Category: News

Mything the Mark

Posted on by Inara Pey

I thought I’d flip the topic around, Mark Kingdon opened when giving a keynote address (via MetaMeets TV) to the MetaMeet conference being held in Dublin, The topic being ‘Old Myths and New Realities’, and talk about some of the new myths that are forming about Second Life today and some of them are new myths that I’ve been helping create; and since I’m helping to create these new myths, I’d like to try and debunk some of those new myths…

What follows is a 22-minute insight into the future of Second Life directly from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

And it is both a fascinating and worrying insight into how those at the top see SL developing over the next year or so.

On the fascinating / welcome side of things Kingdon is candid in his view that while the core emphasis of his tenure to date at LL has been a drive to bring in new users, he is well aware that this is not enough to ensure the continued growth of the platform. Indeed, he openly states both consumers (“new users”) and creators are vital gears in the engine of SL’s economy, and both need to be supported. He then goes on to point to shared media as being a prime example of supporting creativity in SL and the forthcoming (i.e. end-of-year) arrival of mesh imports.

But then things start to get a bit worrying, as Kingdon intrinsically links “creativity” in SL with “art” and the Linden Endowment of the Arts (LEA). The LEA is a hand-picked group M and his colleagues have determined to be the “thought leaders” in the SL arts community to set a direction and curate submissions which we can display in our new arts centre. so Linden Lab’s contribution to this venture is going to be to contribute land…and lot of sims…maybe 70 sims…

BOING!!!

SEVENTY sims? Pardon me, but that is one BIG land mass. Now, art in SL is not a new thing – as Kingdon notes – and much of it is currently supported out of the artist’s own pocket (in terms of tier payments) or- more pertinently – by sim owners themselves who lease & run arts-related sims entirely out of their own pocket. If nothing else, the prospect of having to compete with up to seventy sims being provided (apparently) gratis to the arts community is something of a slap in the face with a large, wet fish for those who have supported arts and artistry for so long and so altruistically.

And it isn’t even as if this new facility is going to by open to any and all artists within SL: the selection of whom gets to display what on these sims is to be left in the hands of what amounts to an appointed quango.

Now, obviously, when setting up something like this, there needs to be a filtering of content to some degree – but one cannot help but wonder just how the filtering of submissions to this new “art continent” will be skewed by the “thought leaders” appointed to the LEA – and how many are simply going to find themselves excluded from participation on grounds that have less to do with the quality of their artistry and more with how the LEA’s own perceptions of what constitutes both “art” – be it visual or performance – and the “artist” making the submission.

Another niggling concern that tickled my mind on listening to Kingdon arose as I casually flipped through recent e-mails…and found one advertising LL’s latest “competition”: the chance to win L$50K in return for hoping your way through the Destination Guide.

Ciaran Laval is my hero on the call to arms over Search. He’s been unremitting on his calls to get Search fixed – and rightly so; and LL are promising “incremental improvements”. But…one cannot help but look upon a sudden and incentivised (to the tune of L$50K) drive to get people to use the Destinations Guide as perhaps being indicative of something deeper: could it be that LL want people to use the DG in preference to the borked-up Places in search? If so, then one cannot help be feel concerned for those that try to maintain private art-related sims; if they are reliant on getting listed on the Destination Guide to attract visitors…they are liable to be very small voices crying out against the background “noise” of LEA-approved offerings…

Another worry that crossed my mind while listening to M on this, was whither goeth the mesh creators? He seems to strongly align “art” and “content” as being one-in-the-same. Questions have already been raised on the subject of mesh and its potential to impact the economy (and creativity) within Second Life – by both myself and others. Tom Hale himself admits that the concerns need to be addressed….are we going to see the LEA somehow involved in this as well? Combined with some new “Gold Content Providers Program”?

If so…whither then for the “amateur” content creator?

Beyond this, M did lay to rest one welcome ghost: that LL are trying to “out” everyone. The paranoid androids of the blogrum have been rattling on about this every time words such as “face”, “book”, “tweet” and “plurk” have ended up strung together in sentences uttered / printed by LL. So much so, that this isn’t the first time Kingdon has sought to slay this particular beast – but this doesn’t make his clarifications here any the less welcome. And, to be honest, while I am no “social networking” fan (I don’t facebook, I’m no Twit and I still think “plurking” to be the kind of sound a man makes after a particularly filling meal) – but I can see the value in making tools available that make broadening the social reach people can enjoy while using SL as being potentially beneficial.

