1.9 Jitters... Nervous again

Taking a texture is as easy as using a gl dumper And audio ... Just run SL through an audio proxy script. There's no security in those parts of SL.

Mind you, I'm just commenting on the implementation, not suggesting to actually go Open Source in the blink of an eye


Misunderstanding. I mean Autobuild and Packaging done at Linden's, just the same as they do with MacOS and Windows clients.

Plenty of SL users put plenty of time into creating free objects or teaching. How is this use of time different than making the client better? I'm sure you can envision some developer popping in and out of world saying "ack, almost working... brb...". I'd personally rather fix/add features to the client than make anything inworld.

That is true. And even the Anshe's put LOTS into SL, so do the club owners, and the dancers, and the socialites... It's all helping SL.

I, and I am sure a lot of others, enjoy SL and like to make it fun for others. I the case of the Linux Alpha, fun for other linux users particularly, even if I am not a Linux Coder or anything.

That is also "work for nothing", if you like... But for me, it is "Fun for my investment of time" And building a world... that is not nothing, regardless of how virtual this world is.

For now, in Preview with the Windows client... Later, in world with the Windows client; and later still, 1.9 Linux! And I hope, before the meeting on Friday... painful to go to the meeting with the Windows Client

You can grab 3D models (there's a windows program called OGLE for doing this). There is protection from getting this inworld as there's currently no model import, though I'd be very happy if some sort of solution to this could be found, as "playing with prims" kinda gives me a headache compared to Maya (or even Blender for that matter!).

Well, now that I think of it, I suppose you could write a really awful import utility... It would slice up a DXF or whatnot into prims, then create them all via dumping a few thousand synthetic X events to the window... That would be an even worse hack than the oh-so-wonderful pasting hack... Doing curved surfaces would be rather complicated though... ;-P

*giggles*

Just calculate and key in the prim parameters and you get it without mouse events

Angel:
I got the wine thingie to run now, but the preview grid won't let me in (INFO: Verifying message template... / INFO: Resending on timeout / repeat ...)

I am not talking about bugreporting, or anything else you may to do to help developers or enrich the lives of other players.

I am talking about actual development, upto your eyeballs in source code, knowing how a piece of software is working well enough to be able make changes. That takes real skill and a serious investment of time on the part of a developer, the kind of investment thats usually repaid with pay check.

Believe it or not, most open source developers, working for projects right across the open source world actually get paid by compaines with an interest in the software they are working on. My own company (and thats about as much RL as your getting) pays a developer full time to contribute to and work on open source projects that are in our interest.

At the end of the day we all have to make a living, don't think for a second that a skilled programmer is going to come home from work, stuff something to eat, and start working gratis on your favorite project just because he's a programmer and its open source. Geeks have lives.

IMO, the best thing Linden Labs can do to bring the Linux client up to scratch, is pay someone to work on it. (It also happens to be the simplest option)

The whole open source / closed source / debate is a little mute. If your here, your using closed source software, running on closed source graphics card drivers. Its a little late to try and take the moral high ground and preech.

Dale, or anyone else, could you please give some more information about this inbuilt DRM? Except for "complying with the DMCA" thing I found on the secondlife site , which is valid in the USA but not the rest of the world, I couldn't see any other near means of DRM.
Wait, are scripts/objects/pictures/audio part of the SL client? I think not. The software that handles and elaborates them is (and in fact, ogg-vorbis which handles the audio in secondlife is fully open-source, released under the GPL; the XML format is an open file format, and the animation format is also open). All of these are in-world created, encrypted and stored. With whatever permissions they have. Would you be able to modify the open-source software part of SL in order to be able in-world to change permissions to scripts/objects/pictures/audio to your liking? Good luck! And, best of all, good luck with all control protocols and your hacked client. If adequate control exists in SL in order to prevent this from happening in the closed-source application, then you wouldn't get away with it, open or closed source it were.
In regards of copying textures/objects/sounds,.... come on, that's a piece of cake for anyone, closed or open source. In windows, macs, linux, amiga, C64, Amstrad CPC464 or Spectrum ZX. If that's legal or controllable, that is entirely up to human control and the law. As you can tell, DRM has never stopped anyone from copying - even roughly, certainly wrongly - IP material.
Therefore in-world IP (therefore encrypted) material has nothing to do with open sourcing an application which handles that material, except for the obvious one: handling WELL that material.

