How to Summon a Spirit?

[Theresa Tennyson]

2 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I know all that. But what I'm talking about is *different*. It's about the culture or even *cult* of open source. You're like the guy with the 13 jugs of milk. The *culture* is to use words like "open" or "full perm" or imagine they are devoted and selfless to humankind but the reality is "benevolent dictator" and all kinds of arcane prescriptions and clawbacks.

Theresa, God can see into any script, anywhere, even though He does not work for Microsoft. Did you realize that?

Copyright is another issue.

Then why do you keep writing things in such a way that it makes you look like you don't?

A bulldozer won't turn into a butterfly just because it has the word "Caterpillar" written on it. When did Innula and Rolig say that they are part of an open source culture as those terms are used, and which you rail against?

And God can see into any heart and soul too. Did you realize that?

[Rolig Loon]

22 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Well, that's a useful distinction to keep in mind. 

But Inna didn't say "after I get done tinkering with this some more I'll put it in the Library, but meanwhile here's my rough draft". She said nothing, then IM'd me privately inworld and said "Here it is, but don't put it on the forums because we don't like doing that."

I'm usually cautious about inferring other people's motives, but in this case I'm going to guess that Innula -- being a kind person -- made a script for you as a courtesy rather than walking you through the process here.  In retrospect, leaving it at that would have avoided opening a can of worms to describe what has been general practice in this forum longer than either she or I have been here.  It is healthy to be forced to articulate things like this every once in a while, however, to be sure whether we all share the same sense of direction. We each see the forum from a different perspective, so we don't always respond to posts in the same way.  What Innula and I and others have described, though, is a philosophical approach that has served SL scripters for well over a decade and that seems compatible with whatever Linden Lab -- in its largely hands-off fashion -- expects here.

Edited January 18, 2018 by Rolig Loon

[Theresa Tennyson]

6 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I simply strenously disagree with your notion of the "mission" of this forum. On the face of it, it can't be just "for scripters and people who want to learn to script" but also has to be for "people who need scripts to put into things who have at least that level of skill". This is a number of people that nowadays you can probably count on two hands. So it just seems nuts to discourage them.

Title and description of this forum:

LSL Scripting

Discuss scripting tips and techniques with other inworld developers.

So, on the face of it, that's exactly what it is.

[Prokofy Neva]

@Rolig Loon -- sure, Inna out of the goodness of her heart made a script because I asked, she thought it was cool, and it was a light and sweet thing -- until it wasn't.

Because then I couldn't refer to it on the forums, and would have to manually give it to each person separately, too or put it inworld where it might get attention. 

The name of the forum says "Discuss scripting tips and techniques with other inworld developers" -- i.e., you, too, must be a scripter to take part in this discussion.

It doesn't say "Discuss scripting tips and techniques with inworld developers" so that you as a non-scripter, or a newbie can get help with some other goal of yours -- making your business work, making a fun sim, or whatever.

And so it privileges the creators, the makers, the coders -- which is the essential, inherent problem at the core of Second Life -- dare I say Feted Inner Core.

And it's why user numbers don't go up, forum use is a tiny minority (as in most gaming world forums) and so on. A highly-motivated ingroup repels those who don't fit -- unless through their benevolence they are admitted, either for actual or feigned altruism.

As I said, there's a tiny minority of hardy people who try to do things in SL who aren't scripters or creators but secondary users of these things, but who push to understand more about them and use them in different ways. But it's kind of the fun of SL itself for this group of people. Unlike other worlds and games, you can have the thrill of making even a simple thing, even if it is only recolouring a curtain or making a spy ID to put on a desk out of a texture you upload. 

Sharing in that thrill of creation that is the secret sauce of SL is what keeps many people at the next layer beyond the core here. Yet they have to have nerves of steel and the tough skin of an elephant to persist because of the closed nature of the society.

I'm not sure the Lindens get this, as their mantra through at least the last three CEOs has been to privilege and encourage only skilled creators, make things for them, keep them engaged as prosumers, and them figure that the masses will stampede in when there is compelling content.

That kind of society was typical of the Renaissance Age but it went away in the Iron Age... Somebody once said SL is like a RenFaire...

I don't know how to make the Lindens care about this category of people -- hobbysumers or however you should call them -- and I already long since learned that with very few exceptions, the class of scripters is not one that will care unless you rarely manage to pet their fur in the right direction.