Another welcome point Kingdon made was around the subject of third-party development and the recognition – at least around the Viewer – that LL cannot possibly meet the demands of every single segment of the user community in terms of wanted / needed Viewer functionality. As such, M was at pains to point out that LL in fact need TPV developers if the needs of the more experienced users are to be met, and that Viewer development is very much a symbiotic relationship – with the given caveat that LL must gate keep the safety and security of the SL environment.

If there was anything here I would really liked to have heard, it would have been that the TPV policy itself is not the end of the process: there is much going on around SL that is causing concern due to a lack of some transparency that really needs to have LL themselves to be more forthright about. While I am not suggesting that there is anything remotely nefarious about these “private sector” programmes, one cannot help but feel that much of the FUD, misinformation and outright angst that they are causing could be done away with were LL to issue guidelines to help govern such activities.

Perhaps the most fascinating element of the presentation was in Kingdon’s “look ahead”, which formed both a part of his address and an answer to a question from the “floor”. I’m not sure I go along entirely with all of the ideas and memes he set up at this end of the presentation, but there can be no denying he has a deep-seated belief in what he perceives as being the future for SL and the Internet as a whole. But that said, I’ll leave you to listen and judge for yourselves in this aspect of things.

This is the second such “free talk” event at which I’ve hard Mark Kingdon speak – and, as with the first time at his February “meet’n’greet“, I was impressed by his sincere passion for SL, although I remain genuinely concerned for the future of arts in SL. This whole LEA thing, while it has been on the cards for a while now, smacks unpleasantly of a further effort to control, define and promote by proxy, and one that if “successful” could well (like Linden Homes) see further sims thrown at it “magnanimously” by LL – to the death of “art” anywhere else in SL.

Moving towards script limits

Posted on by Inara Pey

Well, it took longer than originally planned, but server 1.38(.1) has rolled out onto the grid. With it comes new LSL extensions and (for those using Viewer 2.0 and its derivatives) the initial script management tools.

The latter take two forms: a breakdown of scripts running on a region (sim), and an Avatar’s personal script load; the former will only be visible to those “owning” land, or who are members of a group with land “ownership” (and then only on the land they “own”), while the latter should be available to anyone wherever they are in the grid.

Currently, both are limited in their meaning, because a) we don’t actually know what the overall limits are going to be for either in-world scripts or for the “pool” of resources to be allocated per server / sim to avatars; and b) the tools don’t accurately reflect Mono script usage – Mono scripts can utilise any amount of memory up to 64Kb (with the average apparently being around 9Kb), but only the 64Kb reserved for a Mono script (whether or not it is using less) is reported. Thus, Mono scripts currently appear to be hogging resources, when this may not be the case.

A further problem with the current tools is that, when looking at in-world script usage, they are simply too broad-based. Details can only be displayed for the entire region rather than for individual parcels. Hopefully, this will become more granular in the future, but for now it does possibly invite the kind of knee-jerk reaction the promotion of Avatar Rendering Costs created (albeit on a far smaller scale, given the limited access to script information), with people with access to the information screaming blue murder at the sim owner because a) the sim is laggy, and b) their neighbour is running XX “gigantic” scripts, and so must be responsible for the lag.

Access to the in-world script list is obtained by going to ABOUT LAND and then clicking on the SCRIPT INFO button in the GENERAL tab of the About Land pop-up.

Script Info - Land (note avatar names purposefully hidden to preserve individuals' privacy)

The list can be sorted in a number of ways – by script size or via avatars names (alphabetically ordered by first name, etc).

There are three buttons on the list – REFRESH – self-explanatory; HIGHLIGHT – which allows an object to be “red beamed”  after selecting it on the list, thus allowing its physical location to be confirmed) and RETURN – which allows an object highlighted in the list to be returned to the named owner’s inventory. In the case of this last item, I sincerely hope the functionality is restricted to SIM owners / Estate Managers, for obvious reasons.

At the top of the list is a small information area entitled “Parcel Script Memory” – possibly indicative that the display will be further refined to parcel level, rather than listing the contents of an entire sim. This section also gives a practical indication that script limits have not been set, as it will report that the sim is using XXXXXXXKb out of 0Kb.

