Openspace Announcement Discussion with Jack Linden

Yes, I admit it, I have been an open space abuser for 6 months. In my defense though, I had no idea I was doing anything wrong. Nobody ever told me. I just rented a void and put up a store. All has been going well until now. I apologize.

I would also like to say that I'd be more than willing to pay $125.00 a month to keep things the way they are. That is, to pay $50.00 a month more to use the void as I wish. I think these voids have boosted the sl economy and allowed many people to rent, open stores and do many other things that most who can't afford an actual Island could ever have done. It has also in itself increased the sales of Islands.

Now you might say why should I only have to pay $125.00 for a void to have and do with what I like just like owning an Island when others are paying $295.00 a month. Because my void is shared with 3 others and an Island is not! I also only get 1/4 of the prims for more than 1/4 of the cost of an island, but I'm ok with that!

Now that I know what these voids were actually intended for, It's beyond me why anyone would pay $75.00 for a big empty backyard? I personaly don't have $$ to burn like that. So it seems to me these were a benefit to the rich, not to the poor guy, which I think in some ways is very unfair.

Remove the restrictions, charge $125.00 and move on! LL, please keep in mind, time is of the essense for many of us to make changes or sell if you are not reasonable with this.

PS: Don't bring up the lag factor, I've been dealing with SL lag from the day I started here, lol.

Hmm I was feeling quite mellow toward you until the end, so you can afford to pay 125, so just put the price up and move on????
What about those that treated the sims as they were MEANT to be treated, should they pay more because YOU want a store on an OS sim??

I dont know what qualifies as a "Land Baron" around here, but as a landowner (3 full / 20 OS) I would disagree strongly. Unless you have gransfthered tiers I dont think there are very many landowners making profits right now. The exceptions would either be a very few that add value (teraforms/builds) or gougers that prey on newbs. I'm keeping mine around to support the residents using them, as they empty, I'll dump them. Land hasn't been profitable since shortly after they released these at the reduced price. The last time I tried to put an OS up for rent it sat for 45 days without an inquiry, the markup over cost was about $10 per month (I'm done with profit on land), which means even if it had rented, at my cost of $10/week it would take 7 month's to recover the loss of it sitting empty while trying to rent it.

LL is not just being profitable, they are also being callous and underhanded. Good companys support their customers and their resellers, Linden Labs takes no care with either.

they are talking? *looks around* where??

I am tired of reading before getting thru all 215 pages so sorry if this is a repeat. It seems like the answers should be logical but sorry, with whats gone on I don't trust that they are as I'd expect.

1.The change is effective Jan 1 but our tiers not due until the 30th. Do we have
until the 30th of January to dump the sims without incurring extra expense if
thats what we choose to do?
2. If we place an order to dump the sims or to upgrade, say make 4 into a large sim
before our tier is due or before Jan 1 depending on the answer to the previous
question and you don't get to it because of your panic to deal with us all at once, do
we still incur the additional expense?

Happy New Year by the way.

Well, as someone else stated, to pay $75.00 per month for nothing is kinda insane unless you have money to burn. I think the vast majority were using them for more then a big lake. That should have shown LL right away that it wasn't going to work. And if LL has it there way, you WILL be paying $125.00 for nothing in my opinion. So with my plan, you pay what they want but at least get more

On my end of sl mine is light use. Mostly for tinkering and enjoying putting in a house an furniture. Also from time to time friends will visit 4 to 8 here an such. Some times watch a dvd or dance to some music or just hang out. OS used for bulging clubs I cant speak to that. Who knows I might have danced or been at several.

I just know it will hurt those of us using them as a very light use..

I dont want to leave it but $ wise I might be forced out.

It might make me come to second life less too.

I think the answer to 2 would be yes. and you may want to allow some extra time, 2-3 weeks even, for them to get to your conversion in a queue, because there will probably be alot of them (you know how LL loves them fees). Whne they are queued up on manual processes it quickly gets behind.

And whom will they sell it to? Us, the people they just shafted? The businesses who now see that LL can't stick to a contract or keep control of costs? Don't hold your breath, pal.

