Group builds, deeding objects, and scripts

[Cooter Coorara]

This borders on total ignorance.  Sorry, in advance.

I formed a group to buy and sell land.  Perfect.  No issues.

I formed a group of three of us to build houses.  Perfect.  Each of us brings a talent to the group in creating remarkable buildings.  We have two homes finished and are halfway through the third when I ran into a seemingly unsurmountable problem.  Doors and boxing the build.

The door scripts from Zimberlabs and the boxing scripts from Rez-Faux will not insert into group owned objects.  The group owns the object.  I own the scripts.  Different owners.

I can't find any way to buy the scripts as a group.  In business, corporations are considered entities that can act as a person.  Not so in SL groups.  A group can be deeded objects, but why I do not know.

A group seemed like a good idea at the time.  Build something, deed it to the group, and move on.  But do not expect to transfer ownership of it no matter how amazing it is.  Only the owner of the object can insert a ZBL Windoor script into it, or package it with Rez-Faux.  Since the owner is the group, nothing can be done.

And advice before I burn the houses down?

[Rolig Loon]

SET (not deed) all items (houses, scripts, sounds, animations, etc) to the group so that you can share them freely among you as you develop a product.  It helps to make them full perm doing the development phase too, so each of you can copy, modify, and transfer stuff within the group.  When you are ready to sell a product, transfer ownership to one group member who will handle sales for the group, reset the perms as you wish, and put the product on the market.  If you sell through marketplace, you can use MP's tool for sharing the profits from each sale.  If you are selling in a shop or directly to a customer, you can write a profit-sharing script into your vendor or you can simply hope that everyone trusts the salesperson in the group to share the profits fairly.

This clean process can break down if you use some components that are built by non-group members and are not full perm.  It can also fail, obviously, if you don't trust each other.

[Qie Niangao]

Yeah, as Rolig said, don't deed stuff to the group. SET it to group, then share it so others can manipulate it (in some ways), but be very, very sure all group members in any role are fully trusted (which would be even more essential for things deeded to group, but again, don't do that).

Group-deeded objects should be very rare and only used for extraordinary purposes, generally related to specific scripted parcel operations (changing audio and media streams, booting avatars or objects from the land, counting prims of different owners, etc.).

Each group-deeded object will eventually find a new way to be problematic.

[Cooter Coorara]

Therein lies the problem.  Each house has several hundred objects linked into dozens of linksets.  The task of transferring ownership on just the linksets is monumental.

[Rolig Loon]

That's why you think through things like this before you start creating.      Changing perms and setting them to a common group after the fact is time-consuming.  Now that you are there, though, all you can do is divide the task among you and get to work.

Edited June 20, 2021 by Rolig Loon

[Cooter Coorara]

All objects are set to the group, but the ownership problem remains.  I cannot insert a script into an object owned by another.  It must be transferred.  I hoped that deeded each to the group would solve the problem.  No.  The exact same problem remains.  The scripts can only be inserted into objects owned by that person.

[Rolig Loon]

So give the script to that person.  Or let the scripter take a copy of the object to put the script in.

Edited June 20, 2021 by Rolig Loon

[Mollymews]

On 6/21/2021 at 5:24 AM, Cooter Coorara said:

A group seemed like a good idea at the time.  Build something, deed it to the group, and move on.  But do not expect to transfer ownership of it no matter how amazing it is.  Only the owner of the object can insert a ZBL Windoor script into it, or package it with Rez-Faux.  Since the owner is the group, nothing can be done.

 

And advice before I burn the houses down?

community building with group-owned (deeded) objects is best when all the assets are full permissions. And Group abilities for the builders are:

Object Management

(enabled) Deed objects to group

(enabled) Manipulate (move, copy, modify) group-owned objects

with scripts make sure that are full permissions before putting them in Contents. Group members with the above group Object Management abilities can then remove and edit the scripts in situ. They can also copy the scripts to their own inventories and from their inventory can copy to other group deeded full permissions objects

this also applies to all other asset types in object Contents

[Cooter Coorara]

2 hours ago, Mollymews said:

community building with group-owned (deeded) objects is best when all the assets are full permissions. And Group abilities for the builders are:

Object Management

(enabled) Deed objects to group

(enabled) Manipulate (move, copy, modify) group-owned objects

with scripts make sure that are full permissions before putting them in Contents. Group members with the above group Object Management abilities can then remove and edit the scripts in situ. They can also copy the scripts to their own inventories and from their inventory can copy to other group deeded full permissions objects

this also applies to all other asset types in object Contents

Thanks Molly.  I've also run into an issue with transferring ownership of certain objects created by my building partner.  Some things I can just take possession of by shift-dragging it.  I delete the copy I made, which belongs to her and which I have no problem deleting, an own the one left behind into which I can insert my scripts.  But some items I cannot and I don't understand why.  Man, I am really bad with SL permissions.  Any thoughts?

