As many people may know, LL is making changes to something they call "Covenants" in SL which is the agreement made between parties renting (buying) land on private "Estates" or Island sims and the Estate owner. Since this will affect Neualtenburg directly and is in essence the same thing as our "Nburg TOS" I have been trying to get detailed information on it.
I asked Daniel Linden who is overseeing the Covenant changes to get us some more information especially a draft version of a covenant if such thing exists, but haven't received a reply so what I am doing here is posting the remarks made by him at the recent "group group" meetings.
The remarks are out of context and have been edited by me so don't take any of it as verbatim, but on the other hand I haven't changed anything or put words into his mouth.
A covenant is a convient way to tell a Resident about Zoning, or specific rules in place on an indenpendent Estate. It provides a way for Estates to describle themselve and define Local Standards in regards to zoning, themeing, or behaviour. We want to empower Estates to operate as independent, parallel visions of Second Life.
What it means, in the bigger picture, is more autonomy for Estate; a move in the direction of self-governance. The ultimate goal of Covenants will be to allow Estates to chart their own course, and set and support Local Standards in addition to our global Community Standards. The implementation of Estate Covenants is meant to move us in the direction of empowering Estate owners to be their own Governor Lindens creating parallel, independent vision of Second Life that live along side the one created by Linden Lab.
Second Life Resident should have more options than the Linden Lab vision (our hippy-San-Francisco-Utopia thing you see on the Mainland). We want to give content creators and community builders the tools and options to create their own world in parallel to the vision we've created. What we've discovered is that one set of tools doesn't work for both the mainland and Estates.
One the most basic level, a Covenant is just a text field. A way to express their local standards in the first step. (The covenants are enforced) much in the same way that Estate owners currently enforce their rules generally by various means of restricting access to the Estate. The introduction of covenants will allow Estate Owners to better community and explain their Local Standards so that Resident might understand what the local vision is and can make better decisions.
Much like 'selling' or 'renting' land on Estates, current enforcment of local standards is excercised by Estate Owners but they don't really have any proper way to do so eventually, they'll have the ability to actually sell land, and to handle Abuse situations on their Estates with proper tools.
We should give Estate owners, content creators experience providers all the tools WE have. The Estate Owner functions like Gov. Linden -- able to reclaim land, etc. We need to make some changes to our Webtools to give you access to Abuse Reports from your Estate. So we can't do it 'now' but very soon. But we'll cede control of abuse resolution to the Estate Owners if they choose and provide better tools to resolve issue on the Local Level. And yes, you'll be able to actually sell parcels on an Estate."
What it means, in the bigger picture, is more autonomy for Estate; a move in the direction of self-governance. The ultimate goal of Covenants will be to allow Estates to chart their own course, and set and support Local Standards in addition to our global Community Standards. The implementation of Estate Covenants is meant to move us in the direction of empowering Estate owners to be their own Governor Lindens creating parallel, independent vision of Second Life that live along side the one created by Linden Lab.
Second Life Resident should have more options than the Linden Lab vision (our hippy-San-Francisco-Utopia thing you see on the Mainland). We want to give content creators and community builders the tools and options to create their own world in parallel to the vision we've created. What we've discovered is that one set of tools doesn't work for both the mainland and Estates.
One the most basic level, a Covenant is just a text field. A way to express their local standards in the first step. (The covenants are enforced) much in the same way that Estate owners currently enforce their rules generally by various means of restricting access to the Estate. The introduction of covenants will allow Estate Owners to better community and explain their Local Standards so that Resident might understand what the local vision is and can make better decisions.
Much like 'selling' or 'renting' land on Estates, current enforcment of local standards is excercised by Estate Owners but they don't really have any proper way to do so eventually, they'll have the ability to actually sell land, and to handle Abuse situations on their Estates with proper tools.
We should give Estate owners, content creators experience providers all the tools WE have. The Estate Owner functions like Gov. Linden -- able to reclaim land, etc. We need to make some changes to our Webtools to give you access to Abuse Reports from your Estate. So we can't do it 'now' but very soon. But we'll cede control of abuse resolution to the Estate Owners if they choose and provide better tools to resolve issue on the Local Level. And yes, you'll be able to actually sell parcels on an Estate."
There is lots more of course, but that's the gist of it.
My summation:
A "Covenant" in LL terms, is what we call the "Nburg TOS." It is a written statement of the rules applying to and the behavior expected of renters ("owners"
of land in the Estate; in our case of Neualtenburg sim. Apparently some estate owners have no such agreements in writing, so we are ahead there. It would be good to get some idea of the form that LL thinks such a document should take, especially since we are currently looking at our own version of the document. Fist stage: This is basically the same as we have now, making sure that everyone who has an estate, has a "covenant" or strongly implying they should have one.
Second stage: They seem to be starting by improving the group tools and the estate management tools, beginning with SL version 1.9 most likely. This is when we will likely hear a lot of stuff about covenants and how all estate owners should have one.
Third stage: Linking in the estate owners with some kind of web-based abuse tools and allowing them to actually sell land on their estates. Daniel has already indicated that this might be problematic in that there is a clear opportunity for abuse since LL doesn't want to vet or process these sales (although they might also allow this if they can) so this is kind of a grey area for the time being.
Fourth stage: Estate owners running sims on their own hardware, completely separate from LL. Real sales of land with separate billing, Covenants that don't necessarily abide by the TOS.
The question was brought up in every meeting as to whether the covenants can specify or enforce standards "at odds with" the LL TOS, and when backed against the wall, they say very specifically that they cannot. Nothing at this point can supplant or go against the TOS.
On the other hand it's pretty clear that at the very end of this long spin-off process that this is exactly what would be possible and one of the chief "draws" of separate hardware perhaps, so this is likely the reason for the necessary vagueness.
At least thats the way I read it.
