Make LSLwiki.org the "official" LSL wiki

So we should just write about each function from memory? How would you possibly go about this without "infringing" on the old Wiki? would it be okay to reference the original PDF documentation for LSL Language? I'd love to help but I just don't get this.

I believe the issues with unauthorized use pertain to the sample and tutorial scripts, inline explanations, as well as comments and discussions. Not the actual LSL nuts-and-bolts syntax documentation.

I'm still working my way through all the responses, but I had to laugh. Yeah Nand, I never *have* admitted to doing any kind of hard work. I'm just a lazy bum.

well I certainly hope so, but it was never explicitly stated what part was "infringing" and what part wasn't. In a way it's good to clear out the cobwebs, and have concise, accurate information, I frankly don't care how SL used to work, I want to know how it works now.

Copyright law says that factual information can't be copyrighted. We can reference the old wiki for facts, you just can't copy the expression of those facts verbatim (unless there's only one way to say it, such as function definitions).

Example scripts and library scripts that were authored by one person could be pulled out from the old wiki, but the original author should be the one to do it.

In the course of 7 hours, we've identified a problem, came together and had some meaningful discussion, proposed fixes, chose a solution, and have begun planning and implementing it... all for the betterment of our community.

Reflect on that for a moment.

It's nice to have moments like this instead of the negativism that tends to permeate these boards.

I hate copyright law sometimes. We have a huge body of work that already exists that simply needs a better host. Linden Labs is afraid to touch it because of fears of lawsuits and such. Other people are complaining that one mirror copied the data that they originally copied from somewhere else.

So this means that instead of a simple solution, to just move the wiki to a stable hosting platform, we now have to go back and reinvent the wheel because someone copyrighted the word "round".

I'm probably gonna piss some people off, and if I do then I know I'm doing something right.

Where does all the LSL documentation come from originally anyway? I'm *quite* sure that since Linden Labs is the company that hired the engineers to **create** LSL, they must have complete internal documentation as to how it works. How about they release some of this to the community as the seed for the magic new copyleft, everybody loves FREE BEER wiki?

In the meantime, we've strayed off into this esoteric argument about who owns what bits of freely contributed bits and bytes over the last few years, sidelining the original, basic fact:

I am a scripter. I need the wiki to do my work.

This wasn't even an argument until the wiki went down again.

There are more and more people coming into SL all the time now. Has anyone else noticed we're about to hit 3 MILLION registered residents? Has anyone else noticed that concurrent logins are nearly approaching 20000+ 24 HOURS A DAY?

How many of these folks who are coming to us for the first time might be interested in content creation? Didn't Philip Rosedale say at the Long Now seminar recently that over 75% of residents are also content creators? The people are going to need guidance and help to learn LSL and they are going to need a Wiki that has history to learn from, just like us.

We've all been lucky up to now. I came into SL when it was younger, and I've found a handful of good friends who have helped me along and been able to hold my hand when I needed it to become proficient at this stuff.

We're about to see the lid blow off on the number of newbie folks hitting the forums and the scripter groups in-world asking for help. Not only are they not going to care about our internal debates over who owns what comments in which particular version of whoever's mirror of the wiki, they're going to get turned off by it and LEAVE AND NEVER COME BACK. It is not going to be as easy for them as it was for us to have personal guidance all the time to learn and create.

My fear with Linden Lab is that they can decide to close their wiki again like they did last time. Like they close the forums. Like they stopped a lot of things, as the world keeps getting bigger and bigger.

I love LL and I love SL and I love the freedom to create and experiment. We need to get past this BS copyright stuff real quick and get this settled.

My original vote still stands. Take whatever passed for the official wiki before, stick it on a reliable web host, and call it a day.

Now, I'm off to code some more and run a business, since I lost my job today. Anyone hiring?

Yes, which is why it's important we clean this up and put it back on LL's servers, so we don't have to explain to them "Oh, Gigs's server is down again, sorry, find a mirror".



Having the copyright in the clear means we can easily host it anywhere, with no legal worries. Mirrors should still be maintained.



Copyright isn't BS. There is no quick way to fix this. If there were, we would do that instead. There is no safe legal way to host the wiki currently.



We've already started on the new wiki. You are free to not participate. The old wiki mirrors aren't going to go away any time soon.



I don't think you will find many employers in the software industry with your attitude that copyright is "BS" and should be ignored when it is expediant to do so.

Geuis, I happen to 100% agree with you. If you notice, everytime I say "infringing" it's in quotes, because I think it's a load of BS. However, I recognize that there *are* people who have nothing better to do in life than to spark off a lawsuit over something like this, wether they have a leg to stand on or not. You can fight a lawsuit and win, but at what cost? So I don't really blame LL for not wanting to touch this with a 10m pole.