For those who are not land “owners”, their personal script info can still be accessed through one of two ways: either via the SCRIPT INFO button in the GENERAL tab of ABOUT LAND, or via the SCRIPT INFO button that is displayed in the APPEARANCE editing window. Clicking on the MY AVATAR tab at the top of the script listing pop-up will then display the relevant information in both cases.

Avatar Script Info Display

At the moment, both displays are purely informational, and will have no real meaning until final limits for scripts are set by Linden Lab.  But the process has now started, and it is going to be interesting to see how things develop and whether LL stick to their promise of being open and communicative as further elements of this new policy are rolled out.

Echoes of Bragg: Evans et al vs. Linden Lab

Posted on by Inara Pey

Tateru Nino reports over at Massively that Linden Lab is facing a couple of new lawsuits.

The latest, Evans et al vs. Linden Lab, has some echoes of the infamous Bragg vs. Linden Lab case. As with Bragg, Evans and his fellow plaintiffs are proceeding against Linden Lab on the basis of having their accounts terminated and their assets (land, content, Linden dollars) seized. Further, they are being represented by Jason Archinaco, who represented Bragg in 2007. And in a final twist, the case is set to be heard by Judge Eduardo Robreno, who heard the Bragg case.

Evans et al have commenced a class action against Linden Lab and have put up their own website. The crux of the filing calls into issue statements made by Linden Lab representatives – Philip Rosedale being primarily named – relating to the concept of land  / goods ownership which are at odds with core clauses of the current Terms of Service, which effectively deny users’ ownership of anything but IP rights. The action also relates to the manner in which the ToS has been altered over the years – up to an including the forthcoming new ToS due to come into force on the 30th April, alleging that it is akin to altering users’ title without consideration of the consumer’s knowledge or consent.

As Tateru notes, Archinaco is well versed in the minutiae of legal actions against LL, having trod the road very thoroughly in 2007; therefore it is unsurprising that parts of this action strongly echo claims made during that case.  At the time, while there was a confidential settlement, it was viewed that Robreno was broadly sympathetic to Bragg’s position and ironically, it was his holdings on the matter that lead to LL re-wording the ToS (and thus possibly contributing to the current situation) – so having both involved in the Evans et al case makes it an eyebrow-raiser.

During the Bragg case, Robreno agreed with the plantiff’s position that that ToS was a “contract of adhesion”. He further noted that the mandatory arbitration process within the ToS was also unbalanced and unilaterally favoured Linden Lab. As such, many pointed to the Bragg case as being a seminal case in matters relating to virtual worlds and virtual property rights. However, Robreno added a significant caveat to his holding on the case: that the ToS could be regarded as a “contract of adhesion” inasmuch as Second Life was effectively a monopoly service: in 2007, there were no competitors to which users of Second Life could turn.

It could be argued, with some OS Grids starting to offer their own currency systems and having offered land “purchase” schemes for some while, together with the establishment of OpenLifeGrid and the the growth of Blue Mars, et al, that the monopoly situation no longer applies regardless of the technical state of such environments.

That said, the papers filed on behalf of the plantiffs present a curate’s egg of a case.

On the one hand, Archinaco clearly outlines the dichotomy between the ToS and the manner in which Second Life was repeatedly promoted (particularly by Philip Rosedale himself) through prejudicial terms / concepts such as “buying land” and “ownership”. While linden Lab has clumsily retreated from the idea of virtual ownership in the years following the Bragg case – and have finally openly moved away from the concept within the forthcoming ToS through the redefinition of both virtual land and the Linden dollar as effectively being licenses. I use the term “clumsily” quite deliberately; while terms like “buy” and “own” have been expunged from the new ToS, Linden Lab are still using them elsewhere:

As such, the action is being filed under (among others) the Californian False Advertising Act and the Violation of Legal Remedies Act, and Archinaco does build a pretty solid case to be answered in the former, although he seems to rely heavily on Bragg vs Linden Lab in the latter – and as noted, times have moved on since 2007. While I acknowledge I’m not a lawyer, the inclusion of the Californian Unfair Competition Law might not be as effective as it might have been had this action followed directly on the heels of the Bragg case (at least for Evans’ fellow plaintiffs).

