What Exactly IS OpenLife?

I understand all that when it comes to communication protocols and that sort of thing. When it comes to portable content, especially avatars, that brings in a whole bunch of other factors, like being tied to a specific mesh with specific UV mapping. How can a piece of avatar clothing, for instance, be portable unless the avatar in the connected world shares the same UV mapping?

How can interconnected worlds both innovate on what's possible with avatars (mesh complexity, morphability, animation rigging, UV mapping, etc etc), and still retain the ability to host content crossing the border from another world? How can that be achieved without having all connected worlds be limited to a tight range of parameters that have a huge impact on what's possible for content designers? I imagine these are all things that LL and IBM are considering, and maybe they have solutions for them. I just can't imagine what they would be. I've glanced at LL's notes on this stuff in the wiki and it's all only about communication protocols at this point.

My first account was made in 2003 here.
It was difficult, miserable place especially for me being not computer savvy and just creative but with few technical skills.
I came around twelve times I got overwhelmed and put my first guy to sleep for numerous years which he fell briefly in the land of where alts go when they poof from search,etc.
It was only in 2006 I was able to come back and find friends who made all the difficult stuff in SL easier to deal with.
I am interested to see how Openlife is going to go but I have beta tested bit in 2003 for over year in TSO and some here and it just drives me batty because I don't have the technical know how.
Even the Openlife Wiki I read it, I got overwhelmed when I saw all the programing language and technical stuff and promptly got a headache...
I don't know if I am ready to install it yet.
Maybe later.
It is cool idea, I think though it seems like those who would be able to enjoy it more are those who have lot of computer technical know, understand how to do linux, servers, have servers.
Personally for now its not FD Spark-friendly because it seems like its more someone who skills in that area .
And it's isn't for some one like myself with below average intelligence especially with computers like myself who just likes to create, primarily prim doodler and texture artist with no other programing skills.
It is possible if you really wanted to but it seems to me right now just something
I could feel incredibly overwhelmed with it.
Creating and doing things in SL is even hard for me sometimes.
When its at the point all I have to is download it with no special instructions, tell
the program if I want online and where or not, login and create I will do it but
until then I think just stick with creating offline in my art programs and building here.

Done . & I didn't take it as a snide remark so no harm done either way .

(I'm not sure if you have private messages turned off deliberately, or didn't realize it's something you have to consciously turn on on the forums? )

Kitty, Thanks ... it's is something that I would fail to check so it's off, if I want to privately contact someone I look up their name inworld and im them, that cuts down on instant reactions on my part and speaking too quickly.

What is OpenLife?

Call it a competitor, call it a clone or whatever, This a is a natural progression.
"The Grid" is the up and coming new internet. As computers have gotten faster it's only natural that a 3D scenario would come along to the network at large.

The virtual world grid will be just too big for any single mob to handle.
There will be just too many places to TP to eventually. I can see private/exclusive sims popping everywhere up once the sim code reaches 1.0. Imagine your own exclusive simulator where you can have whatever has been banned in SL and then some.
Private, expensive Sex sims and gambling dens are gonna spring up everywhere (where it's legal, so not in the US) and make huge amounts of money.

Could even be within 12 months.

PayPal like companies and others will fill the gaps when the need is enough and any currency will do as long as the exchange rate works and they make the dollars. They will probably have a system where you buy your virtual currency, leave it with them and spend where ever you like.

Sometime before that happens someone at IBM will learn to use Google and find out who it is they are supporting.

When they have a general audience and want to appear professional and reasonable, they (the people currently working on these other grids) will tell you that protection of intellectual property is technically improssible so they aren't going to expend a great effort to deal with it. When they are chatting with their buddies they'll ridicule anyone who is concerned about IP.

LL is at heart little different, but they've at least established that content theft isn't officially encouraged. The others have done enough wink wink chuckle chuckle that it may never be possible for them to be taken seriously.

I tend to think a different way... it's Linden Labs permission system itself that causes much of the theiving behaviors. I don't see content theft as much of a problem in other worlds and mmos, 3d dev communities, mind you they are not 'user created' worlds in most cases, but that doesn't mean 'non-user' created content could not be easily ripped off.

Linden labs system was designed to protect the small content creators, and it does work to some degree, but I feel it has also opened the gates for people wanting to game the game and steal, hacking the system or whatever. Right from the moment you first log on to SL the existing permissions system establishes an ambience of dishonesty and mistrust, and makes collaborating on projects very difficult. Not to mention the additional time and effort required to manage the permissions by content creators, time that would be better spent creating, not clicking checkboxes.

