Goodbye Bakery (and possibly Unity)

https://twitter.com/guycalledfrank/status/1401130390945943553




Looks like Unity is banning Bakery for now. Lets see how it goes, but if it's a trend then it means that we will have a much harder time using Unity than other engines and it will be the gentle push we need to move on.

 

Well, that was a really dumb thing to do.

 

why though? who profits?

 

It was written in their asset store guidelines / EULA a while back, someone saw it and thought "Hmm, let's enforce it". Pretty sure the rejection Bakery got was automated.

It is one of the reasons I'm yelling about the numerous silly stuff that are / were included in Unity's EULAs and people retort with "they'd never enforce this".

Welp.

 

Probably the end of using unity as well.
Meanwhile

 

oh, this is horrible news

On May 26th this year in other section of unity forum, unity posted a topic tilted "New Submission Guidelines are Coming!" it included things they are going to try however it had no discussion about use executable native code that I found in any discussion points.

one comment from Unity reads as follows:
“*If we find that these changes are not helpful to users, then we may revert.”

this statement suggests your guidelines are in place to protect users and provided them with the best possible experience and you are open flexible to hear what users want

I believe the community will speak loud and clear this must fall under “Exceptions” and categized into user “Essentials” if categorized correctly it fully meets subject requirements of applicable submission guidelines permitting you Unity its continued approval.

Please work with your community in a helpful way and solve this

 

Yup. I had a submission rejected months ago because I included an .exe from Unity's own Asset Bundle Manager. Granted, Asset Bundles are deprecated now, but I couldn't even include the Asset Bundle Manager with versions of my product that work with older versions of Unity. Hopefully a dev can comment on why .exe's are blacklisted now.

 

They are not depreciated.
They just are wrapped, with higher level of addressable.

 

Executables have never been allowed in Asset Store package submissions except on a case-by-case basis. I'm guessing that someone new on the Asset Store team just picked up the Bakery update submission and didn't know that it's an exception. I'm pretty sure it'll get straightened out. The sky isn't falling.

 

No, the agreement/EULA/guidelines didn't use to say anything about executables. I don't have proof handy, but I believe it's a semi-recent addition.

 

He poked Aras and Aras mentioned that it's already being brought up on the internal slack at Unity. I agree with @TonyLi that this is most likely a simple mistake.

Speaking of the agreement I wasn't able to find any mention of executables. Anyone know where it is specifically?

 

You probably don't read enough General Discussion lately... It is always falling.

 

a good time considering UE5

 

Technically an exe included into an asset is a black box and you don't really know what it does. It could be doing anything. You also won't be able to fix it if it breaks.

Now, it IS possible to reimplement bakery using C# and compute shaders, but that would be painful enough for the developer to just give up and ditch the project instead.

 

I don't see why the responsibility can't be the customer's. You can just have a flag that indicates if a project is pure C# or contains executables. One takes considerable risks even downloading a game from steam, then running it. It is the same risk. Should steam then require source only and we compile it ourselves?

I don't get the rationale beyond someone at Unity, possibly security thinking it's a grand plan. It isn't and C# can do untold damage anyway.

 

Best part is we already are responsible. Sections 8 and 9 of the EULA specifically point this out by saying there is no warranty provided with purchases nor is there any liability on the part of Unity or for that matter on the part of the author of the asset.

https://unity3d.com/legal/as_terms

 

It's not recent. They have never been allowed. The same happened to my PATCH - Updating System back in 2016 (or 2017, can't remember exactly): it contained an exe (it was a CLI tool for generating patches for CI/CD environments).
At first, my package has been approved. But in one of the next updates I published someone found out the exe and the package got deprecated.
So that rule has been here for at least 4-5 years.

 

Bakery dev here.
Nothing is banned, but my current newest update is being rejected by the automatic check (doesn't want exe files in the package - was OK previously).
I hope it'll be resolved or at least I'll do some crazy workaround (I'd prefer not to though).

 

Just supply the native code and put instructions how to build it, or even auto build it by VS. Easy-peasy.

 

Yeah, skimming the terms at archive.org seems the no executables term was added sometime in mid-late 2016, so you're correct.

In my defense, 5 years is barely enough time for a Unity feature to go from experimental preview to experimental preview, so I guess 5 years for an EULA change doesn't feel that long.