So it's all part of the erosion of SL's joy that diminishes it from year to year, makes people leave, empties out your friendship list and so on. I try not to let it get to me.

Edited January 18, 2018 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Title and description of this forum:

LSL Scripting

Discuss scripting tips and techniques with other inworld developers.

So, on the face of it, that's exactly what it is.

well, great minds thing alike, I just posted that very point. However what you are NOT accounting for is the learning curve, the trajectory, where a brand-new, eager newbie, perhaps even a programmer in real life but not yet a master of the arcane LSL, comes on the forum. 

Who decides what is an "inworld developer"? 

If I take 50 sites in my land preserve and develop them in the sense of laying out content on them, arranging freebies or activities, trying to provide some interest in SL, that doesn't get to be called "developer"? Oh, hey, I have long since learned that *it does not*. A developer is only someone on the list called "Solutions Providers" that Linden cleared some years ago, remember? Who actually knows computer programming or Blender.

In any event, I'm pretty much discouraged from coming back to this forum unless I have a very, very specific technical question like "Very Slow Script".

I'll try not to get any big creative ideas and impose them on you again LOL. Fortunately, I have a loose network of inworld scripters and creators I turn to, and discuss things with, and even pay from time to time, so it's all good. For example on my own blog I'll mention one woman in particular (since you can never mention name brands here) who spent an entire day making a rocking cradle work with those blasted rocking scripts that have all that dang XYZ axis stuff like doors, boy are those annoying. She did it just out of the goodness of her heart to add a freebie to the land preserve and a "look" to one of the areas. Of course, it didn't hurt they I was one of her regular paying customers. But still, you find this in SL. In the end, however, she had to lock up the object on perms for various reasons, in part because it involved a proprietary script she'd already had licensed on certain terms. So it meant having to have her set prims on my land in my group blah blah which can always be a little bit of a problem if they accidentally get returned and that person is no longer in SL (have had that happen a number of times).

Edited January 18, 2018 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

2 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Then why do you keep writing things in such a way that it makes you look like you don't?

A bulldozer won't turn into a butterfly just because it has the word "Caterpillar" written on it. When did Innula and Rolig say that they are part of an open source culture as those terms are used, and which you rail against?

And God can see into any heart and soul too. Did you realize that?

Let me point out one again -- and this may fly over your head, I don't know -- that I've mentioned repeatedly in this thread that there is an open source CULTURE or even CULT with certain norms and behaviors and ideas that are apart from whether someone techically "likes" open source scripts or not.

I wouldn't expect them to say they are part of a culture that has been described as negative -- they think they're positive, of course.

But once again, it's not about them. It's about what a real open society is. It's not about hiding scripts for any reason, even for the purpose of discouraging what seems like negative behavior from "grasping" or "clueless" newbies or opportunists.

McDonalds keeps putting out the free creamers, even though the homeless come and take 100 of them and get a free glass of milk that way.

Yes, God can look into my heart and see that my purpose was to put out a free script of something that I thought other people might enjoy if they made a Halloween or any kind of RP site. And God can look into Inna's heart and see that she merely meant to do a favour for something she thought was "worthwhile" instead of doing her Saduku puzzle or whatever they're called. 

But God can also see that I have the higher agenda of challenging open source culture, and He can decide whether this is good or not. And He can also see that Inna is discouraging people she thinks are greedy and rapacious which is part of open source anti-business culture, and He can decide whether this is good or not.

 

[arton Rotaru]

Commercial break!

 

[Pamela Galli]

 Reading this thread is beginning to feel a little like watching cable news. 

[Love Zhaoying]

17 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Nope, because I *pay* programmers. I ask questions in a scripters' forum expecting that if it is simple, somebody gives a one line answer. I don't have any expectation that someone writes a script for me.

And PS, this is another thing that is WRONG with open source -- the "deserving" and "meritorious" idea for "open" scripts. They're not really open unless you're "nice to scripters".

My motto has always been: "Open Source = Closed Society of Scripters"

Glad to hear that you paid @Innula Zenovka.

[Theresa Tennyson]

8 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Let me point out one again -- and this may fly over your head, I don't know -- that I've mentioned repeatedly in this thread that there is an open source CULTURE or even CULT with certain norms and behaviors and ideas that are apart from whether someone techically "likes" open source scripts or not.