[Dyna Mole]

1 hour ago, Cooter Coorara said:

Man, I am really bad with SL permissions.  Any thoughts?

You are not the only one.  I hate dealing with permissions. I like Molly's list of suggestions about setting perms and abilities for doing group work. In addition, I would suggest ,,,

1 hour ago, Cooter Coorara said:

Some things I can just take possession of by shift-dragging it.  I delete the copy I made, which belongs to her and which I have no problem deleting, an own the one left behind into which I can insert my scripts. 

Don't do that.  I know it's easy and fast, but it doesn't always work properly.  (I don't know why, but it just doesn't.) Even when it does work, the risk is high that you will absent-mindedly delete the wrong copy.  I remember a former colleague who was notorious for doing that on our group work.  It's much safer to use Save Copy and then rez the copy from your own inventory.

[Quistess Alpha]

FWIW I'll also point out that for scripts specifically there are a multitude of version-control-systems (git, mercurial, subversion etc.) that are specifically designed to solve the problem of multiple people collaborating on a single file, and keeping track of the minor differences between each person's copy. Even for my own (non-collaborative) scripts, saving a copy to disk and doing version control on it is usually quite worth it.

 

[Mollymews]

12 hours ago, Cooter Coorara said:

Thanks Molly.  I've also run into an issue with transferring ownership of certain objects created by my building partner.  Some things I can just take possession of by shift-dragging it.  I delete the copy I made, which belongs to her and which I have no problem deleting, an own the one left behind into which I can insert my scripts.  But some items I cannot and I don't understand why.  Man, I am really bad with SL permissions.  Any thoughts?

this is caused by an asset unwittingly applied to your friends object which is No-Transfer (for next owner). Could be a texture applied to a surface, could be a linked prim could be an asset in contents. Only need one asset in the build to be No-Transfer (for next owner) for the whole object to be non-transferable. When so then it can't be drag copied or copied/taken into your inventory

 

Edited June 25, 2021 by Mollymews
(next owner)

[Cooter Coorara]

1 hour ago, Mollymews said:

this is caused by an asset unwittingly applied to your friends object which is No-Transfer (for next owner). Could be a texture applied to a surface, could be a linked prim could be an asset in contents. Only need one asset in the build to be No-Transfer (for next owner) for the whole object to be non-transferable. When so then it can't be drag copied or copied/taken into your inventory

 

Hi Molly.  Great guess.  I deleted all of the things my partner made and spent the afternoon rebuilding the interior first floor of the house.  I accidentally deleted one of her prims on the outside of the house because she was set on using one thickness walls instead of two, which is what I do.  I rezzed and sized a replacement but I could not use the eyedropper to pick up the texture she used on an adjacent piece.  I edited her piece and checked the texture and it was not in my inventory.  So I think you hit the nail on the head.  Textures do not show permissions in inventory like objects do.

[Qie Niangao]

2 hours ago, Mollymews said:

this is caused by an asset unwittingly applied to your friends object which is No-Transfer (for next owner). Could be a texture applied to a surface, could be a linked prim could be an asset in contents. Only need one asset in the build to be No-Transfer (for next owner) for the whole object to be non-transferable. When so then it can't be drag copied or copied/taken into your inventory

Specifically about no-transfer textures: Don't they "work" by actually putting the texture in the object (link) contents when applied in the Build Tool? (Might be a way to know why an object itself won't transfer.)

[Mollymews]

11 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Specifically about no-transfer textures: Don't they "work" by actually putting the texture in the object (link) contents when applied in the Build Tool? (Might be a way to know why an object itself won't transfer.)

yes this what I do with objects that I am going to give to others. I put a copy of all the textures used in the contents of the root prim. Setting the contents textures to the same permissions as the object - so that there is some consistency in the permissions for the next owner.  And they can edit and add new parts of their own making to the object and texture the new parts with the textures provided

 

27 minutes ago, Cooter Coorara said:

 I edited her piece and checked the texture and it was not in my inventory

not having the texture in your inventory is not the exact cause of the issue.  The exact cause is that the applied texture is No-Transfer (for next owner).  You can take a copy of the object as next owner, but you can't subsequently transfer (deed) the object to group. Group being the next next owner, not the next owner

when we receive an object which is Copy + No-Transfer then is not necessary for us to have the texture in our inventory, for us to be able to make subsequent copies of the object.  We just can't transfer (deed) them to group. Group being next next owner