I dont think so. If you take our world. The most primitive ppl tenthousand years ago- they could use everything they found. They did have an economy. i don't think economy in general is based on things to being short or expensive. On the opposit: Take the internet: Why did it grow? Basically because it was always free in the sense of TCP/IP not being a patented technology.

Generally I think we move more to a service based economy, And in computer terms we see thte problem in illegal copying of music and videos. If the businesses are based on prohibiting access they have a problem, because copying is way too easy.

I can imagine however that the information itself is saved on the server, while the client only gets the information he needs (coordinates, look, physics, etc.) So the only way to protect copying is to not copy at all, but to give the information that something was copied.

No, I believe all the primitive parameters are sent over to the client.
Like 'create a box prim on positions x,y,z with width=1.0, height=1.2, depth=0.5,...'. So once you can intercept that stream, you can just save the prim values, and then 'easily' recreate the object prims in-world.

Actually, even worse: you could write a patch, that takes the primitive parameters of the 'currently selected' object(s), and then creates new object(s) by copying the parameters. The server would think it's the user creating those prims, but actually, it would be the automatic hacked SL client functions.

Bugreporting is not just "enriching lives of other players". It's about feedback: No feedback, no development. In the internet age, that's what makes technology grow. In the open-source movement, that's what made linux the OS it is now.Ximian. Novell. Google. Mozilla. IBM. HP.I never said that. You did.Wait, you just said that your company (and I added others) that pays developers full time to work on open-source projects. So we agree that SL could be open-source! That's great!I wasn't preaching (with an a), and I hate moralism. I was stating an opinion. You also called Vinci a hypocrite. So please refrain from attacking, since you haven't been attacked by anyone.

Yes, I use closed source hardware drivers in order to play closed-source SL also. Wtf does that mean? Must someone have a fully open-source operating system in order to post in these forums defending open-sourcing some code because he/she believes it would be best for all? THAT would be hypocrite, pointless, and fanatic. I wouldn't be here in the first place, if I had to wait till kingdom come to have *Only-open-source-On-My-Machine* (waving a banner). Can I defend open-sourcing SL? You bet I can.

Zonax, wouldn't that be implementable on actual clients? I mean, is the streaming of this information actually code-related, or created on-the-spot? Either way, it would mean sniffing the client-server transaction, therefore not closely related to openness of the source, right?
Hmmm.... not if the server checks for MD5 of the client... anyone knows more on this?

Not at all, Software companies have managed find whole new ways to ignore there users. The best methods actually involve getting users involved - You get ignored AND you feel good about it!


I have to disagree, this isn't some grand democratic software development model. Its the same old development model with a few tweaks around the edges.


You can bet that not one of those companies are into Linux because its the right thing to do. Linux is good for the bottom line, its old world corporate interests and shareholder value thats driving the open source revolution. Its a shock, but sharing has turned out to be profitable....


Much as it pains me to say it, I am unable to justify developer time for an open source second life client.


Saying there is no room for closed source software, and then posting here (where you are obviously using closed source software) is about as good an example of a hypocrite as you can get.




There are lots of people who manage to wave that banner and stick to it in practice. My point is, don't wave that banner here, doing so makes you a hypocrite. As far as open sourcing Sl goes, that call has nothing to do with SL's users.

Frankly It not something I think we should be doing. Yes I am for an open source client if and when, in the mean time the only thing those of us who play and pay into the game are entitled to demand is a client that gets timely updates.

SL server: Please send me your checksum.
Real client: Okay, here is my checksum.
SL server: Correct!

SL server: Please send me your checksum.
Hacked client: Okay, here is the checksum that I copied from the real client.
SL server: Correct!