Elsewhere, the papers make some rather contentious claims, possibly to support the charge of fraud and/or fraud in the inducement. Notably, the papers contest that Second Life as a whole has been “open sourced” so that (quote): any individual can simply hook up their own server to the Linden “platform” and create their own land, which has resulted in the long-term devaluation of all the land purchased by consumers to zero. This is hardly an accurate statement: as a platform, Second Life remains closed, only allowing third-party clients to connect to it – not privately owned servers. As such, this is a shaky foundation upon which to build a case for Linden Lab fraudulently manipulating the land market for the benefit of their shareholders.

The papers also seek to make a case that buying virtual land is the equivalent to “investing” in LL as a company, and that moves were made to devalue land in order to maximise shareholder profits at the expense of said “investors”. This would again appear to be somewhat contentious: by no stretch of the imagination can the “purchase” of virtual land been seen as an open “investment” in Linden Lab as a company; this is akin to claiming that by using server space to host a website, you are “investing” in the ISP providing the server space with an eye to sharing their profits….

But these wider accusations towards Linden Lab aside, the central thrust of the lawsuit would seem to carry significant weight, and the well-documented references to statements from the likes of Philip Rosedale and others would seem to put Linden Lab in a corner – one which, as Tateru notes, may not leave them in an adequate position to settle.

That said, one cannot help but wonder if settlement might not be on the minds of the plaintiffs. That some of them have waited some 4 years to file against LL, having had their accounts terminated in 2006, and have now done so on the eve of what is a major re-alignment of policy within the ToS does leave a question mark hovering over their motives.

It is going to be interesting to see how this unfolds.

New ToS released

Posted on by Inara Pey

M Linden has announced the release of a new SL Terms of Service (ToS), that will come into effect from the 30th April 2010.

The timing is interesting, as it coincides with the Third Party Viewer (TPV) Policy going into effect, and it is interesting to note that M’s post also refers to all the policies relating to the ToS as being “new” (i.e. updated).

As to the ToS itself, the language has evidently been cleaned up with a view to making it somewhat more comprehensible – even if the document is much longer than the older ToS.

However, longer does not automatically mean better.

Overall, the ToS appears to encompass something of a paradigm shift that has been hinted at in various blog postings from LL for a while now: that they no long consider themselves a platform provider, but rather a service provider, licensing aspects of their service for use, ostensibly as the user requires them.

Some elements of this move appear to be “good” – on the land front, for example, we finally move away from the absurd and highly misleading notion that “land” in Second Life is “owned”. In the past, this has given rise to all sorts of misconceptions and ranting within the official flogs.  The new ToS makes it clear that the acquisition of “virtual land” and the fees relating to the same are now effectively a licence to use LL’s server space and fees relating to the use of that space.

That said…this blatant move it liable to cause massive upsets: Linden Lab have long promoted the concept of “ownership” within Second Life – while the ToS has tended to make it clear users don’t actually “own” anything beyond IP rights to their own creations. As such, the ToS was found to be coercive during one famous case. While times have changed, one can well see the move to “licensing” land to be a causing of much potential upset in some quarters.

Similarly, the new approach is liable to cause much gnashing of teeth where Linden dollars are concerned, inasmuch as any fiscal value associated with them has now been almost completely stripped away up until they are actual converted to “real” currency and withdrawn. One cannot help this a) has been done to reduce the prospect of litigation following future account terminations; and b) will vastly reduce the funds people are willing to hold in their accounts.

These implications are potentially bad enough; then things get worse. Section 7, dealing with content, is perhaps the most confusing aspect of the new ToS, in that it appears to have been written around the God-awful “Second Life as the web” paradigm many at LL seem so in love with (and which is in keeping with their shift in now regarding themselves as a service provider along the lines of an ISP). As such, licences, rights, etc., are all talked about in terms of “uploading”, “publishing”, “submitting” and so forth, vis: You retain any and all Intellectual Property Rights you already hold under   applicable law in Content you upload, publish, and submit to or through the Servers, Websites, and other areas of the Service, subject to the rights,   licenses, and other terms of this Agreement, including any underlying rights   of other users or Linden Lab in Content that you may use or modify [my emphasis].

But what of content created in-world? The ToS implies that content created in-world (prim linksets, LSL scripts written in-world, etc.), fall outside of this section and thus are by default the property of Linden Lab. Even Section 7.6, relating to IP rights limit’s the user’s ownership of such rights to content you upload, publish or submit to the Service.

