What Works Really Well in SL?

[Lucia Nightfire]

15 hours ago, Nick0678 said:

Well wouldn't be so sure about the pixelsex part.. I do remember people used to f*ck giant spiders, horses, dogs and other sh*t in Second Life..

(but ok i get it "your world your imagination")

There are entire regions devoted to interspecies "activities".

Governance's public stance on the matter is as long as there is no RL imagery, it is "mostly" allowed.

 

[animats]

 

1 hour ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

There are entire regions devoted to interspecies "activities".

Useful references in that situation.

[Istelathis]

A large seamless world that is user generated and mostly user governed, I have never seen anything that quite hits that mark.  It is the wild west of the digital world, where you have a level of freedom you don't quite experience in other virtual environments.  

[Silent Mistwalker]

37 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

A large seamless world that is user generated and mostly user governed, I have never seen anything that quite hits that mark.  It is the wild west of the digital world, where you have a level of freedom you don't quite experience in other virtual environments.  

And that is what keeps SL alive.

[Nick0678]

7 hours ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

There are entire regions devoted to interspecies "activities".

Governance's public stance on the matter is as long as there is no RL imagery, it is "mostly" allowed.

I see.. Please remind me to Thank Microsoft and Meta for not giving lower body parts to their avatars.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Creativity -- art, photography, music, literature . . . or even just building cool environments for people to enjoy.

The art is a major reason I'm still here. I have fun goofing around with photography myself, and I love being blown away by the things that people create here. The arts community in SL is really pretty amazing, and surprisingly extensive.

Which is the perfect lead-in for an utterly shameless shill for one of our own, forumite @manoji Yachvili, whose amazing art -- and gallery -- was featured on Tuesday in Strawberry Linden's blog.

I'm really pretty proud to know her. And proud to be associated, even at a couple of removes, from her amazing work and passion. Manoji is one of the things that works really well in SL too. 🙂

 

Edited November 26, 2021 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Echelon Alcott]

In a way, Time's article on Second Life - "6 Lessons on the Future of the Metaverse From the Creator of Second Life" [link] - cover some aspects of what works well in SL, to be taken as a lesson for future metaverse creators.

[Randall Ahren]

1 hour ago, Echelon Alcott said:

In a way, Time's article on Second Life - "6 Lessons on the Future of the Metaverse From the Creator of Second Life" [link] - cover some aspects of what works well in SL, to be taken as a lesson for future metaverse creators.

From the article, it appears that SL works well for people with miserable real lives, which includes people in rural areas, the disabled, outcasts and people living under authoritarian regimes.

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, Randall Ahren said:

From the article, it appears that SL works well for people with miserable real lives, which includes people in rural areas, the disabled, outcasts and people living under authoritarian regimes.

Which is just the same old lazy trope .. the only people with Second Lives are those without First Lives, which is more than a little degrading.

 

[Amanda Crisp]

Hard to answer this because “how things work” is SUCH a moving target.

For a long time I’ve had the notion that LL does not communicate very well internally, leading to Improvement activities that actually make one thing better while degrading something else.

When you toss in the changes being made to 3rd party Viewers…..well…..

 

[Evah Baxton]

On 11/22/2021 at 10:09 PM, Randall Ahren said:

what did the Lindens get absolutely right?

Ownership. A stake in the game. Freedom to create and sell.

[Silent Mistwalker]

9 hours ago, Amanda Crisp said:

Hard to answer this because “how things work” is SUCH a moving target.

For a long time I’ve had the notion that LL does not communicate very well internally, leading to Improvement activities that actually make one thing better while degrading something else.

When you toss in the changes being made to 3rd party Viewers…..well…..

 

 

We wouldn't have a lot of the bells and whistles we do have it if weren't for TPVs developing the code and giving it to LL for FREE.

[Rolig Loon]

5 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

We wouldn't have a lot of the bells and whistles we do have it if weren't for TPVs developing the code and giving it to LL for FREE.