The fact that Linden labs uses this kind of permissions system pushes the responsibility for policing it back on them... anyone ever tried filing for DMCA copyright law for percieved theft in SL? Good luck!!!

In fact I would go so far to say that in order for Linden Labs to be considered serious in the mew media and entertainment industry they should look at ways to increase transparency and limit thier involvment settle disputes internally. The problem is that there is no real consequence for content theft, and nothing to deter these keyboard jocks from trying.. and believe me they will always find a way. Publicly post a RL bust for content theft from a real court of real law.. then that might be a deterent.

Now look at the music industry -- they really dropped the ball by failing to run with a service based delivery system for music with the exception of some notable (itunes), this is not the case for virtual worlds where the content is tied so closely with the world that it is really useless outside of a 3d environment . Environments that are paid for by users will always mean profit for creators.. if there is money to be made there will be people making it, the average person will not take the time or risk to steal content when it is so cheap to buy in the first place.

And one more thing to sum up my thoughts hopefully on this topic.. What we are talking about here is textures... eventually it could be mesh models.. (which are already sold widepread btw through traditional ecommerce). It is not scripts, prims, or much of the clothes etc that you see in SL. These will simply never be portable as they depend heavily on the specific grid. ie a c# script from openSim will do you no good in SL!! Add to that that the current permission system is stupid when it comes to textures and I cant see why there is such a fear of letting the permissions system run a little looser.


-whyroc

I'm usually open to the idea that if there is another virtual world somewhere where i could continue my creation activity, sure i would go there.

My concern is related to the ability of living of my creations.

Of course i could make a simple little contract, like i create stuffs, if you like it, make a donation. If nobody donate i might continue to create or i might go find another job. But i don't know if one can really sustain his artistic ability only on donations (it makes me think about the homeless peoples i see sometimes downtown).

Of course we can't maintain eternally a virtual scarcity by selling pieces of data like if they where real things. Securities and permissions systems will always, sooner or later be bypassed.

So what to do?

Content theft has been an issue since the beginning of time, we just call it content now but there is no difference between product and content. (put down the dictionary) You would not pause this way to open a store because you finally figure out at some time something is going to be taken- it's not an argument that things shouldn't be brought to market. What I see is irrational fear because so many new people have come to the point where they are contemplating selling "things". When a content creator is working up an item or system to be sold they do think of how to minimize theft and yes there is a point you reach where you understand one day you will have to chase someone down who has stolen from you- it is part of the creative process, understanding that prior to putting things out there is a valuable part of that process. Let's go back to the very beginning of personal computers for a prime example. One of the early computer games was Microsoft's Flight Simulator, it had no protection at all- if you had a computer with two drives it was as easy as it gets to make a copy and hand it to someone, what was not easy to do was copy the manual and the super big keyboard overlay ... the market became people who wanted the complete system, manual and keyboard overlay. What the mass copying of the program did do though was put out hundreds of thousands of "full featured demos" and made it one of the most popular programs out there.

I do agree that Linden Labs needs to improve their set of permissions, yet no set of permissions will ever stop content theft 100%. It's an old saying but none the less true "locks keep honest people honest" The more pause you give people the larger your pool of honest people becomes.

The answer, I expect, is to revert to the classic virtual world/MMORPG model. If you want to live off your own creations, set up your own Open node where you've created the whole world, and charge a subscription fee.

I think the reason for not duplicating the SL economy is because the SL economy, over a long term, has wound up having a large number of negative effects that are among the pressures now putting it at risk, most notably the intrusion of money into almost every activity on SL because immersion for many people equals content, equals money; and because, when you can buy everything (and in an environment where people can cash out, anytime you _can't_ buy everything there's an open business opportunity that someone will exploit), there's no way to stand out other than RL, so immersion dies. (Do you remember the IBM ballet performance? They required prospective performers to be real life ballet dancers, because otherwise there would be no way of choosing between applicants in a world where anyone can be a ballerina for US$10.)

I mean, Kyrah, I know that you sell some BDSM things and you would have seen the changes that have happened there. Almost everyone knows about the bogus submissives who seek out dominants purely to have someone else organise and pay for 3D re-enactments of what they've seen on porn sites. I'm sure some of the dominants actually enjoy that, but many are also pressured to accept because they're spending US$30/month on their "dungeon" and if they are alone that money is wasted. So the result is a relationship that's based on lies from day one and will inevitably break down and cause heartache on both sides. Many submissives on SL aren't like that, but there are so many who are - and it's so much work to isolate them - that most of the more serious BDSM people appear to have now driven themselves out to closed communities where they validate members by the only means that can't be easily lied about - RL. Most require vox at the very minimum, and a fair number require both vox AND CAM.

