[sldev] The criminalization of open source

[Jason Giglio]

I was very disappointed with the Linden Lab response to VWR-1919.  For 
background, James has committed code to remove the ability to get 
texture UUIDs from the client UI.

This caving to the ignorant is tantamount to Firefox removing "Save 
Image As..." in order to "discourage infringement".

It also serves to make open source less legitimate.  No open source 
viewer build is going to cripple this functionality the way Linden Lab has.

My point is made by this comment on the bug: "And here is a prime 
example of why open sourcing the client was a noble failure and exactly 
why secondlife needs to be closed to unauthorized clients".

If Linden Lab is going to cater to the "we want a false sense of 
security" crowd, it damages the open source community.

This is only the tip of the iceberg:

1. Hiding sculptie textures on the UI.
2. Hiding media URLs in the about land box.
3. Having "permissions" on textures in the first place.


All these do is create an expectation of protection and a false sense of 
security.  It turns "open source" into the "evil tool of hackers and 
scammers".

The problem here isn't a technical one, it's that Linden Lab seems 
content allowing the expectation of the users to be unreasonable, and 
even going as far as supporting their fantasy world by hiding the truth 
from them.

It was this same mismanagement of perceptions and false sense of 
security that lead to the big copybot outcry.  Linden Lab could learn a 
lesson from that and stop creating these unreasonable expectations. 
Instead, from the resolution of VWR-1919, it's obvious that nothing was 
learned.

-Jason