And vice-versa, of course.  The TPVs wouldn't have many features if LL hadn't developed them for the standard viewer first. The developers for all the viewers learn from each other.  And from each other's mistakes.

[Silent Mistwalker]

4 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

And vice-versa, of course.  The TPVs wouldn't have many features if LL hadn't developed them for the standard viewer first. The developers for all the viewers learn from each other.  And from each other's mistakes.

 

Exactly.  It's a symbiotic relationship.

[Coffee Pancake]

19 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

 

We wouldn't have a lot of the bells and whistles we do have it if weren't for TPVs developing the code and giving it to LL for FREE.

Yes. as in LITERALLY giving them the code, ownership and all.

Everything published in a TPV is under the GPL, this is a requirement as LL publish their code under the GPL.

LL do not just add code from TPV's, it would taint their code and bind them to the terms of the GPL, forcing them to always release source code forever. Code MUST be submitted to them under the terms of the contribution agreement, which simply put, means they own it and can license it any way they choose.

TPV developers giving code ownership to LL are not compensated.

This is why I always ask LL to publicly reaffirm their commitment to open source development at SLB events etc.

14 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

It's a symbiotic relationship.

It's an asymmetrical relationship, and not at all typical of how open source software is normally developed.

The nature of this relationship is directly responsible for the large number of TPV projects and the vast bulk of viewer work never being submitted back to LL.

[Silent Mistwalker]

21 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Yes. as in LITERALLY giving them the code, ownership and all.

Everything published in a TPV is under the GPL, this is a requirement as LL publish their code under the GPL.

LL do not just add code from TPV's, it would taint their code and bind them to the terms of the GPL, forcing them to always release source code forever. Code MUST be submitted to them under the terms of the contribution agreement, which simply put, means they own it and can license it any way they choose.

TPV developers giving code ownership to LL are not compensated.

This is why I always ask LL to publicly reaffirm their commitment to open source development at SLB events etc.

It's an asymmetrical relationship, and not at all typical of how open source software is normally developed.

The nature of this relationship is directly responsible for the large number of TPV projects and the vast bulk of viewer work never being submitted back to LL.

 

Yes, it is an asymmetrical, symbiotic relationship. I didn't mention the contribution agreement because it wasn't relevant to my comments at the time.

So many projects and so few ever make it into the official viewer. In one way that's a good thing as it helps to cut down on bloat.

[Orwar]

29 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Code MUST be submitted to them under the terms of the contribution agreement, which simply put, means they own it and can license it any way they choose.

   Which doesn't sound too dissimilar from uploading any content into SL .. 

[Lucia Nightfire]

At least we got perfected bouncing boobs, butts and guts out of it.

Now if only we could get insertable/manipulatable IKs so two people of any height and arm length can hold hands, hips and other things. 😉

[Adam Spark]

Logging in, building, creating landmarks, notecards, scripts, ect. All work pretty close to perfect. Avatar customization is a fairly flawless effort. Changing clothing is only slightly less flawless. Ecommerce is almost perfect, outside of the rare and easily fixable apparent loss of linden dollars (the viewer showing ??? instead of your balance, which is still there on the server).

To be fair, its astounding that SL works at all. I've learned to embrace the lag and all its quirks while enjoying the fact that it remains operational. That feat doesn't get the credit the Lab deserves, and is not lost on me.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

Renewing premium. After several ears of having to muck around in Paypal converting pounds to dollars and doing a push payment after getting all the "There is a problem with your account" messages, this year it just glided smoothly through, no need to convert, just a nice email thanking me for renewing. Phew.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Profaitchikenz Haiku

[kevin350]

What's important to understand is that SL, as a case history, clearly illustrates the difficulties and problems every "metaverse" will face in its development/growth curve.

A functioning metaverse needs some essentials:

1) An economic engine and currency - that operates globally, is safe/secure, navigates global financial regulation and promotes easy trade and commerce.

2) Governance; to create community where commerce and innovation can occur as freely as possible while being protected from the negative impacts of lawlessness.