 

So let me get this clear: in the future people will have to just supply C++ / other source code in the downloaded asset that most people lack the compiler chain to build, so everyone can rip off everyone else blind while customers re-download it precompiled from the website? Legit. Can't wait for obfuscated versions too.

This is clearly thought through isn't it.

 

Can you just rename .exe to something else. And make user change it back to exe ? or zip it or whatever ?

 

Are you allowed to include a .dll?

 

I would be greatly surprised, if dlls are banned too

 

Banning .dlls would be fatal and wiping most of the crucial assets from the Asset Store. Assets like Nature Renderer, UModeler, PlayMaker, Gaia, Odin - Inspector and Serializer or even Bolt rely on them. (Not to mention Bakery, but that's a given).

I don't think Unity is that stupid to even consider it.

 

So what is the difference between exe and dll in this case?

 

double click feature in OS
Not that it need to be executed separately.

But yeah, this runs and this runs in engine and can contain any type of black boxed code.

 

This is actually a pretty good loophole. Could simply automate the renaming when first importing the asset

 

Yeah until that doesn't work any more. I think Unity should address this properly. Allow executables or disallow dlls - it's the same thing after all. Perhaps this is nannying and fear on their part rather than addressing the problem correctly.

And IMHO since exes and dlls can provide the same security issues, Unity should basically just have a disclaimer/fair warning for any assets containing dlls or executables on the asset store page under contents.

Unless there's another mystery reason for not allowing exes.

 

You can't run a dll by clicking on it?

I mean rundll seems to require admin privilegies, while an exe pretty much a standalone thing. You launch it and it can live in the background. Meanwhile dll will require interfacing with it through C# glue code you at least can read.

 

Another example of Unity treating users like children. Exe bad, dll good. Enforced open source next please.

 

I suspect that being specific on .exes is somehow related to the mention of installers immediately after.

Removing DLLs would be extremely misguided. Disallowing exes carte blanche seems the same, but I understand not wanting installers in particular. They want Unity extensions, not stuff that installs itself elsewhere. Of course that requires manual checking to be sure as there are other ways to do it, and other reasons to have exes, so that's what they should do.

 

Sounds like there's a lot of good options for Unity to take away from this thread then.

 

I'd kill for, at the very least, a clearly identifiable flag on the asset store that tells me if the source is included or not so what rare few assets I buy anymore don't end up being a maintenance disaster

 

@hippocoder
I don't care for this type of alarmist thread.

The Asset Store has never allowed executables for multiple reasons and Bakery got tripped up on our automated reply that was implemented last year. I've given them a bypass so Mr F just needs to resubmit and it will be fine. They could also reply to that email to reach someone on the team where we could work it out directly.

 

Is this clearly stated in the email that they received? Because in my experience the vast majority of automatic emails come from addresses and systems that are incapable of handling replies.

I would love to know your reasoning behind allowing DLLs but not EXEs. Is it just that you needed to provide a way to allow people to hide source code and had no alternatives but to allow DLLs?

 

I don't care for lax unenforced guidelines that trip people over with much more at stake financially than Unity staff.

You have a restriction? by all means enforce it since 2016, don't pick and choose and play with our income and livelihood, or create a better set of rules so we can make future decisions without nasty surprises. It happened to me with Enlighten and it's happened to me with this. I believe that's worth a thread.

 

An asset update submission was rejected on a automatic system, happens all the time on any platform. Nothing was "banned" lol. More silly melodrama which is sadly normal on this forum.

 

That a moderator created this thread should tell you that this is a legitimate problem.

It's attitudes like this that allow them to keep happening rather than being corrected.

 

Yep. There are way too many mistakes on Unity's part now that hasn't just cost me dearly (all while I have been helping them for free, for a decade), but cost other people too. It's all the little things. Enlighten coming and going. Networking coming and going. Constantly in flux HDRP/URP up until recently and so on. I want to do good in Unity. But chastising me when I've given so much and got short shrift is beyond poor.

I tried for so long to keep Unity on their toes in the nicest way possible. Perhaps this is the year that stops, not just from me, but from a lot of people who are becoming tired. We are still your loyal customers, but why?

 

And since we're sharing, I don't care for this type of dismissive replies.

 

Well, apparently intentionally lying about the state of things became the rite of passage around here. A moderator is equally capable of doing this kind of effed up thing as any other user. It means nothing.

 

And now you're doing it too! Unity has taught you well.

 

Happy end: https://twitter.com/guycalledfrank/status/1402009069817319433

 

On that note, it's time for a lock!