I wouldn't expect them to say they are part of a culture that has been described as negative -- they think they're positive, of course.

But once again, it's not about them. It's about what a real open society is. It's not about hiding scripts for any reason, even for the purpose of discouraging what seems like negative behavior from "grasping" or "clueless" newbies or opportunists.

McDonalds keeps putting out the free creamers, even though the homeless come and take 100 of them and get a free glass of milk that way.

Yes, God can look into my heart and see that my purpose was to put out a free script of something that I thought other people might enjoy if they made a Halloween or any kind of RP site. And God can look into Inna's heart and see that she merely meant to do a favour for something she thought was "worthwhile" instead of doing her Saduku puzzle or whatever they're called. 

But God can also see that I have the higher agenda of challenging open source culture, and He can decide whether this is good or not. And He can also see that Inna is discouraging people she thinks are greedy and rapacious which is part of open source anti-business culture, and He can decide whether this is good or not.

 

Theresa Tennyson consults her notes.

So, what you're saying is you want to challenge "open source" culture (i.e. putting out publicly readable source code) by posting other people's source code publicly?

And, you pay your scripters, unless you're using free scripts you've found, which is a large portion of the time?

"Free" software isn't necessarily "open source," and "open source" software isn't necessarily "free." They're different phrases for different things and, surprisingly enough, they mean different things.

Edited January 18, 2018 by Theresa Tennyson
Extra lashes for a dead horse.

[Love Zhaoying]

10 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Let me point out one again -- and this may fly over your head, I don't know -- that I've mentioned repeatedly in this thread that there is an open source CULTURE or even CULT with certain norms and behaviors and ideas that are apart from whether someone techically "likes" open source scripts or not.

I wouldn't expect them to say they are part of a culture that has been described as negative -- they think they're positive, of course.

But once again, it's not about them. It's about what a real open society is. It's not about hiding scripts for any reason, even for the purpose of discouraging what seems like negative behavior from "grasping" or "clueless" newbies or opportunists.

McDonalds keeps putting out the free creamers, even though the homeless come and take 100 of them and get a free glass of milk that way.

Yes, God can look into my heart and see that my purpose was to put out a free script of something that I thought other people might enjoy if they made a Halloween or any kind of RP site. And God can look into Inna's heart and see that she merely meant to do a favour for something she thought was "worthwhile" instead of doing her Saduku puzzle or whatever they're called. 

But God can also see that I have the higher agenda of challenging open source culture, and He can decide whether this is good or not. And He can also see that Inna is discouraging people she thinks are greedy and rapacious which is part of open source anti-business culture, and He can decide whether this is good or not.

 

WTH? Dragging poor God into this..it’s my understanding that God cares more about your intent than your actions. Good luck.

[Prokofy Neva]

5 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Theresa Tennyson consults her notes.

So, what you're saying is you want to challenge "open source" culture (i.e. putting out publicly readable source code) by posting other people's source code publicly?

And, you pay your scripters, unless you're using free scripts you've found, which is a large portion of the time?

"Free" software isn't necessarily "open source," and "open source" software isn't necessarily "free." They're different phrases for different things and, surprisingly enough, they mean different things.

Um, no.

Um, yeah, I get it about "free as in free beer" and the difference between free and open source, and got it about 15 years ago. That's not the point.

The point is that if someone sends you a script they have put on all perms -- in this case Inna, who made the Summons Spirit script -- and they have not put any license on it saying "even though this is on all perms it has a license whereby you cannot sell it or distribute it or whatever" the convention is -- as well as the technical features of SL -- is that it is, indeed a free, open source, paid-up in perpetuity until the heat death of the sun script that the original maker cannot expect to stop anyone from passing on.

Free scripts, with all perms, of the sort, say, Alicia Stella distributes in boxes mainly for newbies, but not only newbies, have caveats/licenses on them that say "don't sell this or distribute as is". And that anyone can respect if they are law-abiding and a believer in these social conventions, as I am.

But if there is NOT any license or permissions, then just because someone says they have a thought or a feeling or they don't like grabby business people you shouldn't put it in the script library, they don't have a case. That is what you refuse to hear. There is no case here. And that's what's wrong with the culture -- that subjective valuations of classes of people (business, landlords, newbies) are invoked as a reason not to distribute a script that is open and free and not licensed not to be distributed "just because".