...and then...
Pretty confused, huh? Seems pretty clear to me. Or maybe you meant, let's open-source it AND not pay anyone for it. Which would contraddict again your own post you made:
Do you know something no-one else knows about linden labs? Strange, you seem to have registered in February like me.
As for the continuous "hypocrite" referrals, I will start ignoring you, since you didn't even take the time to read WHO posted WHAT - you'de be surprised by finding out that I'm not the one writing about "no room for closed source software".
READ BEFORE YOU RANT. And this BEFORE sentencing on everyone and everything so easily.

Ouch, that hurt.

....eehmm...realtime hashing?...oh, ok, ignore me

Well I think this is completely wrong. it is true, that the industrie is now beginning to use and also finnance Open Source / Linux development. But they only did it after software like GNU/Linux and Apache showed their performance. They jumped on the waggon because the development model is superior. And i disagree with that this is only a minor difference.

The core difference is, that the freedom to share. Soem companies in the open source world had big problems, like Ximian because they tend to develop open source but developed more only inside. The same problem we see now with Xgl from Novell. This just does not work. It seems to me you are argumenting from a developers perspective who likes to get paid. I hope you will get paid in the future and I think we need full time workers.

But its also true that most of the developers are not developing software they see, but that their companies use. Open Source does NOT mean to put put a ZIP file on the webserver with some code in it. It would mean for an SL client that Linden Labs would concentrate on putting time and money into the core of their technology, using every library and tools that are available for free - and to inetract with a community of developers and other companies that might work in a similar field. I think conferences like the Libre Graphics Meeting ( http://www.libregraphicsmeeting.org/) are a good example what that means.

I am also hosting open source software (wikis) and heavily depend on that development model. Otherwise I could not do it. It works because many people share their ideas, worktime and money and not just pay their own developers to make their own versions better. And this is the reason why users test and help further the development. I think in open source the difference between developers and users is not that huge. There are ppl that do marketing, help other users, write documentation, make packages for distributions. Many of them are not real developers nor are they paid. The change is fluent. Often users become developers.

And - i don't know - look at what is happening here: One guy that can not work full time on the client and the whole development stopps - no bugfixing and no new client. And iof this one guy gets sick or dies you can forget it all, especially when the code would not be documented well.

I look at software from the perspective if it HAS to be closed source for good reasons. I think that there might be some legal issues with the client right now - but I can not tell because Lindens communications policy is rather intransparent. The only thing I know is if this client would be open source I am sure none of the bugs we have right now would be there. So looking from the customers perspective (the users) it would be better to make it open source now. If it is really not I am missing some information that we do not have.

Sure what makes Linux profitable for industrie is that it costs no licensing and that each company can focus on one development and even getting help in doing their work. Everybody wants a better Linux, so all work together - this is more like society always was. In the last centuries regrettably many of the commons we had were taken over by big companies (like music or movie industry) - and they know how to get their money and how to force new legislation (DMCA,etc.). I think the free software movement and now the free culture movement are two movements that say: Don't we at the end do loose more freedom for our own disadvantage just to have some companies profit (and not the new ones with new business models and new ideas).

Since Gutenberg it was more and mor easy to copy information. I think it is humbug to try to stop that or to think that protecting information make sense - or not to share and not to cooperate.

We have seen that with Netscape. Netscape was loosing ground, only as it was open sourced it could compete with Internet Explorer. I think paying every bit of developing in longer terms is only for big companies ot those that have a monopoly. I have seen companies paying developers in putting hundreds of thousands of dollars in that (only developer fees). The results were rather poore but the money was gone. This often comes with the NotInventedHere syndrom: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?NotInventedHere .

The folks at Novell also did think that develop something more closes would be better. The result is that we now have two very similar projects: Xgl and Aiglx. Ressources (money!) put into the gutter! This has also caused some friction in the open source/GNOME community. If every software company would think like that we would not make that progress. We already had that with Unix - they all payed their programmers to develop their own, better Unix. The result was stagnation and Windows taking over.

What makes Linden Lab and SL special is their experience and the user base and the servers running. I think 3D models are not unique, it is only a matter of time that other companies can build similar worlds. For LL it makes much more sense to have those companies as customers or cooperation partners than as competitors (like www.there.com).