3) 3D Technologies that function within the scope items 1 and 2 and attract a user and creator community that operates profitably enough to continue.

The challenges, discoveries and solutions developed by LL and its community of users and creators define what a metaverse is and how complex and difficult it is to create and maintain.

What did SecondLife do well?  It walked the path - and it's still here.   That, in itself, should be apparent to everyone that's been in the community for a while.

LL created a Digital Currency (ie; stable coin) that's at the heart of the economic engine (before blockchain was developed).  That currency fueled development and flows easily to and from fiat currencies.

SL Governence/TOS has navigated from the early Wild West days on the Grid (where pedo islands, illegal gambling and money laundering occurred) to a state where adult activities can still thrive without the heavy hand of social censorship found on other platforms.

As other entities jump into the metaverse they will face the same challenges.

Facebook promoted and bailed on their crypto development.  Obviously, their corporate wealth can't make every innovation bend to their every whim.  

Facebook can barely govern a dynamic news feed let alone govern a metaverse.  Hell, they can't even provide acceptable customer service for paid advertisers and every "developement" Facebook has had in 10 years, they've purchased - not developed.

They only thing META, that Facebook comprehends is how to pilfer user meta data and sell it.  It will be interesting watching his legless universe struggle.  

In short, there are a lot of new and exciting things happening in technology.  Blockchain, crypto, NFTs, etc..

Whether LL will bridge to these technologies, I assume will be subject to laws 1 & 2 of the metaverse.  

Having survived 18-years is no small accomplishment. 

"Open Worlds" require more user knowledge and responsibility.   I laugh when I see NFT land sell for a million dollars. If SL is too "difficult" for an average user,  how common are users that can navigate an ETH purchase on an exchange, transfer it to a digital or cold wallet, trade it for wrapped ETH on a Polygon DEFI Exchange then purchase a Race Horse or Crypto Kitty on OpenSea.

The "future" of the metaverse is further than anyone thinks.

SL is still further along than any of them.

Edited December 9, 2021 by kevin350

[Qie Niangao]

33 minutes ago, kevin350 said:

Facebook promoted and bailed on their crypto development.  

There's some reason to suspect that "Meta" is more about hedging crypto bets than it is about the Oculus VR/AR "metaverse" window-dressing. Zuck is just keeping his crypto powder dry, after the dismal failure of the "Libra" consortium (the ashes of which he renamed "Diem"*).

Elon wags one way and all the little billionaires join whatever seems to be the hunt. Jack Dorsey, for example, makes a BLOCKchain of Square on his way out of Twitter, just in case it's the right bet. (Spoiler: It's not.)

____________
*presumably for Dead Poets connotations, not Diệm).

[kevin350]

32 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

There's some reason to suspect that "Meta" is more about hedging crypto bets than it is about the Oculus VR/AR "metaverse" window-dressing. Zuck is just keeping his crypto powder dry, after the dismal failure of the "Libra" consortium (the ashes of which he renamed "Diem"*).____________
*presumably for Dead Poets connotations, not Diệm).

Well, his attempt to make himself self-proclaimed king of the universe is already failing. Meta is now Omni - which is bigger than Zuck.  All hail the mighty Omniverse!  It goes to 11!  Zuck is one lower.  

[manoji Yachvili]

On 11/26/2021 at 9:59 AM, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Creativity -- art, photography, music, literature . . . or even just building cool environments for people to enjoy.

The art is a major reason I'm still here. I have fun goofing around with photography myself, and I love being blown away by the things that people create here. The arts community in SL is really pretty amazing, and surprisingly extensive.

Which is the perfect lead-in for an utterly shameless shill for one of our own, forumite @manoji Yachvili, whose amazing art -- and gallery -- was featured on Tuesday in Strawberry Linden's blog.

I'm really pretty proud to know her. And proud to be associated, even at a couple of removes, from her amazing work and passion. Manoji is one of the things that works really well in SL too. 🙂

 

Thank you Scylla ❤️