If this is the case, then it is worrying on several levels – both for users and potentially for Linden Lab.

Elsewhere, the new ToS introduces the TPV Policy in what is again bound to cause outrage. As I’ve mentioned previously (and more than once), the TPV is flawed in that the TPV confuses the use of third-party Viewers with the development of said Viewers. This has already given rise (rightly or wrongly) to outpourings of scorn and hurt from third-party Viewer developers  – and it now looks set to do the same with users of such Viewers. One can – to a point – see why the two have been mixed: TPV code is open-source and thus moddable – not only by the original developers, but by users why are so inclined.

Even so, it would have been far better had LL restricted the TPV policy itself to developers and the development of TPVs, and included a short, unambiguous section on users’ responsibilities in the use of TPVs within the body of the ToS. This would have scored two quick wins: i) it would have enabled LL to simply specify what users cannot do to existing TPVs without getting confusingly embroiled in deeper development issues; ii) it would enable developers to more clearly state their own EULA to ensure they both remain within the confines of the TPV Policy and limit their liabilities in the face of those determined to hack their code for malicious ends.

It’s also hard to fathom the policy around snapshots and machinima. Promoted by LL as an “aid” to such work, the entire policy looks set to achieve exactly the reverse. People are already trigger-happy with the AR option when it comes to “copybotting”; one dreads to thing what will happen when folks start innocently taking snapshots of one another as they hope around places that interest them and others start getting objectionable…..

The biggest problem with the new ToS is that while it is cohesive pretty much of itself, some contradictions are apparent – most notably between the ToS and the supporting policies. The ToS also absolves Linden Lab of virtually any and all liabilities – even in the case of them either turning off SL with no warning, or simply being so grossly negligent that they completely break the platform; at the same time, it enforces liabilities upon user even after they cease using the service. Hard to see either of these surviving a court case intact.

One can no longer doubt that the times are a-changin’ – but the question really remains as to how much this new ToS will really affect the overall use of SL. On the one hand, I can see elements giving problems, as mentioned above vis photos / machinima and possibly the use of third-party Viewers (possibly because the majority of “new” users will be driven down the Viewer 2.0 route), but I honestly suspect that – as with past upheavals in SL, life will go on more-or-less with an air of “business as usual” as the dust surrounding the new ToS settles. At least until the first lawsuit pops up.

Unless, of course, LL themselves see fit to rock the boat to the point of capsizing it themselves.

TPV: First casualty

Posted on by Inara Pey

imprudenceImprudence issued a statement earlier this week that they are withdrawing from Second Life as a result of the Third Party Viewer (TPV) Policy. In the statement, they set out their reasons as to why they are withdrawing, pointing to clauses 2b, 4a(i), 4b(iii), 7a and 7d, and 8c and 8d as being “unreasonable”.

Having gone over the TPV a number of times, I have to say I find Imprudence’s position for the most part hard to understand, as their interpretation of four of the clauses then mention seems to be wilfully subjective and misleading; while their reaction to two more of the clauses seems to lack any professional clarity of thought.

Imprudence state that (4a)i, (4b)iii, 8(c ) and 8(d) require us to promise to obey Linden Lab’s every future whim and that as such, the Imprudence team are unwilling to make such broad promises, not knowing what they may request.

This is a very sweeping statement, with Imprudence further claiming that 8(c) requires that they agree to stop using or distributing the viewer at Linden Lab’s request and that 8(d) requires that they agree to add, modify, or remove parts of the viewer at Linden Lab’s request, within a time frame dictated by Linden Lab.

However, these claims can best be described as over-exaggerated. Here is what clause 8c actually states:

If a Third-Party Viewer or your use or distribution of it violates this Policy or any Linden Lab policy, your permission to access Second Life using the Third-Party Viewer shall terminate automatically. You acknowledge and agree that we may require you to stop using or distributing a Third-Party Viewer for accessing Second Life if we determine that there is a violation.

Note my emphasis: the qualifier is clear. If a third-party Viewer breaks the TPV Policy, the Linden Lab require it no longer access Second Life. This is far short of Imprudence’s blanket assertion that Linden Lab require they “agree to stop using or distributing the Viewer” – a denial of access to Second Life clearly does not prevent them from continuing to distribute their Viewer for use on OS Grids, etc.