I got me an OpenSpace sim this month. We did precious calculating to decide if I could afford it.
It's mainly water and I use it for sailing and there are hardly ever more then two avatars there at the same time.
Why do I have to pay more when it is other people who misuse it for renting or other purposes as what OpenSpace sims were intended for ?
Can't you just measure the load and define a threshold to bill owners accordingly ?
Or find a better solution as I enjoy my sailing and very likely won't be able to afford the ridiculous price increase.
And in case I can not afford the extra tier, will you refund my initial purchase ?

In my opinion, a Bad Business Decision, particularly given the current economical climate.
SL, like all US exports, has already become more expensive due to the appreciation of the USD. In my case by 35% + (due to exchange rates).

The proposed increase of 66% for an Open Space sim, on top of this increase, will price SL out of my discretionary entertainment expenditure.

Lindens, you compete with other forms of entertainment and recreation.

Context --->>> What was 105AUD could end up being 250AUD for an open sim. OR 2 return Air tickets for a weekend in Melbourne (each month)......

Qantas gets my money

One of the Main reasons that Linden Labs gives for this change is the abuse of Open Space sims and how a lagged Open Space sim can pull down other Open Space sims performances. This however is an easy item to resolve as there is a facility built into the OS (Operating System) Linux that they use that could make it that no matter how lagged other Open Spaces are, it will not affect the performance of any other Open space on the same CPU... and its called scheduling.

See...

http://linux.sys-con.com/node/25015 for further details

It sees to me that each Open Space currently is run under the default SCHED_OTHER which gives each process a priority and the processes in Linux are scheduled to run under this priority. In the case of Open Spaces this may mean that a Heavily loaded region may take more processing time than an almost empty one.

the solution would be to alter the scheduling for the Open Space regions to SCHED_RR which Under Linux "A Round Robin real-time process. When the scheduler assigns the CPU to the process, it puts the process descriptor at the end of the run queue list. This policy ensures a fair assignment of CPU time to all SCHED_RR real-time processes that have the same priority."

Therefore each Open Space running on the CPU would be allocated approximately 1/4 of the CPU time and NO MORE. In that way even if a Open Space was heavily loaded with scripts or Avatars wearing highly scripted objects the Open space they were in would not affect the others on the same CPU as it would not be allocated any more time and so not eat into the allocation of CPU time given to the other Open Spaces.

This has probably been suggested, but I'm not sure I want to wade through 215 pages to check:



No doubt hard limits on sim resources would take development and QA time: however as Jack states it should've ideally been implemented to begin with. Why not spend two months putting in hard-limits so prices don't need to be raised?

The simplest and least controversial solution would be to fix the problem, not create a million more by engineering new services, (Those problems including the massive drama.) I'm presuming that time and effort would be creating the new, higher-priced openspaces anyway, so why not put that effort into fixing the issue?

Furthermore, would the proposed $125 a month openspaces have resource caps anyways?

No doubt said it incorrectly. Or maybe understanding in wrong. But looking at it from LL view and not trying to make it gray for customers benefit:

The Land Use Fee (also known as a Tier Fee) is a monthly charge in addition to membership fees (i.e., US$9.95/month Premium Membership). Land use fees are billed based on the peak amount of land held during your previous 30 day billing cycle.

So, what you own in December is billed in January. The new billing tier increase will apply to what you own in December. So if you do not want that, as most are abandoning by end of Nov., if you don't have land in Dec. you won't be billed the higher amount in January.

There isn't anything said that they are taking what you "own" in January for your Feb. billing. Only Jan billing will go up. Could be a kettle of worms if I am reading this right and those that 'wait out' until the end of Dec to abandon (if decision by LL isn't changed) and they abandon then. Which could, by my reading from LL point of view, get them billed in jan for the Dec land at the increased price.

The billing dept at LL will get the notice of increase effective as of Jan 1. They just do their job. So any billing in Jan will be at the new price... for what is owned in Dec. The 2 months notice by LL is just, to me, smoke and mirrors to the reality of how their billing works. To me, it is a 30 day notice of what you own, and will be billed for that in 60 days (2 months).

