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Cinnamon Lohner
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Well, I pointed out the more immediate things this will cause problems.  But yes, that's the more troubling thing, if a ew TPV feature is found to "Impinge on the shared viewing experience" then the devs have to go to LL, petition the change, then wait till LL adds it, which can be months till they do, if they ever.  Multi attatch and avatar physics were in TPV's for years before LL got off their butts and added it.

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Veronica SpiritWeaver wrote:

Taking away client tags ALSO takes away my ability to see that someone is using a known copybot viewer.

How?  As far as I know, most copybot viewers misidentify themselves as Phoenix or Firestorm.   It's a simple enough alteration to the xml, and several existing bona fide TPVs already let you decide whether you identify yourself as the viewer or not.    

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Bad move LL, bad move indeed.

If this is implimented and I *have* to use the "LL brand" viewer, I'll have to leave SL all together. I am sure your viewer is great but, there are better out there, with more user-enhancing features that I prefer.

I know, I am one person...who cares if I leave, right?

 

*edit* Also...I rely upon those extra attachment points. wow...Im very upset. Apologies for not getting it all on the first one

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True, but it DOES help ME, as a support staffer for Phoenix/Firestorm to tell at a glance if someone's using a product I offer support for.  there's times I am at a party, and someone comes up to me for tech support.  Many times, looking at the tag, I can see Imprudence, or LL's, which I don't give support for, and i tell them politely I don't offer support for those viewers. 

this seems more like stifling innovation, as several NOW IN LL features were offered by TPV's FIRST.  Avatar Physics and multiple attach points are the 2 that come to mind immediately.

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Im annoyed to no end about the breaking of the scripts relying on getting a users online status, i fail to see how this is in anyway, a privacy issue, when the same thing can been seen multiple ways using LL or any other viewer. This feature alone will break multiple pieces of content across the grid. Including my entire empoyee status system which relies on the function, some of the rest of which was created by people no longer in SL, forcing owners of said products to buy new versions from different vendors, when nothing was wrong with the old one. Also including some new functions recently added to the LSL library by LL that absolutely rely on being able to get a users online status.

I guess some people must still think that they have a right to privacy online and that the internet is anonymous,...

I am also absolutely livid about no more temp textures, this is a blatant attempt to increase revenue or act as a money sink for LL. I recently modded a new avatar head, I used temp uploads to test 25 textures on the head before finally settling on one, no way i would upload L$250 worth of textures to discard most of em. Some people will say that the loacal bitmap browser in some viewers will be an adequate replacment, i say it is not, part of the attraction of temp textures, was that those there with you, when you uploaded them, could also see them and 2, or more, sets of eyes is always better to spot problems. Taking temp textures and leaving us only the loacl browser, break the collaborative aspect of what temp textures was designed for.

 

Once again LL has shot themselves in the foot,... anyone who decries this move will be labeled as panicing, and hysterics,... kind of reminds me of the whole "adult content" issue, yup, that one really cleaned up the grid didnt it,.. oh wait,.. um, nvrmnd!

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Clearly Linden Lab is tired of running behind the TPVs, of having less interesting features, and above all, of having fewer users.

The viewer tags are quite useful when helping other users... but fine, we can live without them.

However, the INCREDIBLY vague 2.k can only be intended to discourage and confuse TPV developers. Since it is so utterly unspecific, any judgments based on it will necessarily be arbitrary.

This announcement is a misguided move against TPVs.

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Rage, it appears to me that the deformer project, where the alpha code has been included in some TPVs, is probably one of the tipping points for this as far as the "shared" visual experience goes. It's alpha code and yet there are products being launched in the Market that use it already.

As for posts concerning the disallowance of temp textures, I don't see how that is affected by this policy (unless there's communication from LL that I missed). It has nothing to do with privacy, and nothing to do with any kind of shared visual experience. Right now, temp textures are available from the LL viewers - on the Beta grid. TPV allow builders to upload temps on the main grid, but they are temp and disappear after a couple log-ins or a clear cache.

 

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Arwen, temp image upload has been around since Emerald days and it is just now on the beta grid? There is something horribly wrong with that picture.

 

Also, read that last section of the policy again:

"2.k : You must not provide any feature that alters the shared experience of the virtual world in any way not provided by or accessible to users of the latest released Linden Lab viewer." 

 

 It is not currently on the main grid and therefore is not available to everyone using the latest LL viewer. Thus, it is one of the features that will be broken in TPVs, unless LL relents and allows it to remain. I just don't see LL doing that in light of everything else.

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Temp uploads have been on the Beta grid for as long as I've been in SL - way before Emerald. Anyone can log into the Beta grid (try it if you haven't. Nice thing about texture uploads on the Beta grid is that they last in your inventory from one login to the next - they don't disappear - great as a reference for work). I just don't see how it breaks this policy as it is not a privacy violation and doesn't affect a shared visual experience.

