Third Party Viewer Policy coming soon

That's the best idea i heard all day!

That's fine.....but should they get caught, they can expect to be on the wrong end of some Legal action.

It's a bit like drink driving....you get away with it for so long......and then one day you don't and pooooof goes your driver's license!

Are you suggesting all the program will be is to have developers put their contact information on file with LL?

No, we keep insisting that there's nothing that can be done to have ANY significant impact on the problem, WITHOUT making things worse for legitimate users, outside of unrealistic things; like posting a cop at every resident's computer to watch for infringement; or replacing all computers with "internet appliances" which are sealed black boxes that some company in India controls; or doing all the rendering server-side and streaming the results like it was a video (the latter two have been / are being tried; the former of them to epic fail; the latter is still in development, but is not expected to see widespread adoption due to realistic limitations on technology).

It simply isn't a problem that technology CAN solve, without going to Draconian extremes. Not only that, but SHOULD those extremes even be sought in the first place? There's plenty of "bad" that will come of going to such extremes, some of which has already come to pass as digital media and access control infrastructures fail.

People keep wanting absolute security and guarantees, but don't realize the severe damages to freedoms those choices which bring about that level of security will bring.

Wait..wouldn't that make SL..."More Predictable" (tm) ?

Assuming you can sucessfully easily identify charge, extradite and jail someone from some 2nd world country for prim theft.

Yes, I don't see why I wouldn't allow LL to know exactly who I am if I want the privilege of my creation connecting to their servers.

Technology does a pretty good job at keeping fake viewers out of any other MMO or Online Banking etc. We're not still using beads sliding on bars in software anymore.
The only people it would prevent from connecting their viewers are those that wish to hide their RL identities from LL.
No technology will work while we keep protecting a theives right to hide their identity.
In your context having registration plates on cars is a Draconian extreme too.

I really don't see how this would help the problem. Only the "good" developers would register, and the Niel Life, Thug Lyfe, and Cryolife developers would refuse to. In the end, nothing would change whatsoever.

It's a rather simple concept, no registration, no connect.

There can be ways of identifying a viewers ID to the grid without it being public.

If there was half as much positive thought on the problem as there is knee jerking "no, it can never been done!" negative attitude it would be sorted by now.

Like no account, no password, no login.

It can be done, it's not an impossibility.

If they take away my ability to have jiggling boobies I will be crushed!

Or CryoNeilThug would just report that they're the standard LL viewer...

And what stops Thug Lyfe from spoofing an "approved" viewer?

The existing continent should have BECOME the adult continent, and people offered free moves to other land if they wanted them. That way the people who wanted the change would have paid the burden of the move, instead of imposing the costs on people who didn't want the change.

Or since it was mostly the PG people clamoring for change rather than the Mature ones, they could have created a new PG continent, again with free moves offered to anybody who wanted them.

As it is, they forced a lot of people to move, and to pay costs of moving. (Sure, the new land was free, but the time to rebuild things, and perhaps the payments to builders to make it happen, weren't.) And they removed value from existing land - there are uses that I am no longer permitted to use my already-owned land for - without giving any compensation to the land owners.

Wishful thinking?

That doesn't seem like much of a policy.

FWIW, Linden Lab already knows who the authors of the alternate viewers I regularly use are. They all have payment information on file.

Basically, nothing changes from the situation today.

Can you ski through a revolving door?

People tell me that about antigravity, cold fusion, and faster than light travel.

I can't ski at all, but things like electricity, the internet and MMO's didn't come about by smart people proclaiming they were impossible.

You believe it's impossible, you automatically fail.

Ok.. Find us an example of some opensource client/server software that does what you're saying should be done.

edit: and I don't think electricity was invented, BTW.. Not by us mortals anyway..

Approved viewer creators wouldn't divulge their connection licence code would they?
Perhaps this means I bit of restructuring and restrictions from the whole opensource concept but it's not impossible to restrict access to servers by unwanted programs.

Maybe it doesn't have to stay 100% opensource in the way it ids here, think outside the box for goodness sake, otherwise we'll still have exactly the same problems in 200 years.

So you're not going to find one example, one example in all of google, where somebody does what you're asking for?

/start sarcasm

In a shocking surprise announcement today it was announced that the fundamental functioning of the grid is to be changed to solve all problems and end customer bitching. To accomplish this the following steps will be taken.

ALL persons who have never ID verified or used payment information filed with the company will be restricted to their own continent. Said continent will be of a G rating only and all chat and ims will be recorded and reviewed by the company. No person falling into this category may own land or posses L$. No sales will be possible. No creation of content will be possible. No trading of content will be possible. The only inventory allowed said person will be the company created library folder.

All persons logging into the grid must use only the company provided viewer. Relevant code being changed to prevent log in by any other viewer. After all what good is extra functionality if you cant log in?

Any person discovering an exploit in the official viewer will be immediately permanently banned from the grid. We cant have them passing thier knowledge to anyone

FOr persons who use payment information AND ID verify you will be allowed to have L$, run a business create content. BUT all transactions and conversations will be recorded and reviewed for possible illegal activities. After all Big Brother IS watching. THose caught in an illegal activity will be summarily hunted down in RL and shot.

/end sarcasm

As I see things LL is going to forge ahead with whatever lame brained idea they have now no matter what we say or do. TO me its all a publicity stunt. I honestly don't know what they can do to fix the problem I have heard some good ideas and some really lame one. Unfortunately LL no longer cares to leverage the huge experience and expertise base of its customers anymore to improve its product.

They have to give the connection/license code to everyone who uses them!

Even if they're not opensource, they HAVE TO INCLUDE IT IN THE PACKAGE, whether they're Linden Lab or IBM or Modular Systems. Because otherwise the guy who tries to USE the package won't be able to connect!

Actually, no, it does a horrible job of that. Bungie and Sony and the rest put frigging ROOTKITS in people's machines and they still manage to unstall hacks to automate grinding. People's bank accounts get attacked through web browsers all the time.