Open source cultists -- whether or not they love open source code as such -- use social conventions and social taboos to stop openness of open things rather than the rule of law. That is what I object to. It's wrong.

Edited January 18, 2018 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

5 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Glad to hear that you paid @Innula Zenovka.

No, I didn't, because she didn't ask for payment.

She sent me a script on full perms saying it was a hobby, a thing she did in 20 minutes instead of a crossword puzzle. I don't pay hobbyists. I pay people who have price tags on things or send me a bill. I didn't get one.

[Innula Zenovka]

@Prokofy Neva As I thought I'd explained at the time, when I give someone a script full perms, it means what it says -- you have my full permission to do what you want to with it.   

If I say that I would rather you didn't do something with it -- e.g. that you don't post it here -- then some people might think it would be only good manners to comply with the request, but it's entirely up to you what you do with it.  

I'm hoping to post a commented up and tidied-up and more generic version of the scripts in the Script Library later today or tomorrow, after I've been able to test it.

 

 

[Prokofy Neva]

@Innula Zenovka -- as I said, I didn't post it here because *as a social convention* you asked me not to. Instead, I tried to point out it's wrong to have these social conventions invoked for all-perms items in a mechanical world. Especially ideologically-driven social conventions. I am not for using social conventions to achieve what law or code should achieve, i.e. brow-beating people with freebies not to re-sell them. Don't like that they do that? Don't put them on all perms. I personally obey *licenses* telling me not to redistribute a free/permed thing, but I won't obey *brow-beating*.

Furthermore, you are only likely posting it now because of a storm of debate. You didn't want to post it because you think it encourages grabby newbies. I find that unacceptable but since "you run this section of the forums and the Lindens find this useful" as I've been told, I can't really challenge it.

BTW another scripter has already looked at and changed your script so I am sending it to you in case it's of value. 

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Um, no.

Um, yeah, I get it about "free as in free beer" and the difference between free and open source, and got it about 15 years ago. That's not the point.

The point is that if someone sends you a script they have put on all perms -- in this case Inna, who made the Summons Spirit script -- and they have not put any license on it saying "even though this is on all perms it has a license whereby you cannot sell it or distribute it or whatever" the convention is -- as well as the technical features of SL -- is that it is, indeed a free, open source, paid-up in perpetuity until the heat death of the sun script that the original maker cannot expect to stop anyone from passing on.

Free scripts, with all perms, of the sort, say, Alicia Stella distributes in boxes mainly for newbies, but not only newbies, have caveats/licenses on them that say "don't sell this or distribute as is". And that anyone can respect if they are law-abiding and a believer in these social conventions, as I am.

But if there is NOT any license or permissions, then just because someone says they have a thought or a feeling or they don't like grabby business people you shouldn't put it in the script library, they don't have a case. That is what you refuse to hear. There is no case here. And that's what's wrong with the culture -- that subjective valuations of classes of people (business, landlords, newbies) are invoked as a reason not to distribute a script that is open and free and not licensed not to be distributed "just because".

Open source cultists -- whether or not they love open source code as such -- use social conventions and social taboos to stop openness of open things rather than the rule of law. That is what I object to. It's wrong.

Guess what, Mr. Pirate? Software, like all other original work, is automatically copyrighted. If you actually were a law-abiding believer in social conventions you couldn't distribute it in a manner the copyright holder told you not to, even if it's not part of an explicit license. 

https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/faqs/software/

The only reason Innula couldn't get a DMCA takedown on it if you distributed it now is that she posted here that you could if you wanted to be a weiner. 

Edited January 18, 2018 by Theresa Tennyson

[Innula Zenovka]

58 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I am not for using social conventions to achieve what law or code should achieve, i.e. brow-beating people with freebies not to re-sell them. Don't like that they do that? Don't put them on all perms. I personally obey *licenses* telling me not to redistribute a free/permed thing, but I won't obey *brow-beating*.

Neither am I, which is why I think the only time I've ever put out anything with Open Source licence conditions attached to it was when I had to because it was collaborative project and that was the rule.      The rest of the time I hope that people won't simply stick their own name on the script and then sell the script as is (as opposed to putting the script in something, and selling the scripted object), but I'm not going to try to stop them.

Edited January 18, 2018 by Innula Zenovka

[mikka Luik]

A little late but yes. No good deed goes unpunished. And i will be fooled again but hey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHhrZgojY1Q