future dev it makes me sick. I have to choose either to support a
business like that or never make any money.

------
vrfcodf
And from their privacy policy [https://www.oculus.com/en-us/legal/privacy-
policy/](https://www.oculus.com/en-us/legal/privacy-policy/):

 _Information Automatically Collected About You When You Use Our Services:
-Information about your physical movements and dimensions when you use a
virtual reality headset._

So even if I play single player games in my home I have no expectation of
privacy anymore.

~~~
IshKebab
Oh come on. That's clearly reasonable data to collect to improve future
products. They should probably ask you if you want to do that but still...

You probably wouldn't be happy to know that many many mobile apps track every
click you make.

~~~
vrfcodf
I have no problem with that if it is an opt-in. Otherwise I expect privacy in
my home.

No mobile app is tracking me. The only information stored by the use of my
phone is the cell tower location, the use of that information requires a court
order in my country (although it is possible that even that isn't stored
anymore, I would have to check).

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mgo
This is pretty damning. It's pretty amazing how Oculus will lose the VR battle
despite being "first". The HTC Vive and other more open solutions for
developers that aren't behind a walled garden will win with gamers.

------
sbuttgereit
Alright, I'll bite. In practice, how does this differ from most open source
licenses? Yes, I appreciate that there is a corporate entity which is
reserving these rights for itself (non-exclusively), but at some level this
writer's response seems a bit overdone. But really, if I license something,
say, via an MIT license: Am I not saying in effect that I grant anyone that
comes along a "worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable,
royalty-free and fully sublicensable right to use, copy, display, store,
adapt, publicly perform and distribute such User Content[...]"?

Don't get me wrong, if I want to keep something proprietary and under my
control, I best not publish to the Oculus services. But "antidemocratic,
immoral and plain evil"? Nonsense.

(note: I didn't read the Oculus terms, more than I want at 5am on a Monday,
but am responding directly to what the author's complaint is aimed at.)

~~~
vrfcodf
_Am I not saying in effect that I grant anyone that comes along a..._

With the MIT license you grant those permissions for your own work, not for
their work back to you.

~~~
sbuttgereit
I'm not sure I understand your point.

I'm not saying anything in conflict with that statement. The MIT License does
not require reciprocal licensing nor does the Oculus terms of service. You can
only ever license your own work (the "I grant" from my original post) and sub-
license the work of others according to the terms you've agreed to with them.

Only do certain open source licenses require re-licensing and re-distribution
of derivative products back to the public. That's why I did not mention
restrictive open source licenses like the GPL and picked a permissive license
in my example.

~~~
vrfcodf
I think you're trolling but here goes:

Oculus terms of service require (among other things) of the user this: _By
submitting User Content through the Services, you grant Oculus a worldwide,
irrevocable, perpetual (i.e. lasting forever), non-exclusive, transferable,
royalty-free and fully sublicensable (i.e. we can grant this right to others)
right to use, copy, display, store, adapt, publicly perform and distribute
such User Content in connection with the Services..._ and so on

This is absolutely not the case with the MIT license, which only requires the
licensee to do this: _The above copyright notice and this permission notice
shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software._ and
nothing else. Oculus license (terms of service) requires the licensee give to
Oculus right to his/her User content if he/she agrees to the Oculus license
(terms of service).

~~~
sbuttgereit
A couple of things...

First a clerical error, in your italicized quote from the Oculus Terms of
Service (which aren't even the developer terms of service, it turns out... see
[https://share.oculus.com/developer-distribution-
agreement](https://share.oculus.com/developer-distribution-agreement) for the
actual developer terms.) You are including the commentary of the article's
author; true he/she didn't clearly indicate that they interspersed their
commentary in the terms they quoted, but still...

Second, my criticism of the original article (now deleted evidently) was that
the author was being hypersensitive and using unwarranted hyperbole to
describe a situation they didn't like (and which we now know they misread). My
goal is to demonstrate that people, even online, should put forth well
reasoned and balanced arguments when stating their case rather than making
ham-handed efforts to evoke emotional responses in the absence of any real
insight. I bet that author would have been not only fine with, but supportive
of certain open source licenses that, really do result in granting the same
rights as Oculus was asking for.