The problem is that evry company seems to think they are on the way to their own kind of monopoly. And some make it (like Google or Amazon). But they are atypical. i have no dobt that it is in the interest of better software that code is shared and more eyes take a view. I am always sceptical about companies that sell their own shopping system that is not open source, because good software programming is very difficult and I would say only a handful developers around the world are able to build good and stable software just by themselves. Little tools: yes - but otherwise they must be somebody like Linux Torvalds - and even he needed help to get this Linux to be of a real use.

For me Linux and open source have different viewpoints:
1) Society / Politics - having the freedom to work with software like you want to.
2) Quality - the more eyes look at a code the more feedback that could go back into code.
3) Celerity - if everybody can patch a software nobody has to wait for the upcoming OFFICIAL patch. This is also political, because you are able to make a patch that may not be wanted by the company or local goverment.

What made the Internet successful was the use of free protocols and the basis of free server software (LAMP). That was the basis of all companies that did sell things on top of it. If anyone would have closed development or requested license fee for Linux and or Apache the whole thing would not have been possible.

We take this too much as a matter of course too often. I hate it when ppl think doing the opposit will now be the best for software and the users. This reminds me so much on Bill Gates open letter to computer hobbyists ( http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/gateswhine.html )

And about quality: The only software that is not working on my computer is closed source ( a program to interact with the tax office and one to work with my checking account ) Some other software might have some issues, but no problem that I report gets unanswered or unresolved while no answer or "wont fix" I get every time from software that I had payed for. That's my experience.


Vinci

You can protect against hacked clients by shielding the client from reverse engineering then issuing regular protocol challenges. For stronger protection something like WoWs warden can be used.

The Open Source model is FAR more powerful as a development and maintenance model, than closed source. Unix grew amazingly when it was open source, almost died when it became closed source, and GNU/linux is growing like crazy, and becoming extremely stable and full-featured, in all the parts that are open source.

One of the reasons is, programmers LOVE to show how exactly and powerfully they can solve something And after a hard day doing something the boss or company has dictated, you can relax into a piece of code that you can REALLY get aesthtic about, weaving algorithms and code of haunting and enchanting power and elegance. Who needs to get paid for that? And with the collaboration that goes on, you have a bunch of geeks in Full Flight, discussing topics such as "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" (Old Tested Geek Question from the good old days).

However, open source requires Extremely Rigid and Well Tested spcifications (e.g. RFC's) or it ends up chaotic.

This is an overhead which most closed source does not have; it's design by "committee/evolution/can't help it/who knows".

Closed source has its reasons; but the most compelling of all is, the number of people out there that will die laughing when they look at your source

In the practical present case, it's abstraction layers and tight specifications that may be the biggest problem in making the client open source, though, in order to isolate the "harmless" sections from the "hackable" sections. I am not that certain that the SL client has been strictly wiritten in this layered approach.

Sometimes it surprises me the number of intelligent people that still play WoW after the sorts of stunts that Blizzard has pulled. If LL ever pulled some sort of hack like that on my system, all I can say is:
"rm -r SecondLife/"

However, I currently have faith that the LL crew are more intelligent than this...

Exactly. Beeing a drummer, and having had to play all sorts of music which I wasn't really fond of - for my wallet's sake - I always dedicated much of my spare time playing with my radical improvisation group. Without necessarily hating drumming just because I had to play all sorts of cover songs for a living. Oh, Old Skool...! You make me cry, Angel... :') (sniffsniff)

I believe they're referring to the permissions system which disallows mod/copy/xfer. In fact, the economy of SL relies not on the system, which is extremely weak, but in the belief that the system works. Sort of like paper currency.

Let me clear one thing up. As a rule, computer programmers DO NOT write code all day for money and then write more code in their spare time just for fun (A tired dev is a sloppy dev). They watch TV, play games, get drunk and do everything everyone else does with their down time.

Sure you can code round the clock, pull all nighters when you need to, but you run a very high risk of burn out if you push it (serious depression that sets in as soon as you sit in front of a computer, can take a long time to get over - some people never go back).

The time a coder spends NOT coding is as important as the time spent in front of the screen.

Whoa, so true! I'm in burnout recovery myself... not recommended.

Please speak for yourself, not for "all coders". I do spend nearly all my free time at the computer, so others might do so as well.