[sldev] [AWG] [META] {EMERGENCY WILL ROBINSON] Jira for meta-grid permissions change

Lawson English lenglish5 at cox.net
Wed Jun 11 14:00:14 PDT 2008


Yesterday, I submitted this jira for a new permissions feature, which 
launched a firestorm of discussion, some of which showed that many 
people had either not read, or at least, had not understood what I was 
proposing.

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-1272

I submitted it yesterday because of last week's demo of the test-code 
that Zha Ewry IBM wrote for OpenSim to implement  the new Open Grid 
Protocol login, which allowed Zha and Tess LInden and Layla Linden to 
log into the Linden Lab Aditi test grid via the prototype Agent Domain 
server and end up on a private IBM-hosted OpenSim using the code written 
by Zha.

This, as I've called it, is the "dawn of the new virtual world 
internet," which is, IMHO, pretty darned groundbreaking.

http://zhaewry.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/happy-jumpy-ruths-interop-takes-a-step/ 


Historical issues aside, it points out the fact that the new inter-grid 
will soon be upon us and that we need to start serious discussion of 
what asset sharing (or non-sharing) will be like on the new VW Internet. 
However, LL's public discussion, letalone implementation, of asset 
permissions is way behind reality and falling further behind as we speak.

Already, copying systems are available that allow people to copy full 
permissions content from Second Life to some arbitrary OpenSim. On my 
part, I assumed that this was perfectly OK, but Lillie Yifu, in 
AWGroupies IM, pointed out that owners of a copyright generally don't 
give up all rights for their intellectual property to be distributed via 
new venues and methods, just because that venue/method didn't exist when 
they made their original agreement.

Therefore, strictly speaking, even the copying of full permissions items 
to another virtual world like an OpenSim, without explicit permission, 
is a violation of copyright law.

The following jira tries to address the issue in the most conservative, 
uncontroversial way, by making explicit the legal situation that [I 
believe] already exists with the current TOS concerning trans-grid copying.

IOW, as per Lillie Yiful's suggestion, a new permission system has to be 
implemented as soon as possible that applies one of the following three 
options to each existing set of permission flags:

Creation Grid Only [name of grid goes here]

/Trusted Grid [not currently defined, may end up being an explicit list 
or pointers to one or more  lists or names, such as "name: Trusted 
Linden Grid Network" or "name: avatar-name's garage GRID-ID: blahblah"

/any grid.


The default for this new, emergency system, must be "Creation Grid Only" 
and all new content and all existing content gets this permission 
applied automatically. In other words, NOTHING can leave Second Life 
without the explicit permission of the content creator. NOTHING. The 
fact that many builds and items might be open permissions and the 
creator is no longer involved in Second Life doesn't change the legal 
reality: they haven't given permission for their content to leave the SL 
grid and therefore it must remain in Second Life until they log back 
into their account and say differently.

I flagged the jira as "critical" because I believe that it is. I said it 
had to be done immediately because, it really should have been done 
months ago in order to prepare content creators for the reality of the 
new meta-grid.

A further provision of this new flag system should be to allow the 
ability of all content creators to bulk change  the grid permission 
flags of every existing content  that they have created, once per item. 
If they slip up and open permissions on something they didn't mean to, 
oh well. It may be impossible for LL to implement this feature, but I'm  
certain that if it is possible, it will create havok to let it be used 
more than once per item.


Obviously many details have to be worked out about what nested items 
with differing flags mean, etc., but that should have been discussed and 
vetted and tested months and months ago. The fact that we have a window 
of a few months before cross-grid TP goes live doesn't give us months of 
time to discuss these issues. The truly public discussion  needed to 
start within weeks of the first AWG meeting last year and it didn't. 
Now, programmers acting in good faith, have written products and sold  
them that violate the existing TOS and copyright law, and it is  no 
longer a simple "SHOULD" but a "MUST" to have these discussions and 
implement at least a minimal grid-permissions system. as soon as possible.

Two months ago would have been about right.



http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-1272

Create a set of permissions flags immediately that identifies "creation 
grid only [grid name]"/"trusted gird"/"any grid" to apply to all 
existing permissions settings with "creation [grid name] grid as the 
default setting

With the demonstration last week of logging into a private OpenSim from 
Second Life, the permissions issues of a "meta grid" are now real and 
have to be addressed immediately by Linden Lab. The simplest case will 
be to assume that a content creator did NOT intend for his or her 
creation to leave the Second Life grid, and the permissions system must 
reflect this for all existing and future content. If the creator does 
not set the permission explicitly, the setting is "Creation Grid Only 
[grid name]" In other words, all existing and new content created in 
Second LIfe must now be flagged "Creation Grid Only [Second LIfe Grid]", 
until the creator explicitly changes the flag.

References:

http://zhaewry.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/happy-jumpy-ruths-interop-takes-a-step/ 

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/AWGroupies-2008-06-10
10 June 2008 Zero LInden Office hour chat log








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