Relationship of Unity ID and PlasticSCM-specific ID

[Scott Courtney]

Hello, all. I am evaluating PlasticSCM for our team as a replacement for Unity Collaborate. We need the improved Git integration (on-premises Git server used by other teams unrelated to Unity; not GitHub or GitLab specifically), and we need branching.

Early in this process, I created a PlasticSCM account for the free cloud version using the same email address as the one associated with my Unity ID. I did not, however, use the "sign in with Unity ID" feature (if I am recalling correctly).

Because I was using Unity on my own before my company switched to it from another tool set, my Unity ID is attached to my personal email address and not (yet) my company email address. That is likely going to change soon, and the update to the Unity account is a known process.

On the Unity side, we have three active team members (the other two are not yet involved with PlasticSCM, so other than noting their existence, they're not part of the questions herein). We also have our Unity "organization" account, which is an email address for our accounting department. I have access to this Unity account, because I am the team lead, but this account does not have any actual Unity "seats" assigned.

To further complicate things, when I was simply evaluating PlasticSCM I set up my account for non-encrypted repositories, but if we move forward I think we'll need to use encrypted repos. (I wish it were possible to select this on a project-by-project basis, though).

Finally, I still have personal projects for things like games that are not company related. The company uses Unity for engineering/simulation work, rather than games as such, but I still make game projects as a hobby. The company knows of, and approves, this off-hours work, but I don't want to clutter the company PlasticSCM repos with non-company work.

To summarize, the existing set of accounts is as follows. To avoid posting real email addresses, I will just use placeholder names.

In Unity account database:

accounting@company -- Unity ID with no seats, set up as the organizational owner on Unity side

myself@personal -- My own Unity ID with Unity Pro seat and Unity Teams Advanced seat through the company; set up in Unity as an organizational manager. Probably going to change the email on this account to myself@company but keep the actual Unity ID because of the asset store licenses attached to it

artist@company -- Unity ID of a colleague, with Unity Pro seat and Unity Teams Advanced seat through the company

designer@company -- Unity ID of second colleague, with Unity Pro seat and Unity Teams Advanced seat through the company

In PlasticSCM account database:

myself@personal -- Free cloud account, pretty sure I created this independently of the Unity ID that shares this email address (but not absolutely certain, and not sure how to find out)

I would love to come to this forum and ask for advice on the best way to set up what we need, but I'm not certain in the PlasticSCM context what we should be doing.

The desired roles within PlasticSCM would be something like this, I think:

accounting@company -- Same role with PlasticSCM as with Unity, which is to say "owns the organizational presence but does not perform project work"

artist@company, designer@company -- Both set up as contributors on the PlasticSCM team, with authentication via the Unity IDs, no management role required

myself@company -- Authenticated with my Unity ID and has project administrative capabilities within PlasticSCM (i.e., can create or remove projects, grant/revoke access, etc.) but does not "own" the organizational presence

myself@personal -- Authenticated with my Unity ID, but treated on the PlasticSCM side as a separate account for my spare-time game development; repository cloud storage paid for by me and not by company

The evaluation account I set up in PlasticSCM a couple of months ago has a little content in its repository, but it's just a copy of a real project, for testing. I have absolutely no objection to asking for the server admin folks to nuke the entire account so I can start over -- once I know how I should be setting this up.

If it would be easier, it would also be fine for me to have just one Plastic SCM account -- linked to my Unity ID -- but be able to pay for my own, independent cloud storage.

In addition to the "how do I set this up" question, I'd like to know what happens on the PlasticSCM servers if the email address for a Unity account changes, if the PlasticSCM side was set up using the "login with Unity ID" method.

Finally, I have a related but nontechnical question with respect to the PlasticSCM EULA. The main reason I had to set all of this up on my personal account and not the company's account, is that when I signed up the Terms and Conditions explicitly stated that Codice would have the right to identify the company as a customer and display our logo in promotional context -- and that I was representing myself as having the right to agree to that usage on behalf of the company. I did not, and do not, have such authority (I'm a technical lead, not a company officer), and when I showed the EULA to our CEO, she nixed the idea exactly as I expected she would. Unity Technologies just a week or so ago announced that PlasticSCM is now covered under the Unity privacy policies, which are more protective of us as a customer and to which our CEO already agreed. I can no longer find online the EULA to which I could agree as a private individual but not on behalf of the company. Is that EULA now a thing of the past, allowing our company to confidently move forward?