Third, you're comparing apples and oranges leading to a completely invalid
analysis. you're comparing the rights being granted by the Licensor (the terms
you quote from Oculus user terms) and the requirements of the Licensee in the
MIT License. Of course they're different... because they're addressing
different parties in the agreement. To make the comparison accurate, compare
the Licensee terms of the Oculus and those of the MIT License:

Oculus (User TOS): _By submitting User Content through the Services, you grant
Oculus a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable,
royalty-free and fully sublicensable right to use, copy, display, store,
adapt, publicly perform and distribute such User Content in connection with
the Services._

MIT License: _Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
"Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without
limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute,
sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom
the Software is furnished to do so[clip]_

So consider this: I write some fancy-shmancy application and put it on GitHub
under the MIT License. Someone comes along... hell, let's say someone acting
on behalf of Oculus, and forks that repo and uses the application (perhaps
even without modification) in the Oculus store. Well, so long as they comply
with the one requirement (reposting of the MIT License in the code) do they
not get the same rights? Can I revoke the rights under MIT License... nope.
Can I stop them from sublicensing or reselling my software, even if I don't
get a cut? Nope. Oh wait... they have to make public any changes they make and
publish full source... oh... nope.

 _In practice_ , what you give up by even agreeing to the Oculus terms as
posted by the article author isn't all that different _in practice_ to what
you give up as an IP owner when you choose a permissive open source license.
The only real difference is in how the license originates: one case you're
offering terms (MIT License) which can be accepted by a Licensee and in the
Oculus case they are telling you on which terms they will be your Licensee,
take it or leave it. And moreover, I see nothing in the original terms posted
that would prevent the IP owner from also licensing the content under any sort
of open source license (restrictive or permissive).

The contrast was intended to point out how people get all huffy when a company
wants you to agree to permissive rights ("evil", "nondemocratic"[sic], etc)...
but then find it just fine when you give essentially the same rights when you
license something as open source. To me, this is something of a double
standard.

Finally, when someone disagrees with you they are not trolling. You're welcome
to argue the case otherwise, but calling my points trolling out-of-hand
furthers my arguments about the loss of perspective in online forums.

(Last caveat... I have not really read the actual terms of services for
developers since that link has now appeared in the comments).

------
s_dev
Seems almost over reaching. I wonder if this sort of strict ToS and Privacy
Policy comes from management at Facebook or Oculus.

~~~
cryowaffle
FB

~~~
xlib
Do you have a source for that or is it speculation?

------
smoyer
This is going to alienate the indie game (and content?) producers, but there's
no way they're going to get big commercial companies to join with those terms
of service. When press, it's going to be Oculus that capitulates to a more
equitable agreement - Let's say it was Steam - I'd expect them to form an
agreement that says in principle "You own the games you produce for our
platform and we own the hardware. Working together, we might both sell more
units."

------
baltar
So their definition of "service" is "physical goods, platform services,
software, websites, applications, and content". Does this mean that if I
wrote, say, a 3D modelling tool for the Rift, than anything that my users
create could be grabbed by them (and given to others) for free?

------
appleflaxen
The only thing that will alter this kind of behavior is refusing to support
them economically.

If devs don't develop and gamers don't consume, it will stop.

Unfortunately, it requires things to be bad enough that a big sector of the
consumer sector follows through, which is rare.

------
hoodoof
Seems to me legal departments get to own this stuff till they break the
company reputation then the CEO snarls at the chief legal officer and says
"what the fuck are you doing?"

------
atticusalien
Mirror: [http://i.imgur.com/Qh2ezrJ.png](http://i.imgur.com/Qh2ezrJ.png)

------
hoodoof
Why isn't it called the Facebook Oculus?

------
Nutmog
You could make the same warning about writing open source software. Nobody
calls that evil. As soon as you release anything under the GPL or MIT license,
you're also giving Oculus a worldwide, ... perpetual, .. right to use, ... and
distribute it.