Breeja

I agree and i think i will just buy a new xbox360 game a month plus have a years Live subscription for less then i will be paying LL.
SL was and still is a form of entertainment and communication, i will miss building and designing, but i'm sure the competition will be watching this closely and doubling their efforts to get going as soon as possible, and i am also sure they will pick up a lot of disillusioned and jaded people from second life.
BTW 3000 plus posts and still no more communication from LL, except a post on the blog on how they have made the knowledge base ect into a laybrinth for us all to navigate.
"Still not happy Jan"

That's for mainland. Openspaces bill separately.

Breeja, you are wrong. This is for mainland. Mainland is payed for the 30 last days. Private Islands are payed in advance for the next month. So on Jan 5th for example I pay for the use of my private island SIM from jan 5th to feb 4th.

I saw these tactics before and he' playing them by the book. And he's playing very good.

Based on the simple tactics of bargaining, but on the pro-level.

Step one: Call a price, nobody is willing to pay, let the crowd go angry, let emotions boil.

The lack of communication is a major part, as it makes people nervous. - check -

Step two: Announce you will to discuss, but don't give away anything, then let emotions boil once again. At this point, people will get despair for a response. Anger will turn into fear, and some hasty decisions are made by a few. - check -

Step three: Start discussions with parts of the community. Let parts of it leak to the open. Divide and conquer. - check -

Step four: At this point, people will get so despair for any communication that they're starting to make compromises. Wait for compromise suggestion that get closer and closer to what you want in the first place. - check and check - i saw suggestions already in the forum, that were worse then the original announcement.

Step five: Take the best offer, that is probably better then what you've expected and give them the feeling they won. - soon to come -

Final Step : Laugh your ass off, that you again got away with that....


omg, they will win.....

/me giving up hope, facing the fact to get homeless again in SL.

Thank you very much Daniel.


Breeja

And in advance.

Firelight

To whom ever I am writing to I am fairly new to sl . I came into Second Life feel in love and wanted a home. I bought a island with a wonderful home on it I also bought the land (or so I thought) I knew nothing about open spaces and still do not full understand them. I have spent a great deal of money in Second Life for the short amount of time I have been here. At this point my time in Second Life is up in the air. If I lose my land my home that I spent 89000.00 L$ on and then the almost 10000.00L$ in changes and things that I have done. I will never again convert a usd into and lindon again so I will be moving to another game. That I know of where things are different. With the world economic status the way it is at this time I would think that Jack Lindon would have the business intuitiveness to take this up grade as a business cost and not pass this one onto the customer. I can see a mass exited es of people having open spaces from second life. I have payed my tier up until March 1 1999 all that will be gone and it is not a small sum.
Recently I have learned that some of the places that I love and enjoy visiting will also be effected Second life just is not going to be the same so the people that say I don't live on an open space about time. Just wait till your favorite shopping place is gone or that nice place you like to go to the beach for peace and quite is gone or your favorite night club go's away then it won't be so about time and it don't effect me so about time. This is a major change to Second Life and be prepared to say good bye to some of your best friends

Very Concerned Chad1 Baxton

Canadian dollar just over a month ago was on par with USD the months before even up a tad some days. Today is worth 0.82 USD.

That land use fee thing you quote is for mainland. Perhaps what that person meant was that generally we collect tier from our residents for the NEXT month so we have it on hand to pay the tier we get then. Remember that my tier date for a sim can vary up to 1month-a day from when LL bills me. So theoretically if tier is collected by LL from me in January before all my tenants are due in January, I'll not have the money to cover it unless I collect it in dec. shrugs...i think that's what they mean.

Ziah, you are absolutely right. That is exactly how it is playing out. Don't forget to include the agents that infiltrate and disrupt to weaken the opposition by swaying opinion among the weakest.

You hit the nail right on the head. That is why people are leaving already and not waiting for this to play out. They know this tactic and that it will win.

OMG that is too funny. Thanks for that.