[sldev] Re: [ARCH] Permissions

[Argent Stonecutter]

From: John Hurliman <jhurliman at wsu.edu>
> Speed limits work not because there is a sign on the side of the road,
> but because there of patrolling officers and radar/laser guns and  
> court
> fines.

We have those, from the DMCA down to the TOS. The officers might be  
pretty lax right now, but they're not completely absent, and people  
act as if they were there even when they're not (just like in the  
real world, come to think of it). They'll need to be able to post  
signs you can't miss seeing to operate at the edge of the grid.

> There is a very good discussion to be had here about social
> solutions to the problem, but I don't think it affects the  
> evolution of
> the architecture technical spec.

In so far as the spec has to be able to support some mechanism for  
regions to negotiate whether they're going to permit content to leave  
(or for that matter enter) *on a per-asset basis* it does.

From: "Andre Roche" <roamingryozu at gmail.com>
> With that question in mind, is there good reason why at least a
> cursory permissions system with cursory enforcement by the official LL
> client shouldn't be standard, aside from the DRM just doesn't work
> argument?

I can't think of any, so long as it's possible for the region to  
notify the client what permissions apply in that region where they  
don't match the SL standard... so you don't get to CompletelyOpenGrid  
and discover that the client is keeping you from reading the source  
to a script just because it's in an object you don't own.

That is, I think the policy needs to be that the region is the  
arbiter of permissions, and the creator of an asset is the arbiter of  
what kind of regions they're willing to let their content be  
delivered to, and the architecture should make sure that this is  
possible.