FD- I was able to just download their viewer and have it run..and fail...and run again
This morning I was able to keep my skirt on and texture it too

And now I found a quick tut on how to begin de-ruthing so that will be fun to do tonight. As for your art- I don't know enough about OL yet to tell you go for it if it involves owning land. But definitely download and play a wee bit -to get the feel for it. But don't lose heart over the crashes - it feels like SL did when I first joined and that was only two years ago.

The economy has been the aspect of SL, far more than any other, that's caused its wide adoption and success. It's what's given it all its press coverage, and it's responsible for the explosion of content creation. Compare the quality and quantity of content in SL before it was possible to profit and after. The difference is night and day. Anyone looking to replicate SL's success who thinks they're going to do it without an economy simply isn't going to be able to compete. They'll never attract the same kind of development talent, in my opinion. Sure, people will still create because it's fun and cool stuff will get made, but artists won't be able to devote themselves to it in the same way unless it's a contributor to their real world income. They still have to eat and pay their mortgages and there are only so many hours in the day. Certainly there are negative consequences of SL's economy, but SL was a tiny backwater that nobody paid attention to until they tied the SL economy to the real one and gave residents ownership of their intellectual property. SL's rise was meteoric after that.

That's true. But compare the actual SL _experience_ before and after it was possible to profit and you'll see something different. Before, you could buy some land, practice and socialise and work, and you could eventually work your way up to building yourself a mansion of your very own that would be comparable to other mansions on the grid and that would make you stand out.

Nowadays, you just pay US$5 and have your mansion in 5 minutes, and it will be better quality than anything you (well, probably not _you_, Chip, but the average user) could ever make. It'll be the same as everyone else's, so you won't stand out. You could build a unique one, but it'll probably turn out to just be plain lower quality, and you'll only stand out as having an uglier house than everyone who towed the line. Or you could spend a couple of hundred dollars on commissioning a unique one, but then you'll know that the only reason you stand out is because you bought it. Others might know that, too. So, yes, the mansions are better, but is it a better experience?

There are all kinds of other dimensions to experience in any virtual world. I mean, there's a famous MUD called Gemstone 4, which actually offered a super-premium subscription where the benefit was that you got to log into an exclusive mirror of the MUD - which also lacked many of the contributions that the non-super-premium members had made. But it was worth it on balance - because of the social benefits of being part of a smaller community, which was still small enough for everyone to know each other. There's a lot - a lot - of food for thought in experience evaluation for virtual worlds.

Hi Anya,

Since I'm one of the people currently working on "these grids", I'm interested in this discussion.

Our focus will be different I guess because the direction we are going with our software dev project is very different from where SL is, but it would be good to get a handle on this anyway.

Firstly I think you underestimate people like us. Believe it or not our RL business is design, development and marketing of new software applications. Thus we experience and deal with all the same issues of IP, copyright and the innovation lifecycle in RL that you do in SL.

My feeling is that LL shouldn't have to get involved in protecting IP. They should provide an industry standard method of applying digital signatures to original work. Given a means of signing a creation then I would say it's the creator's job to deal with IP and copyright as far as the RL legal framework will allow.

From what I can see most of what is created in SL has it's origins in RL anyway. For the most part it's designed and developed in RL using 3rd party software and SL is simply another media via which the design is communicated.

Why would SL content creators want LL to be judge, jury and enforcer in cases of IP and copyright claims?

I've said this before on another thread. To be honest I don't see much original creativity or design in SL. I see lots of excellent digital craftmanship but very little original design.

It's a sad fact that although it may take many hours to take someone elses RL idea and move it into SL, that doesn't make you eligible to call it your IP.

So unless LL is intent on simply playing lip service to the idea of IP, they would have to track any design back into RL and find who is actually owed the IP rights. 95% of the time it isn't going to be the SL craftsperson who simply transferred it to a media compatible with SL.

At the end of the day I'm all in favour of IP and copyright protection . It is however expensive and difficult, but in certain circumstances it's worth....

(a).. Doing the searches to find out if you really have created something original.
(b).. Protecting your work with registrations etc.
(c).. Pursuing any apparent infringements.

There are ways that SL content creators can do this in RL, which is the same way that RL creators do.

