I don't think many in the Sellers Guild will want to hear this.
The Guild seems to have 2 main interests:
1) Identifying and naming copyright infringers.
2) Notifying Linden Lab of exploits and having them fixed.
I don't support the first interest because of 2 reasons:
a) We run the risk of publically accusing people who turn out to be innocent
b) Most of my work is scripts which are impossible to steal when SL is bug free so naming names isnt the best solution for me.
If the Guild was only this then I, personally, would have no need for the Guild. I started the Guild only to be a common voice to Linden Lab.
This brings us to the second interest of the group; expressing our concerns to Linden Lab.
Before I can have an informed correspondence with Linden Lab I felt it would be neccessary to understand the plans Linden Lab has for Second Life and the Linden Lab philosophy.
I did a lot of research starting with the libsecondlfe Reverse Engineering team. http://www.libsecondlife.org https://gna.org/projects/libsecondlife/ http://history.secondserver.net/index.php/Libsecondlife
This all started to convince me of certain conclusions that I knew most Guild members would not like. However I wished I had looked in the most obvious place to begin with; Wikipedia
Second Life as the Metaverse
Second Life is one of several virtual worlds that have been inspired by the science fiction novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. The stated goal of Linden Lab is to create a world like the metaverse described in the novel Snow Crash, a user-defined world of general use in which people can interact, play, do business, and otherwise communicate."
Open standards
Linden Lab is currently replacing several proprietary portions of Second Life with open standards; open-source technologies such as Apache and Squid are already being used. Throughout 2006, the built-in instant messaging system will be replaced with Jabber http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/entry/second_life_to_go_open_source_eventually/, and the current proprietary built-in virtual machine will be replaced with Mono http://secondlife.blogs.com/babbage/2005/08/second_life_in_.html. Linden Lab is also working on an Open GL port of the Mozilla® Gecko rendering engine, called uBrowser, that will be included in the SL client to enable using webpages as textures on the in-world 3D objects. As of version 1.10.1 of the Second Life client, uBrowser is being used to render the HTML Help feature. The plan is to eventually move everything to open standards and standardize the Second Life protocol. Cory Ondrejka, Vice President of Product Development, has stated that a while after everything has been standardized, both the client and the server will be released as open source http://www.lugradio.org/episodes/42."
The last link here points to an amazing interview:
[Time stamp: 30:34]
Host: Is the code that runs the world itself going to be open sourced?
Corey Linden: Umm, eventually yes but that's a ways out
[...]
Host: What about the client?
Corey: Oh, absolutely, but again, now, it will eventually be open source. Probably be open standards long before it is open source [...] long run, ofcourse, you have to be open source, there is no question [...] the next step is open standards, open standards, open standards. We have an IM systems, stupidly it is not Jabber, will it be an open standard pretty soon? Yes.
Host: You're happy with people implimenting their own clients instead of yours?
Yeh, absolutely, because, here's the thing; we will always have a client that does a certain set of things. Then other people will say "I want to get into SecondLife off my cell phone" [...] and why presume that we will ever be a large enough company to do all, to satisfy all of those needs, thats just silly. So, by going to open standards we get around it. And more importantly than going on open standards we are asking people, or we are giving people the oppotunity to build very successful businesses within SL and ask them to do that, you know, there is this tremendous trust we are demanding in return because we are saying u have to trust Linden Labs to not to completely screw the pooch on this [...] the more we use open standards the people can be predictive about where things are going. [...] Right now we host all the servers, we run all of them [...] One of the reason to go open standards is in the long run I want you to be able to host a server [...] Our goal is to have as little control as possible. So right now we need a fair amount of control because we need to stay in business and not do things that are illegal. But in the long run we want SecondLife to be out there and let the residents be determining the rules because after all it is their place.
[Time Stamp 39:00]
What does this mean?
1) Linden Lab does not own your content nor does it want to.
2) Linden Lab will not arbitrate disputes regarding your content leaving you only with real life law.
3) Linden Lab will eventually make the server, client and all protocols available to anyone.
4) Anybody can create an anonymous account to use the SecondLife Linden Lab grid or potentially another company's SecondLife grid.
5) Linden Lab developers actively help non-Linden Lab software developers. (See Phoenix Linden in this mailing list https://mail.gna.org/public/libsecondlife-dev/)
Speculation:
6) Distributed Sims across the net run by different hosting companies or individuals
7) Buy land from any secondary provider, who in turn pays Linden Lab for asset server connection?
What does this mean?
It means that SecondLife is attempting to be a 3D internet and Linden Lab is a service provider only. They will provide servers (simulators and asset servers).
It means to me that one day in the far future there will be multiple SecondLife clients and utilities just like the web has today. Internet ISPs do not internally settle content disputes, they obey real life law. Anybody can browse the internet for free (if you have access). And anybody can make content and software on the net for free.
What is the outcome of all of this?
If you go to a website of a company you can download, keep and technically (not legally) use graphics, designs and software, that reach your computer, however you want, just like SecondLife. Neither ISPs nor Linden Labs will police this that is the content owners problem and the law is the arbitrator.
So now the question becomes; what content is reaching peoples computers that people can technically use (not always legally).
This brings me to the cache extraction program and the list of file types:
Images (.j2c files) = Always going to be copyable
Sounds (.ogg files) = Always going to be copyable
Notecards (.text) = Always going to be copyable
Objects = Always going to be copyable
Gestures (.gesture ) = Unknown by me at this time*
Body parts (.bodypart) = Not even sure what this is*
Animations (.bvh files) = Unknown by me at this time*
Scripts (.lsl & .lso files) = Safe. The only scripts to reach the client PC are yours you make
* I will investigate these on my days off
As you can see petitioning Lindens Lab is trivial compared to the vast plans Linden Lab has. The ideas of open source and open protocols far outweigh the problems of IP theft to Linden Lab. Which creates an irony for me. Maybe the only solution for non-script content makers is naming names and the DMCA. However naming names is against TOS leaving you only the DMCA.
Script theft would still be a technical problem that can be patched.
And the reason for all the bugs we see is the change from closed to open software and protocols in the SL codebase.
I think that whilst all this is a nightmare for many retailers, SL will become a geeks paradise.