There *is* original documentation put out by Linden Labs. I have a PDF Copyright 2003 by Linden Labs called "Linden Scripting Language Guide", attributed to Aaron Brashears, Andrew Meadows, Cory Ondrejka, and Doug Soo. Don't know who they are, but seeing how this PDF is copyrighted by Linden Labs, it seems they would have the authority to grant use, if they were so inclined. It's pretty basic, but does have some examples in the appendix. It's what I started out with before I found the Wiki, and yes it's way out of date. But better than nothing. (I can't for the life of me figure out where I found it, searched forever and can't find my original source.)

I think it ships with the client, poke around in the client directories.

lsl_guide.html is the name of the file, it should be in the root directory of your SecondLife install.

In this case, any claims of "copyright" *are* BS. I know I'm gonna have people that disagree but look at whats going on. A vast majority of the documentation in lslwiki.com, for example, are descriptions of Linden-created functions to which they own the copyright. You can only describe something in so many ways, especially code functions. How many examples of

vector x = <0,0,0>;
if(llGetPos() == x){
llOwnerSay("Cow");
}

can you have?

This information has been in the public domain for a while, several years. Anyone editing the wiki over time has done so under the auspices that their contributions were entering the public domain. Finally, the wiki has only been in the volunteer sphere for a few months, since that big database hack problem. Before that, the wiki was Linden-hosted anyway, which means that there should be some pre-existing copyright rules on any content contributed during that period of time.

Fine, move it back to Linden hosting, who cares. Just dont throw out all of the work people have contributed over the years because of non-existent, *BS* copyright fears.

Geuis,

All those people who created the pages of content on the "old" Wiki are quite welcome to put up THEIR version of the content, edited with any corrections they see fit, up on the "new" wiki. As such, nothing will be "lost".

I for one will be pointing to the SL wiki...
Aka named the LSL portal.

a Fresh rewrite is what the Dr ordered.

Not trying to pour oil over the flame, but I do remember reading a post that said that LL was the one who supplied the starting content for lslwiki.com, which included old comments, examples, revisions, etc.

I simply don't understand why it was right and proper to switch from LL's wiki to lslwiki.com which is not hosted or owned by LL if the content couldn't be distributed, and what the whole big deal it is in moving it one more time to a new permanent home since there was obviously no problem in doing it once before.

Way back a long time ago, the LSL Wiki was a private website called "Bad Geometry", or something like that (which is where "badgeo" came from in the LL version). Linden Lab offered to host the original wiki which, as far as I know, was never property of LL. Then we had the CC exploit, and the wiki was removed from Linden Lab. It landed at lslwiki.com. So it has basically come full-circle.

As for the copyright issue, the problem is not with the functions or Linden-provided content (such as the Vehicle Tutorial). The problem lies within the editorial descriptions and comments of the functions... the hints and tips that folks have posted.... links and diagrams. Also, many contributors have personal profile pages at the wiki where they store various toolbox type scripts and links.

And those are the most valuable assets of lslwiki.com. The functions along with brief descriptions are included in SL's built-in script editor, as well as editors such as SciTE. But it's the collection of years of LSL experience collected, detailed explanations and example scripts that bring people to the wiki. That information is automatically copyrighted, whether the contributor knows it or not, and must be un-copyrighted or released by the contributor before it can pass muster for hosting on Linden Lab servers.

I don't mind much where the wiki ends up, as long as it ends up somewhere reasonable and it is maintained.

I've spent a large chunk of time on the wiki in it's various places over the years. I've contributed to the writing of 70+ function descriptions, wrote most of the wiki styleguide. I've authored a half dozen libraries and contributed to the writing of another dozen (rewriting). Not to mention another 120 supporting pages that I've contributed to. Ever wonder who write those examples on the function pages?

The reason why LL stopped hosting the wiki, is not because copyright restrictions. It had more to do with administration. LL wouldn't allow anyone to administer the wiki, it got delegated to the web team, who had no interest or time to maintaining such an antiquated wiki engine. This wasn't so much of a problem until there was a bit of debate over the formating on the wiki. Neither side would back down and LL didn't step in until very late; an edit war had already take point by that time (eventual one of the parties was banned; you can read about it on his website). While LL hosted the wiki, it was just going to stagnate, and when they realized this, they gave it back to its creator.



It would be reasonable to assume the wiki is under GPL. When this was added to the WikiEtiquette I can not say, but it was before 2005-12-18

I hearby grant permission to port all of my contributions to LL's wiki.

Thanks for the history DoteDote. I'm sorry I was wrong on that aspect. The wiki is up right now at lslwiki.org, so I'm happy and therefore going to shut up now.