Any parallel framework that LL could come up with would be simplistic and at the end of the day might only support RL IP theft by people whose only bright idea was to be first use SL as another channel by which to profit from their theft.

I know.. I'm being a bit harsh, but this is the level that any claim to IP has to be decided upon and I'm sorry.. standing on a soap box and saying.."it must be my idea, I was the first one to copy it into SL".. doesn't really cut the mustard.

Obviously I could be wrong in all of this, so please tell me if I am..

I understand where you're coming from, Yumi. I also think your best hope of finding that again depends on there being a real economy. Where there's a demand there's an incentive for someone to create a corner of the metaverse to cater to it, as long as there's an economic incentive to do so. I can imagine people setting up grids that don't have an economy and that use systems like SL did in its early days (reputation points, votes, etc to earn resources) that are subscription based. Enterprising developers who were so inclined could probably set something like that up now, in SL. SL as a whole won't ever be that again, nor I suspect will the larger interconnected metaverse. That will have to facilitate commerce, both real world, and some sort of micropayment system.

I don't think that would work - there would be no way of insulating it from the rest of the grid. It's the same reason why real people, who feel a similar lack of direction in their real lives, don't easily go and live in kibbutzes or other sub-communities that can provide it - because you _know_ it's engineered. You only get to stand out and play a special role in the world because you and some other people have artificially rigged things up so that you can.

But equally the problem stands that the "commercial" grid just hasn't proven itself stable yet. The economic statistics still don't show economic growth in parallel with userbase growth, nor enough of an economy size to sustain that large an "interconnected metaverse" yet. You're right that the pioneering period of SL is probably not going to come back, but it hasn't reached a stable commercial period yet and while it's probably not a bad idea in business terms to assume it will (in order to gain early mover advantage if it turns out that it does), it's not a certainty by any means.

No, it is I who got it all wrong. I over-simplified. Please allow me the opportunity to correct my previous statement. How's this?

When they have a general audience and want to appear professional and reasonable, they (the people currently working on these other grids) will tell you that protection of intellectual property is technically improssible, that it's so much easier for victims of IP theft to handle it in the courts than it is to make policy against it, and that there's no real IP in second life since everyone's a thief, anyway, so they aren't going to expend a great effort to deal with IP, but when they are chatting with their buddies they'll ridicule anyone who is concerned about IP.

Better?

Well sarcasm aside, I think what I actually said was that there is recourse to suspected IP or copyright infringment in RL. It is to a degree difficult and costly but the law does at least attempt to protect creativity and innovation.

Given that a lot of content in SL is devised and generated in RL prior to uploading to SL, and that any inspiration will have been experienced by the RL person not the avatar.. it's likely that RL is a better and more effecttive way of protecting your rights.

At the core of position is this... just because a person is the first to use the Nike logo within SL does not allow them to claim to that trademark within SL. This is an obvious case and wouldn't need much investigation on the part of the Linden investigating a complaint.

If the trademark or design was more anonymous, but no less protected in RL.. you would have no grounds to lay claim in SL.

For any LL protection framework to be successful, they would have to undertake RL research to ensure you are in fact the owner of the IP you claim to have been stolen from you.

This is a RL job, not the responsibility of LL.

Stephen, what does that have to do with anything? Nobody is suggesting that LL establish jurisdiction over IP disputes, or that rip-offs of real-world content represent precious IP.

I'm familiar with your position. IP protection can't be 100% effective so there's no point in bothering with it. I get it. I also disagree with it.

LL have at least implemented a system with which content creators can indicate their desires, and under which honest people can be encouraged to remain honest. They also at least make half-assed efforts to respond to DMCA notices. That is, they've established that they don't officially condone content theft, even if in reality they don't care.

You, I have charged, won't even do that much. I'm not insisting that you do anything at all. I'm just pointing out the difference.

I agree with this. But then there's two different methods of copying. There's the manual method of reproducing an item prim by prim and then there's the automation method like the Copybot.

I think LL could do much more to prevent the copybot method. But it would mean having to stop releasing the source code for the client and they would have to change the protocols and data formats every month.

It's essential a content creator feels his creations are safe or they'll just go elsewhere to do their thing. It's no good telling somebody that they have to take responsibility for their own content. Most artists don't have the time to be chasing 12 year old kids across the internet for the sake of a L$1000 pair of sneakers.

Anya, I think what you're describing is a real issue, but I don't think it's right to suggest that the OpenSim developers are "wink wink chuckle chuckle" about it. It's simply that there's a division between IP protection and freedom that affects most people. If you could legally have your textures strongly protected by LL on Second Life, then YouTube would have to be taken down forever, too.

