Demand a credit for your losses.

My years of experience in the software industry defines a work around as a series of minimal and acceptable efforts to bring an application within parity of its defined and understood operation. This is not the current case with the latest Mac version of the Second Life client application. I do not define a complicated and cumbersome set of efforts that make the application work far less than expected a work around.

I am willing to help and lend assistance in any way I can but I am unwilling to absorb further financial losses because Linden Labs cannot maintain a stable and predictable software platform as promised. I have in 7 months had to deal with substantial downtimes and less than promised service delivery. Sometimes this has been caused by or contributed to, by Linden Labs' policies but on many of those occasions, out side attacks have been a major factor, so I took the losses.

I feel now that the only way that change will occur at Linden Labs will be when their development focus is clarified by a financial clock ticking behind them as they work. Linden Labs needs to do the honorable thing by their paying customers and make this problem financially right. Linden Labs provides a service per day and their customers are charged for its use, when that service is not available they should not charge for its use.

However small you may think your losses are per day, I highly encourage you to file a request for them. These actions in total will make it better for you and everyone at large in the Second Life community.

Link to Billing area...

http://secondlife.com/contact.php?q=billing

Begin my message to Billing...

How would like to know how and who I would address a credit per diem request.

I have a premium account, pre-paid for a year at $ 72, that is $6 a month. I am currently at $75 tier per month. That is a total of $81 per month, which calculated at 30 days is $2.70 per day.

I have not had access to Second Life since Tuesday, the 24th of October due to a development failure in the Second Life client application release on the Wednesday the 25th. Inadequate testing and quality assurance testing led to this problem.

This nominal per diem credit that I expect for every day that there is not a fully working client does not begin to cover my real losses. I recently sold my land and was preparing to buy a sim. I have already lost that chance as the sim I wanted has come and gone.

Please contact me with relevant information ASAP.

I agree with Loydin Tripp, a rebate to mac users is in order for the loss of service!!

I agree. The voicemail response at support, the vaccum at email support, the lack of at least an acknowledgment (and or encouragement) officially is not what you'd expect from a company that brags so much. It appears, like most corporations, *they* are covering their losses. Given that it is not even a true Cocoa build, but a application ported from Windows, compiled on Windows, and sold to 90% Windows users they might just yank the cord. We'll see. Whatever, it's a bad scene.

Technically it is not expressed that your membership includes 24/7 privelege. Hence they tried to cover their behinds and I don't blame them. A million users and its not an issue of simplicity to keep the grids running non-stop without issue.

They are clearly trying their best to invest in changing the software to better suit. I assumed when I began that the costs I occured where inherent and to be assumed that there would be minimal downtime, albeit some. Am I losing 2 dollars a day American? No. I can't say that I would be upset either, we agreed to possible downtime. Perhaps its too difficult to read the entire terms of agreement all the way down, but it still lays as fact.

Say for instance you do not purchase postal insurance and a package is damaged in the interim between the shipping office and your home. That is a risk you find apparent without an terms of service even being read. Think about it and be fair at least.

Peej, I think you missed my point...



Other than assumption, what proof do you have for this comment? This failure seemed completely avoidable through proper testing and QA. Don't forget it is a new feature added that caused this break for Mac users and that it contains more than one bug. This is not downtime brought about by accident or outside attack this was brought about by their own choice of an introduction new technology, in other words, self induced.



This supposed 'get out of jail free card' that you are pointing out is a misnomer, I did not agree to be defrauded, or to not have delivered a contracted service. I do understand the nature of 'acts of god' or other unforeseen or acts outside the control of Linden Labs that bring about a disruption of service. That is not this case. The hack of passwords in the past or the endless comment on their open registration policy leading to griefer outbreaks may have substance but are indirect acts perpetrated by others. This is their direct and solely created situation.

Remember it is a tenet of American law that you cannot, as an individual, sign yourself into an illegal or fraudulent act, in other words you cannot make yourself a slave or give someone the right to execute a criminal act against you. No matter how well crafted the TOS may be it is a two way document, wanton or negligent behavior is not excused.

As I said, $ 2.70 per day is not wiping me out financially but even beyond principal what also needs to be understood by Linden Labs and the paying users of Second Life is the exposure that LL is brought into for class action lawsuit. When their are enough complainants and the action is the same, which is almost always the case with SL.

In software development mistakes do happen, thats understood, the judgement of a company's actions is in their response. What are they doing to rectify it, what have they done to inform their clients to limit their damages and what did they do avoid it in the first place.

Ask yourself fairly, how well have they done? In this case or through their well documented history which is shaping into a fairly consistent pattern of behavior. I do not know what title some of these Lindens have but I see people like Kelly or Joshua fess up and give straight talk but I do not see that from the higher ups. I see an ardent defensive nature that takes on an aggressive stance towards those who point out their failings even when they are trying to be constructive. I do not see apology or a desire to make things right. It seems that no matter how badly Linden Labs makes a mistake they are loath to admit it or take some measure of responsibility for it. And the worst part of this episode is I do not see them busting their humps to fix it.

The thumb is still down until there is areason to lift it.

It doesn't make sense to be paying for a service when the provider isn't making the service available.

I am not so sure I still agree at this point. Trust me, I hardly missed your point, and as an SL subscriber with hardly a handful of technical issues regarding the running of the program and grid downtimes, etc, it is probably a subjective point of view I have. Most people, suffice it to say, albeit the few that are technologically superior probably havent the foggiest what bug fixes are being submitted.

Though when an upgrade is apparent and made available, they state that "Mac fixes" etc are being submitted. We at the risk of having an uber"geek" actually decode what is actually happening on the updated versions, why would Linden Labs lie about this, and risk a lawsuit at the hands of perjury. I would say that would hold more bones in court.

I guess the only thing I don't truly understand is how often are you really down? We ALL have downtime on here VIA grid resets etc. If you were expecting a utopian world, read the Dean Koontz book, "By Light of the Moon". Where tiny microscopic "mini-machines" are placed in syringes to try and master brain production and a utopian society. Keep in mind this is a sci-fiction book to date.

Yeah, just like the people who were on the TG before it became 24/7, (December 20-something)

the ToS states that the service will not be available at all times.

from the Terms of Service agreement... which you must agree to to use the software...


1.6 Second Life is subject to scheduled and unscheduled service interruptions. All aspects of the Service are subject to change or elimination at Linden Lab's sole discretion.

Linden Lab reserves the right to interrupt the Service with or without prior notice for any reason or no reason. You agree that Linden Lab will not be liable for any interruption of the Service, delay or failure to perform, and you understand that except as otherwise specifically provided in Linden Lab's billing policies posted at http://secondlife.com/corporate/billing.php, you shall not be entitled to any refunds of fees for interruption of service or failure to perform. Linden Lab has the right at any time for any reason or no reason to change and/or eliminate any aspect(s) of the Service as it sees fit in its sole discretion.

This Part of the ToS means more maintaince runs, or update runs on the Servers etc for all, but not the Mac Client bugs that blocks a User to Times where other can access the Service.

Sheduled = Maintaince, Updates
UnSheduled = Network Issues, or even Gray Goo Attacks etc.

Bug on the Client (like the Mac Client Login Issue) are not counting under this Rules of the ToS.