What an exciting time for age builders! We are finally getting permission to develop and distribute our ages - through UU shards, nonetheless!
The details on how we would go about doing this are still a bit fuzzy. What I would like to work out in this topic is a proposal for how we would go about putting our ages on a fan-run UU shard. The idea is that each interested shard owner (after obtaining permission from Cyan) would follow the proposed methods for making ages available.
So, here's a suggestion on what the the proposal would contain:
1. Permission. Before a shard owner places content on their UU shard, they need to request permission from Cyan to host these ages.
2. Which ages to distribute. The proposal would only allow ages for which the author has received the fan created content agreement to be made available - in addition to the standard set of Cyan ages, of course.
3. Shard Notice. A shard that hosts this fan created content would need to display (in the text that appears when you select a shard to visit) that the shard contains fan-created content, not produced by Cyan. It should also mention that these ages each have received an agreement from Cyan that permits them to be made available on this shard.
4. Incorporating the ages. So the shard owner copies all the age's files onto the server. But how will people link into the age? One of the Cyan ages must be modified in order to have a linking book. The shard owner can do something similar to what UruAgeManager does: modify the Relto python file to add a book to the shelf, which contains page(s) for each fan-created age. This mechanism should be described explicitly in the proposal, so that Cyan will know exactly which of the Uru files have been modified. Ideally, only the python file within Python.pak would be modified.
5. Audit support. In case there is ever any doubt by Cyan as to whether an age on a UU shard has been given permission for distribution, the shard owner needs some evidence. So, I propose that the age author submit the reference number (that accompanied the reply from Cyan in the subject line) to the shard owner - and perhaps the date that the reply was received. The owner files the reference number somewhere, along with the age name. If Cyan requests an "audit" of the fan-created ages, the shard owner simply sends Cyan the list of reference numbers and age names (along with the dates). Cyan then verifies this in their records.
Once we get the details of this proposal ready, I'll send it to Cyan. Then we just need to find a willing shard owner to host our ages!
EDIT: Here is a link to a draft of the proposal:
UU Shard Proposal
Comments/suggestions?