As far as I'm aware OpenSim has the same permissions system that SL itself does. Yes, the server owner can copy content, but so can the server owner right now - that's truly inevitable. I don't really see how OpenSim makes theft of content possible. If you think they're not secure, don't upload your content there; if your content is stolen from SL and taken to OpenSims, the theft happened in SL so it is SL's security provisions that are at fault.

Stephen, not that I necessarily agree with Anya (I'll reserve judgment until these third party grids are farther along), but you seem to be doing a good job of proving her point. SL, and by extension any of these projects (that are wholly and completely based on LL's ideas - as in, not at all original - as in, your argument scores points for irony), absolutely depend on user created content to populate their spaces with interesting things to see and do. Because of that the "sorry, there's nothing we can do" rhetoric is self defeating and ultimately rings hollow.

There may be little that can be done from a technical standpoint that can't be circumvented by someone determined to use IP that doesn't belong to them, there is much that can be done from a policy standpoint, such as having a zero tolerance policy that aggressively seeks to deny access to those who willfully violate the IP rights of others, and makes the risks of doing so bothersome enough to discourage the potential casual violator. The hardcore determined thief won't be deterred, but a great deal of more casual theft could be.

If third party grids who want to be trusted and supported by the artistic community, which they need to attract in order to succeed, they're going to have to do more than say "sorry, not our problem." Ultimately when your success or failure depends on the content that populates your virtual space, it most definitely is your problem.

I don't give LL very high marks in this regard, but at least they have a system in place to comply with the DMCA, an imperfect but better than nothing permissions system to deter casual theft, and have paid lip service to (but not yet produced) better ways for artists to prove authorship of disputed content.

There's alo much more they could do from the technical side, such as addressing the limitations in the way certain assets are designed that prevent end users from being able to use content in more flexible ways. When people can use things the way they wish they could (like something as simple as being able to apply a tattoo to a skin without having to get the creator to do it) there's one less incentive for a casual user to resort to a hack.

Future grids, connected or otherwise, that prove most concerned and aggressive about protecting the rights (and by extension, income) of artists, and at the same time enable the consumer with greater flexibility, will likely attract the best talent and the largest audience to enjoy it. It's going to require more forward thinking than just "you're on your own." Nothing will ever be 100% effective, but perception is half the battle.

Hello Anya..again..

I'd politely suggest that you don't get my position if you think I'm saying there is no point in trying to deal with IP protection.

I'm simply saying that everything of importance happens in RL not SL, and would have to be investigated and addressed in RL.

What LL could do (and something that we're looking at), is address the documentation of "genesis" within SL. I'm thinking a digital certificate/signature or watermark facility.

I get the feeling that you feel that "we" are some sort of horrible money men that don't understand the artistic and creative soul...

As I think I've said before, our business is designing and developing software to do new and innovative things. Software is a key area of innovation and creativity and swathes of IP and copyright law has been introduced on the back of issues arising within the software industry.

So, yes I have a vested interest in making sure that what we do is protected for as long as possible. I'm slightly at a loss however as to your point of view.

Is it that since the profits of SL innovation/creativity are small, they really aren't worth the hassle of RL IP protection, and so you like LL to work in some sort of arbitration capacity within SL as if SL was it's own little universe?

In which case they would have to work as if in a black box and agree that what happens in SL, stays in SL. In the Nike analogy, the first person to use it within SL would be deemed the owner and everyone else would be banned fro using it?

Not exactly the moral leadership I think you're looking for.

So perhaps you could suggest a solution which we simple and selfish money men can't be bothered to look for?

I agree that this would be a good thing, but once creations are being made at any significant volume it becomes nearly impossible to enforce such a policy. How do you deal with false allegations, for example? Or people claiming to be IP holders who really aren't (here are the PSDs for the texture to prove I made it.. except actually these PSDs are freely available on the web..)?

And who can forget that there was nearly a "nightmare scenario" here, where someone said "by the way, several hundred textures that have been on sale in the most trusted texture stores on the grid for several years? They're mine. Take down everything that ever used them or you break the DMCA." Oh, and then.. that, apparently, eventually turned out to be false..

I suspect the only way to have a policy along these lines would be to require content to be approved. If you are working on the basis that the grid must eventually, inevitably evolve to a "professional creator/paying consumer" split then this might, actually, be a workable idea, so it's possible that an alternate grid will do it.