Similarly, clause 8(d) states:

If you are a Third-Party Viewer Developer, you agree to provide any content, data, executables, or for Third-Party Viewers based on our viewers, any source code that we may request to verify compliance with our policies, licenses, the GPL, or the law. If we believe that your Third-Party Viewer is not in compliance, we may request that you add, modify, or remove features, functionality, code or content, and you agree to comply with the request within a reasonable timeframe specified by Linden Lab.

Again, note the qualifiers I’ve emphasised. There is really nothing unreasonable here – if you wish to play in Linden Lab’s sandbox – which, by connecting to their servers and services a Developer is in fact doing – then sorry, Linden Lab have the right to ensure, so far as is possible (or, as I’ve stated elsewhere, give the perception they are ensuring) that your code does not constitute a threat to their services in and of itself  (excluding, obviously, mods any user introduces – which the Developer should again be able to prove relatively easily via the provisioning of their own source code).

Similarly, it is hard to see why Imprudence should be so upset of clauses 4a(i) and 4b(iii). Clause 4a(i) refers  to data received from Linden Lab’s servers – data for which Linden Lab has certain legal responsibilities (likely to be both State and Federal in nature (such as data privacy laws). As such, their various policies, terms of service, etc., must reflect such requirements  – and by extension, they need to ensure (or again, give the perception) that they are doing all they can to ensure that this data is protected when used by the software connecting to their servers.

Similarly, clause 4b(iii) relates to the protection of user data and makes a perfectly reasonable request that third-party developers take steps to ensure such data is kept secure when passing through their systems (and remember, if you use their Viewer, your login information, etc., goes through their servers). As such, it is in Imprudence’s best interests to ensure such data is protected at least to the same degree as on the Linden Lab servers. It is hard to see Linden Lab being so stupid as to issue requests for user data protection that exceed their own, and frankly – one would hope that Imprudence already have the necessary safeguards in place to ensure the data is as secure as possible.

Given that both these clauses relate to potentially sensitive data, I find it hard to accept that Imprudence, as responsible code developers would find a request to take reasonable steps to protect such data objectionable.

Indeed, in this, I find Imprudence’s own assertion that If and when Linden Lab makes any request of us, we will use our own judgement to decide how best to handle that particular request to be at least as presumptive and arrogant as anything in the TPV – even to the point of suggesting that if they see little need to protect user data, then that is their call, and nothing to do with either Linden Lab or the users of the Imprudence viewer.

Frankly, when all four of these clauses are viewed in their proper context, it is very hard to see how any professional software developer would find them in and of themselves reasons to reject the TPV Policy. That the Imprudence team opt to refer to the clauses somewhat out of context and apply highly subjective interpretations to them suggests that it is the thinking at Imprudence that is at fault, not the thinking behind the policy itself.

Clauses 7a and (d) have been the source of much wailing and gnashing of teeth across the Viewer development community, but again – as I’ve previously said – it is hard to understand why. While 7(a) is indeed poorly worded, and unnecessarily mixes Viewer use with Viewer development – there is absolutely no reason why the entirety of Section 7 of the TPV cannot be handled by a Viewer developer issuing their own EULA as a part of the distribution / installation package. A responsibly written EULA would clearly protect the developer for undue liability, and wouldn’t be in violation of GPL.

Certainly, it is what Kirstenlee Cinquetti has already done with her Viewer – and I’m pleased to see at least one voice of reason on the Imprudence website has raised the same point.

Which brings us finally to clause 2b. And here Imprudence have a point. As stated, the TPV Policy effectively restricts the export of content from SL to the creator. Period. If the user’s name is not on every prim, every animation, pose, script, contained in a linkset or whatever – then it isn’t going to be exportable.

This does – to be fair – read as overly restrictive. As if one is to remain fair, the clause seems to be less related to preventing content theft as it is about preventing “valuable” content being removed from Second Life per se – which LL have always looked less-than-favourably upon. Frankly, it is hard to fully justify LL’s stance on limiting content export so tightly: this automatically disallows the export of Group-created content for the purposes of back-up, and also disallows the export of content created by one person but sold under a license agreement to another. As such, I can see Imprudence’s concerns – just as I can see the issue LL face in trying to invoke the perception of protecting people’s creations when given the crudeness of the ownership / permissions system.