I apologize for the length of this post and the detailed background information. I am very impressed with what I've seen of PlasticSCM so far, and I think it will be a fantastic solution for us if we can resolve these one-off administrative/logistical questions. Thanks for reading, and for any information someone can provide.

[ollieblanks]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for your detailed questions. I hope I can do it justice with a detailed response!

RE: Accounts and setting up...

From the sounds of it, keeping the account you have already set up as your myself@personal account would be most efficient. This way you can keep it separate from your work account.

I would suggest setting up another Plastic SCM account with your accounting@company, this way you could set up a Cloud Organization for your company and this account can be responsible for handling the billing and adding/removing other accounts. As long as this account never actively uses a Plastic client, you will never be billed for it. For more information on our pricing, please see here.

If you do the above you would then have the following:

• yourself@personal account that is linked to your personal@cloud organization
• accounting@company account that is linked to a newly created company@cloud organization (which you could configure to use encryption)

You would then be able to add artist@company, designer@company and yourself@company accounts to the company@cloud organization.

RE: Unity ID account email change...

Unfortunately, changing email address associated with your Unity ID currently stops any Plastic SCM linked account from authenticating in the Plastic client and website. This is an issue we are currently investigating. If you contact our support team, we can manually make this change for you.

RE: Plastic SCM EULA...

As you quite rightly stated, Codice was acquired by Unity very recently. Please see here the current EULA for Plastic SCM and let me know if there is anything that concerns you.

Hope that helps!

[Scott Courtney]

Hello, and thanks for an excellent reply.

I read the updated EULA, and found this section still in place:

16. Use of Customer Name Customer agrees that the LICENSER and his authorized Partners may use Customer's name and logo in advertisements, other promotional material and the LICENSER'S website.

Our CEO is not comfortable with this provision of the EULA, and most of the work-a-day developers who download the cloud app don't have the legal authority to grant this permission on behalf of their organizations. (For my existing personal account, it was not such an issue.)

Suppose, hypothetically, that I agree to this license on behalf of my company -- and I don't have the authority to do so. If Codice actually exercises this provision, it's potentially a problem for all of us:

• Codice might have trouble enforcing this clause because you didn't obtain agreement to it from an authorized representative of the customer company.
• I would be in trouble with my company for agreeing to a contract that (1) I didn't have the right to agree to, and (2) even if I did, isn't something executive management supports.
• My company could be in an awkward situation due to nondisclosure agreements we have with some of our clients.
• Now that Unity has acquired Codice, they would be involved in a multi-way legal tug-of-war.
• There's nothing in the clause distinguishing evaluation periods versus long-term relationships. What happens if Codice chooses to use this clause on a new customer, but then the customer decides PlasticSCM isn't the tool they want and moves to something else after evaluating PlasticSCM?

As a practical matter, my organization is small enough that Codice probably wouldn't bother with our name and logo, but as you are no doubt aware, legal matters can hinge on minor technicalities, so I have to be somewhat concerned about this.

Do you have any suggestions on how to resolve this concern? Is there an ongoing review of the EULA following the Unity acquisition, so it's just a matter of me waiting a while for things to sort themselves out?

Edited January 25, 2021 by Scott Courtney
Corrected a typo

[Scott Courtney]

Aside from the concerns about the EULA, with respect to the other issues:

• The plan you suggest for the organizational account will work perfectly. Thanks for the info, and we can call that one solved.
• The suggestion for my personal account seems logical, also. Will that work even if I have only one Unity ID? I assume it would, and I would simply need to login manually to PlasticSCM depending on which Unity project I'm building? Does the PlasticSCM client remember my credentials globally, or within the project?
• If PlasticSCM remembers the credentials by project, then it sounds as if we might be better off keeping the PlasticSCM cloud account standalone rather than using the SSO feature. Do you have an opinion on this?

Again, thanks for an excellent reply. Despite my follow-up questions, you've moved the discussion forward very helpfully.

[Francisco]

Hey Scott,

Related to your EULA concerns: thank you for the feedback, these is very valid concern. I will discuss this with our legal team at Unity, and get back to you.

Nonetheless, It will be most helpful if you could send your inquiry by email to sales@codicesoftware.com (just copy/paste what you just wrote). Therefore, other people can be involved on the thread, and reply accordingly.  Does it make sense?

To clarify: there is not a new EULA after Unity acquired Codice. It was amended prior to the acquisition, and all our customers at that time were informed. Going forward we'll expect this EULA to be changed and replaced by a Unity one.

