[sldev] Opening the server source?

[Argent Stonecutter]

On 02-Jul-2007, at 11:58, Able Whitman wrote:
> I'm sorry, but the idea of encouraging the Balkanization of the  
> grid economy is just plain silly. Certainly, independent grids  
> could have their own isolated economies. But restricting access to  
> the main grid's L$ economy is not to Linden Lab's advantage -- just  
> the opposite, it is to their advantage to encourage the L$ economy  
> to grow.

I agree. Again, I'm NOT talking about closing off the "L$ economy" at  
all. I think you and Chance and Dzonatas are completely  
misinterpreting some part of my comments here, because currency is  
completely irrelevant to what I'm talking about: there's no reason  
you shouldn't be able to buy your "Beauty and the Beast (Prince)"  
avatar in L$. That's the *easy* part.

> Every roadblock that is imposed on the transfer virtual assets from  
> one grid to another amounts to a tariff, and such roadblocks will  
> only serve to discourage consumers from investing money in an  
> economy where the feel locked in, and will in turn encourage them  
> to purchase alternate goods which are unencumbered by such roadblocks.

That is why I *explicitly* said that the creators of the items should  
be able to decide how portable their products are. As you say... if  
people see transportable products as more valuable, they will buy  
more products from people who make their products transportable. If  
they see someone's Agni-exclusive content as being worth the  
restrictions, then they will buy it even if they can only use it on  
the Agni grid.

The alternative, to make all content automatically freely  
distributable to any grid, will require solving the *much* harder  
(and in my opinion inherently unsolvable) general DRM problem. LL  
avoids that by keeping most of the restrictions in the server, and  
this server-enforced trust domain works surprisingly well. But it  
really depends on the servers all being in the same trust domain.  
Allowing people to bring open-source servers onto the Agni grid would  
eliminate that.

I think it would be MUCH better to create an environment where the  
market can determine the balance rather than pulling the supports out  
from under the whole economy in one fell swoop.

On 02-Jul-2007, at 11:18, Dzonatas wrote:
> If you really can't export your items in the practical sense, you  
> really don't own them.

Indeed. And yet people are still paying money for virtual property  
that they can't save, back up, or transport from one virtual world to  
another. On the other hand, if someone can bypass the rights system  
by simply traveling to the Ferengi Grid then what would happen to the  
economy that pays for Linden Labs to keep running the Agni grid?

The rights system is often frustrating, far too coarse, restrictive,  
and really needs all kinds of changes. There are undoubtedly better  
balances that can be found, and letting alternative systems compete  
would allow all kinds of interesting things to bubble up. But it  
won't happen if the weakest system overrides all the rest.