I doubt Imprudence will be the last of third-party developers to walk away from the Second Life sandbox. Each one that does will be a loss to the community to some degree, to be sure. How many do so on the basis of rational thinking as opposed to acting in a fit of pique, however, remains to be seen; and I have to say that having gone through the stated reasoning behind Imprudence’s move, I do feel it is a case of pique getting the better of them.

Scripts limits announced

Posted on by Inara Pey

Jack Linden – possibly as a part of his new role as Executive Director, Consumer Products today blogs about the upcoming server-side scripting limits.

These have been the source of much hype, debate, guesswork and outright misinformation (not, I hasten to add, from Linden Lab) for a while now; while it is still somewhat early days, Jack’s post is welcome as it does much to set out LL’s table on the matter, and start the flow of information very positively – allowing for the fact that much still appears to be in a state of flux.

Of course, there are concerns with the approach. While scripting limits are perfectly acceptable and may well help improve sim performance on overworked servers (allowing for the virtual nature of sims themselves), the planned roll-out of the new controls does lend itself to a lot of potential misunderstandings and confusion. In this respect, I certainly hope that Jack and the team keep Phase 1 of the project – Information – uppermost in their minds.

In summary:

  • Linden Lab will be rolling out the project in three broad phases: Information – and Jack’s post can in some ways be seen as the first post in this effort, even though there have been earlier general postings on the subject by the likes of Babbage Linden; Tools – see below; and Enforcement
  • Server 1.38, due out in April will start the ball rolling with the release of script monitoring tools
  • Said tools will allow script usage to be monitored on a per parcel basis but the parcel “owner” / renter; additional tools will be provided to the sim owner / estate managers which will enable the return of objects that are taxing the sim in terms of script loads
  • Script “space” in memory will be assigned to sims in a similar manner to prims: there will be a total limit for the sim as a whole, which can then be allocated to parcels as the land is divided up.
  • Additional script space will be allocated per avatar, with an overall “pool” of resources per sim to handle avatars
  • While Jack’s post does not make this entirely clear, it appears that if the script limit for a parcel / sim is reached, additional scripted items will not work; similarly, if all resources for avatars is used, additional avatars entering the parcel / sim will find attachments do not work.

Many have debated the pros and cons of capping scripts, but the fact remains, whether we like it or not, the servers supporting Second Life all have finite resources, and scripts have never really been monitored, and have become one of the causes of server-side lag, simply because of their overwhelming prevalence.

That said, Jack’s post does leave some cause for concern over potential angst / misunderstandings / over-zealousness down the road:

  • Currently, LSL scripts are capped at 16Kb, while  Mono scripts can use up to 64Kb (but can in theory be a lot smaller than this – the average being around 9Kb according to Jack)
  • However, the new tools will initially only report on the maximum amount of memory a script can use. So, if you have four LSL scripts running, they’ll be reported as taking up 64Kb of memory. But…if you have 4 Mono scripts running, they’ll be recorded as taking up 256Kb of memory – even though the scripts may be a lot leaner than this
  • The monitoring tools will be tweaked later in the year so that Mono scripts will be able to report their actual memory usage – but initially, only the maximum 64Kb per mono script will be reported
  • The upshot of this is twofold:
    1. It gives an incorrect impression that Mono is actually more resource-hungry than LSL
    2. It runs the risk of having people single out Mono users unfairly on the basis that (whether or not parcel / sim script limits are being affected)  “they are hogging resources” because their “script usage” is “higher” – much as we witnessed people getting all het up and shouting about ARC and lag…
  • A third possible outcome of this is that when shopping (and assuming memory usage becomes a “feature” of vendors, people will opt for LSL-scripted items because they appear more memory-efficient

There are other concerns that have been raised – such as scripters being able to use the land tools to test the efficiency of their scripts (given than not all scripts own / rent land, but work in places like sandboxes where the tools – to be included on the About Land window – will not be available to them. However, it is probably this issue of actual versus perceived script efficiency that is liable to cause the greatest upset with this change, unless LL work very hard to fully and properly communicate this change to the community as a whole.

And while script limits may well be a good thing for SL overall (I’m hoping they will have the desired outcome as far as is reasonably possible) – we’ve been shown time and again that when it comes to proactive communications with residents, Linden Lab’s efforts seem to repeatedly fall far wide of the mark.