Best,

Francisco Monteverde

DIrector Sales Plastic SCM

[ollieblanks]

Hey Scott,

Regarding the EULA, I can assure you that Codice or Unity would never use anything for publicity purposes without given consent. I understand this is nice to know but does not directly address your legality concerns. Please refer to my colleague Francisco's comment above regarding this matter.

Regarding your other queries. Please see direct responses to your questions below...

Quote

Will that work even if I have only one Unity ID?

Yes, you can create another Plastic SCM account with another email address without linking it to a Unity ID.

Quote

I assume it would, and I would simply need to login manually to PlasticSCM depending on which Unity project I'm building? Does the PlasticSCM client remember my credentials globally, or within the project?

The Plastic SCM client does remember your credentials, but multiple connection profiles can be set up for different Cloud Organizations/Projects. Additionally, the client can be completely reconfigured to use another set of credentials at any time by running plastic --configure command from command line. This is what I do with my work and personal accounts!

Quote

If PlasticSCM remembers the credentials by project, then it sounds as if we might be better off keeping the PlasticSCM cloud account standalone rather than using the SSO feature. Do you have an opinion on this?

Whether or not you link your Plastic SCM and Unity accounts is completely up to you. There are no real advantages or disadvantages either way. As time goes on there is likely to be further Unity ID integration efforts made, but we would never leave our non-Unity users out in the cold!

Hope that helps.

[Scott Courtney]

On 1/26/2021 at 7:05 AM, Francisco said:

Hey Scott,

Related to your EULA concerns: thank you for the feedback, these is very valid concern. I will discuss this with our legal team at Unity, and get back to you.

Nonetheless, It will be most helpful if you could send your inquiry by email to sales@codicesoftware.com (just copy/paste what you just wrote). Therefore, other people can be involved on the thread, and reply accordingly.  Does it make sense?

To clarify: there is not a new EULA after Unity acquired Codice. It was amended prior to the acquisition, and all our customers at that time were informed. Going forward we'll expect this EULA to be changed and replaced by a Unity one.

Best,

Francisco Monteverde

DIrector Sales Plastic SCM

Thank you, Francisco, for the informative and helpful reply. I believe I may have been conflating the Privacy Policy with the privacy clauses in the EULA. I was notified by Unity's licensing/legal folks of a new privacy policy for PlasticSCM that was cited as being a result of the acquisition. When I read that document, there was nothing about use of the customer's name or logo for promotional purposes, so I rejoiced that my concerns had been rendered moot (as I hoped they would be, and which is why I hadn't raised this issue before; I simply assumed that if I was patient my concerns would be resolved by the changes already in progress). I apologize if I have muddied the waters through misunderstanding.

I want to be clear on the nature of my concern, and that of our CEO. There is no question in my mind, whatsoever, of the good faith intent of the Codice team, which has a stellar reputation in the user community. When Ollie states that you would not use our identity for marketing without our consent, I absolutely accept the sincerity of that. The problem is, as Ollie has stated, that in business what will prevail is the written legal document, not the good intentions of the parties involved. My concerns, and those of our CEO, are simply due-diligence on our part.

Per your request, I will send an email with the concerns and a link to this thread, to the sales address.

Thank you again for taking this concern seriously and not dismissing it as excessive paranoia. My sincere hope is that we can resolve this quickly and painlessly, because our team desperately needs the capabilities that PlasticSCM can offer.

[Scott Courtney]

On 1/26/2021 at 8:45 AM, ollieblanks said:

Hey Scott,

Regarding the EULA, I can assure you that Codice or Unity would never use anything for publicity purposes without given consent. I understand this is nice to know but does not directly address your legality concerns. Please refer to my colleague Francisco's comment above regarding this matter.

Regarding your other queries. Please see direct responses to your questions below...

(quote trimmed)

This does help, and I thank you. I think I have the information I need to move forward, and I'll take the legal discussion to the other venue as requested by Francisco.

You've answered all the technical/account questions I had, and I appreciate the thorough coverage of the issues. The command line account-switching technique you use will probably work for me as well, and I will go re-read the applicable documentation now that you've given me a better contextual framework to interpret what I'm reading.  I am not at all averse to RTFMing, but sometimes "the documentation makes more sense once you understand the software", as they say.

Have an excellent day!

[dylz]

Hello, I lost my permission to all of my remote repos - after I changed my binding email address in my Unity ID.

I am looking for any solution now that I can fix this by myself? Or I still need to contact support to fix for me manually?

Thank you very much.

[blue]

Hi @dylz,

Please open a ticket with us: https://www.plasticscm.com/support