Hello there. I am YesterdaysTomSawyer. At the time of this post, my projects are down because I am trying to make them more legally compatible both in terms of general US laws as well as stuff like the Scratch Terms of Use (because in the past, I have not been so mindful of such things.) Now, an issue I am about to bring up has been brought up before in at least one forum discussion thread, but I’m going to build upon it due to some other issues to which it may apply. The Scratch Terms of Use, it appears, have not been updated since April of 2016 (I mean, maybe they were but someone forgot to change the date, but I’m just going to assume for now that they really have not been updated for a bit more than 5 years.) As has been mentioned before, these terms are not reflecting the current era of Scratch as is proven by various references throughout the document. Take, for example, the following quote:

Terms of Use wrote:

4.4 You may only submit user-generated projects that were created with (1) the Scratch website editor or (2) an unmodified copy of the Scratch editor compiled from the source code described in Section 5.3. You may not upload any projects that were created, by you or by anyone else, with a modified version of the Scratch editor.

Now this might not sound like an issue at first, but if you read section 5.3, it says:

Terms of Use wrote:

5.3 The source code for Scratch 1.4 is available for download and subject to the copyright notice as indicated on the Scratch FAQ page.

So, the implication for at least some seems to be that the only offline editors allowed for uploading are those that are unmodified copies of the Scratch 1.4 editor. Obviously, it seems like that is not the case, as in the thread I link to, it is stated by one user that the Scratch Team has the final say in regards to what is allowed and what isn’t on Scratch, regardless of what the Terms of Use may imply. This is somewhat further reinforced by @Za-Chary (even though he was talking about something a bit different, but it’s still related to the Terms of Use and the Scratch Team’s interpretation of it), who cites this section:

Terms of Use wrote:

7.1 Scratch has the right to suspend your account for violations of the Terms of Use or Community Guidelines. Repeat violators may have their account deleted. The Scratch Team reserves the sole right to determine what constitutes a violation of the Terms of Use or Community Guidelines. The Scratch Team also reserves the right to terminate any account used to circumvent prior enforcement of the Terms of Use.

Like it has been mentioned before, this would seemingly allow Scratch Team to interpret their rules the way they please. However, with all this being noted, I will bring up the question asked in the title, which concerns what has been shown above:

The Question: What makes an editor “modified” (and, as a result, not able to have its projects uploaded onto Scratch)?

As I’ve mentioned before, there appears to be an objection to uploading projects from a modified version of the Scratch Editor. I know there are certain examples of such editors, including Snap!, which was formerly called Build Your Own Blocks (BYOB). There are certain aspects about an editor such as Snap! which makes its projects not eligible for upload to the Scratch website. However, it would appear that, in some cases, it’s hard to say how this would apply for various unofficial editors forked from the official Scratch Editor, as some are not so different from the original editor. Two examples I am going to talk about here are Scratux and TurboWarp, although I may reference some other editors as well.

TurboWarp (as well as some similar things called Sulforous , Phosphorus, and Forkphorus) appears to be all the rage nowadays. Not surprising considering all the additional features it has, such as a loading bar, FPS control, onion skinning, dark mode, and more. Also, it’s Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). When we consider all the additions to the editor, it would no doubt seem to qualify as a “modified version” of the editor. However, it still exports to .sb3 format, and those files are still able to be uploaded and shared to the website no problem (provided no TurboWarp exclusive blocks are used). In fact, it looks like many people do just that and don’t really receive trouble for it. What exactly, in regards to the Scratch Team’s interpretation of the Terms of Use, is to be made of this phenomenon?

Now, let’s consider the other editor I mentioned, called Scratux. Scratux’s purpose, essentially, is to provide GNU/Linux binaries of the Scratch 3.0 editor (since, as of now, there are no official ones except for maybe a Raspberry Pi version I’ve read about). The editor is essentially the same as the Scratch editor. There’s no special things added in, and Scratch Cat & Co. (the Sprites), along with the Sound and Costume Libraries, are all there. There are, however, some minor differences. First is that, obviously, it has a different name, but it also has a different logo. Another difference is that it is based on an outdated version of Scratch 3.0 (it was formerly based on the online version of the editor, but at some point during development switched to being a fork of the offline Scratch editor) which lacks some of the current features, and although it has had some updates, it appears to have stopped updating some time ago. On top of that, Scratux.org, the developer website, has disappeared. The Wayback Machine confirms that the website did exist, but now if you visit it, it’s gone. However, I think I will revisit that point in another post I plan on making. The point I wanted to make with Scratux is that even though it is based on an outdated version of Scratch 3.0 (one which apparently had some “cross-site scripting” risk in the past, which is referenced here, but I'm not entirely sure of how that affects said version as a whole since it appears to primarily concern the SVG editor), it still retains the basic essense of Scratch 3.0 and doesn’t appear to change the program significantly. The Sprite, Sound, and Costume gangs are all here, there’s no special additions that affect the programming abilities in any way, and, just like TurboWarp, it can be saved as a .sb3 file, uploaded to the Scratch website, and shared for the community to see without any noticeable issues (there may be some weird server stuff going on or something, but I can’t tell because I can’t really see any of that stuff). Perhaps there could be some difference in Scratux’s code due to the process of making it a GNU/Linux binary, but I don’t know if that’s how that works. Either way, whatever differences there might or might not be, it does not appear to greatly (if at all) affect anything in regards to the Scratch website. What is to be made of this?

