[Opensim-dev] Thoughts....

Tue Mar 4 20:47:48 UTC 2008

Burnman,

Technically your comments are off, as Michael already pointed out. They are
so off that I think they are directed at the Open Sourced LL viewer,  i.e.
at the ability for clients to get complete information about the objects
inworld to the point of being able to store them locally and to replicate
them. Note that this has nothing to do with OpenSim, strictly speaking. But
let me comment on that.

All clients get that information, or else they wouldn't be able to render
it; there is no way around that:  a representation of the couch you see on
your screen must be sent to your computer, period. In a context where you do
want to show your objects to the world, ensuring that people don't use the
LL viewer to "steal" them is impossible with technology alone. 

Other contexts are possible, however. One could add a PGP feature in which
all inworld objects would be encrypted with their owner's private key, so
they looked like garbage for everyone, except for those clients who had the
object owner's public key. There's a neat research project right there! I
bet it could be added very easily :-)

While the solution is technically feasible, what sense would it make to go
around the world seeing garbage everywhere?? Plus anyone who wanted to see
the decrypted objects would have to use an extended version of the LL
viewer, one that does decryption. Not to mention the added performance
overhead. . Again, I doubt massive adoption, but this could definitely be
done, technically.

I'm on the camp that thinks that these kinds of *technological* solutions
are silly, paranoid, and ultimately unreliable, because given enough
motivation to break the encryption, it will be broken. But at the same time
I have a lot of sympathy for your position. One cute thing about LL's SL is
that it enabled ordinary people to suddenly feel like famous entrepreneurs
and millionaires, simply by creating virtual objects that other people want.
This is part of the fantasy-game designed by LL, along with the forced
pseudonyms, the Linden "dollars", etc. I understand you want to protect that
feeling, and someone ought to protect it. I sincerely hope that will survive
in some grids, because it's empowering! Technology is the wrong approach to
do it, though, it has to be something else.

However, if these fantasies are all there is to the metaverse, we'll be in
really bad shape. We might as well wrap-up OpenSim altogether, and let LL
continue to do its thing.

Crista / Diva

University of California, Irvine

<off topic> 

The thought of going around a virtual world where everything is garbage due
to encryption is a powerful, almost artistic, visualization of real-world
paranoia and distrust. Picasso's Guernica comes to mind.

</off topic>

From: opensim-dev-bounces at lists.berlios.de
[mailto:opensim-dev-bounces at lists.berlios.de] On Behalf Of The Burnman
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 8:53 AM
To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] Thoughts....

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 5:09 AM, Michael Wright <michaelwri22 at yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:

Maybe in the future, opensim might include some DRM system as a option
people can use, or extend. But that is a long way off, we need to get the
base done first. 

I think this stage is exactly where you should be considering the most basic
concept of IP Rights protection.  I am not talking about installing a BMG
style DRM utility which actively attempts to thwart the attempts of thieves.
After my discussion with Charles the other day, a compromise of offering the
option to allow assets to be downloaded to the client for local storage or
not seemed rather reasonable.  This would allow both sides of the argument
greater control over their grids.  But moving to far in one direction will
only make it that much more difficult to explore other avenues down the
road.  Implement local asset storage without any other consideration now,
and the rest of the development will end up being based on that concept.
The wheel would have to be reinvented.

I'm sure someone will mis-understand this and take it as me saying that
opensim doesn't care about IP protection, but that is not what I'm saying.
I'm saying its outside the scope of opensim. Opensim is not a grid, its not
any single installed instance of opensim. Opensim is purely a software
platform. That overs take and make it do what they want it to do.

I disagree wholeheartedly.  I believe that considerations for IP Rights are
essential if OpenSim is attempting to set a standard for the metaverse.
While all of the hard work that has gone into OpenSim is truly impressive
and deserves much praise, at the end of the day, the content which will end
up going into the grids will be the focus of most of the users.

The cold hard truth is that the end-user looks at the web pages, not the web
browser or the server the page is hosted on.

I can see that some who have expressed their opinions here will not change
their minds, and I certainly don't believe my own position will change much
either, so this may be a futile discussion.  It will be interesting to see
what else comes up down the road which offers more to the content creator
than "you should give your hard work to society...  uh... because we want
it".

Please forgive my frustration, but I think the open-source mentality goes
too far sometimes.

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