I really hope someone can help out with this, particularly if that someone happens to be a member of the High Council (a.k.a. the Scratch Team).

TOS 4.4 does not apply to feature mods (such as TurboWarp). Projects made in feature mods can be uploaded to the Scratch site as long as they don't contain blocks are anything that is not in the vanilla editor.

TheGlassPenguin wrote:

TOS 4.4 does not apply to feature mods (such as TurboWarp). Projects made in feature mods can be uploaded to the Scratch site as long as they don't contain blocks are anything that is not in the vanilla editor.

That would explain it, but where can this be verified?

TheGlassPenguin wrote:

TOS 4.4 does not apply to feature mods (such as TurboWarp). Projects made in feature mods can be uploaded to the Scratch site as long as they don't contain blocks are anything that is not in the vanilla editor.

I don't think so, TurboWarp technically violates Terms of Use, however, it's highly unlikely that ST is going to take any actions against it because

1. There are no way of knowing if the project is created with TurboWarp, it's not like every TurboWarp games has the text “TurboWarp” stamped onto it with large font
   
2. Even if they know, they will likely ignore it as TurboWarp is mostly harmless
   

sharkode wrote:

TurboWarp technically violates Terms of Use, however, it's highly unlikely that ST is going to take any actions against it because

1. There are no way of knowing if the project is created with TurboWarp, it's not like every TurboWarp games has the text “TurboWarp” stamped onto it with large font
   
2. Even if they know, they will likely ignore it as TurboWarp is mostly harmless
   

That would fit in with the assertion that Scratch Team has the final say in interpretation of the rules.

*bumps*

*bumps again because that last one didn't work for some reason.*

You seem to have a very detailed concern that many of us really can't answer for the ST.

I'd try Contact Us (link at bottom of the page)

Can you make the words simple, like what's your point

Xonder wrote:

I'd try Contact Us (link at bottom of the page)

The contact us is used for people who has problems with users, appeal bans, and problems with scratch, it's not usually used for asking questions

TylerMorgan123 wrote:

Can you make the words simple, like what's your point

He want to know if when does make project other site bad. What make editor modified? Read TOS 4.4

Simple enough?

rayli1123 wrote:

TylerMorgan123 wrote:

Can you make the words simple, like what's your point

He want to know if when does make project other site bad. What make editor modified? Read TOS 4.4

Simple enough?

That sounded even more confusing…

sharkode wrote:

rayli1123 wrote:

TylerMorgan123 wrote:

Can you make the words simple, like what's your point

He want to know if when does make project other site bad. What make editor modified? Read TOS 4.4

Simple enough?

That sounded even more confusing…

Well what did you mean by when does make project other site bad?

TylerMorgan123 wrote:

Can you make the words simple, like what's your point

My point, Mr. Morgan, is this:

What unofficial versions of the Scratch editor would actually qualify as a “modified” version and, as a result, unable to have projects created in it uploaded onto the Scratch website? Section 4.4 of the Scratch Terms of Use states this at the end:

Terms of Use 4.4 wrote:

You may not upload any projects that were created, by you or by anyone else, with a modified version of the Scratch editor.

And yet, it would appear to be debatable as to what qualifies as a “modified” version of the Scratch editor since some unofficial remixes or forks or whatever of the Scratch editor are pretty much the same as the Scratch editor, such as Scratux, which is not really “modified” but just renamed and ported to GNU/Linux distributions since there are no official Scratch editor ports over there (Scratux is also based on a somewhat outdated version of the Scratch editor, but if you want to know more about that, read the section on Scratux in the original post); also, some editors with noticeable additions to the coding experience, such as TurboWarp, have their projects uploaded to Scratch quite frequently, yet it is not entirely clear whether or not there is a problem with that. There are also these factors, listed below, which contribute to my point:

1. both Scratux and TurboWarp export to .sb3
   
2. there are no noticeable problems when Scratux and TurboWarp projects are shared to the website
   
3. there is typically no way of telling when a project is not from the official Scratch editor unless someone explicitly states it's made in TurboWarp, Scratux, or something else like that (e.g., the project creator says something like “Made in TurboWarp” or something like that)
   

tl;dr: The basic point is that it's not entirely clear what is and isn't a “modified version of the Scratch editor.” If you want to know more, then, well, read what I said here and what I said in the original post so you have all the details.

*bumps with extreme force*

*bumps even harder because the last bump didn't work*

YesterdaysTomSawyer wrote:

*bumps even harder because the last bump didn't work*

You can only bump after 24 hours since the last post, or the topic is on the second page.

1492864 wrote:

YesterdaysTomSawyer wrote:

*bumps even harder because the last bump didn't work*

You can only bump after 24 hours since the last post, or the topic is on the second page.

I had to bump it again because the last one didn't work for some reason. (As in, when I bumped it before, it didn't go to the front page for some reason.)

R2, we need to be going up, not down!

Scotty, beam me up. (Edit: Wow, already on the second page?)