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To be accurate, they're permanent uploads, but since they're on the beta grid, they're free.  .  I found out about the Beta grid very early on in SL, and I've always used it for any serious texturing -- it's too much of a hassle to relog there just to save L$10 or so, but but if I'm trying out any large quantity of textures or sounds, I've always done it on Aditi, and never really understood why people were getting so excited about being able to do something in Emerald that I'd been doing in the official viewer for ages.   Plus, as you say, they have the advantage of not disappearing.

There's a summary of the meeting by Kadah Coba, one of the Firestorm devs who was there, and who is pretty positive about it, at SLU.   Chalice Yao, who was also there, comments

"Oz specifically said anything client side, UI, RLV etc. is not affected by 2.k.

"They don't want TPVs to introduce new in-world content and effects that the rest of the grid can't see. Weird custom attachment points, different region behavior, custom object types.

"They don't care about UI, building tools, RLV, etc. etc."

And most of the TPV devs who I've talked to since, or whose comments I've read, seem, on the whole, pretty pleased with the outcome.

There's a recording of the meeting, which was in voice, at http://lecs.opensource.secondlife.com/tpvd/meeting/2012-02-24.mp3

My main reservation is that, in the process of fixing the problem with what I regard as rather creepy spy features left over from Emerald, they've broken some perfectly legimate uses for llRequestAgentData(id, DATA_ONLINE), some of which are fixable with quite simple work-rounds but others -- particularly subscribomatics and gift vendors that check if you're online before trying to deliver stuff, in case your messages are capped (if they are, the goods vanish)-- will be badly affected.   Though I've heard -- whether accurately or not -- that there are some changes in the pipeline to do with how the new Received Items folder behaves that might make this less of a problem.

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First Hollywood tries to get bills passed to kill the internet because they don't like how people online make way better stuff then they do. Now Linden Lab is disallowing features to be added to TPVs that aren't in the default viewer, in a attempt to kill TPVs because they know TPVs are way better. When will the insanity end? It's not like LL makes money off the default viewer, so let us have our features! I for one refuse to use Second Life If I'm ever forced into a state where I'm not allowed to use something like RLV. I've made so many scripts, toys, machines, avatars, clothes, and HUDs that rely on it. It's like if they suddenly disallow megaprims after all this time, or disallow renting land from other people. Not a good idea.... It's one way to chase everyone to an opensim grid somewhere where that stuff IS allowed. So lets hope we are just over-reacting, and that LL doesn't mean much by this. I would say we need a Linden to pop in and tell us the rundown on this situation in a way we can all understand it, without being so cryptic, and possibly give us an idea of which individual features do violate these new terms. However getting answers from them is like getting answers from SOE. They would much rather make the changes now, pretend to listen, and act as if everyone is happy, then to actually sit down and talk. Sorry if this post was a bit rash, but I've been here since 04, and I've seen a lot of bad decisions be made. After this long, without some type of muse to keep you happy with such changes, you develop sort of a callus attitude towards those who make such changes.

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

To be accurate, they're permanent uploads, but since they're on the beta grid, they're free.  .  I found out about the Beta grid very early on in SL, and I've always used it for any serious texturing -- it's too much of a hassle to relog there just to save L$10 or so, but but if I'm trying out any large quantity of textures or sounds, I've always done it on Aditi, and never really understood why people were getting so excited about being able to do something in Emerald that I'd been doing in the official viewer for ages.   Plus, as you say, they have the advantage of not disappearing.

There's a summary of the meeting by Kadah Coba, one of the Firestorm devs who was there, and who is pretty positive about it, at
.   Chalice Yao, who was also there,

"Oz specifically said anything client side, UI, RLV etc. is not affected by 2.k.


"They don't want TPVs to introduce new in-world content and effects that the rest of the grid can't see. Weird custom attachment points, different region behavior, custom object types.


"They don't care about UI, building tools, RLV, etc. etc."

And most of the TPV devs who I've talked to since, or whose comments I've read, seem, on the whole, pretty pleased with the outcome.

There's a recording of the meeting, which was in voice, at 

My main reservation is that, in the process of fixing the problem with what I regard as rather creepy spy features left over from Emerald, they've broken some perfectly legimate uses for llRequestAgentData(id, DATA_ONLINE), some of which are fixable with quite simple work-rounds but others -- particularly subscribomatics and gift vendors that check if you're online before trying to deliver stuff, in case your messages are capped (if they are, the goods vanish)-- will be badly affected.   Though I've heard -- whether accurately or not -- that there are some changes in the pipeline to do with how the new Received Items folder behaves that might make this less of a problem.



lol, Innula, thank you for clarifying why they don't disappear on the Beta grid. I use the temp uploads in the TPV I use, but I also go to the Beta Grid (for some reason, my textures sometimes upload corrupted in TPVs, but on the Beta grid or in the official viewer they're fine - no idea why). I saw the comments over on SLU, too. Thank you for the link to the recording of the meeting - that will be helpful.

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Instead of breaking the llRequestAgentData for all the online indicators, why not simply recode it to act like the "Grant" "Deny" functions of tip jars. Give the person in question the CHOICE to be viewed as offline or online by something. Big menu

"Do you want to allow [X Device] Owned by [X Person] To see if you're online or not?"  [Yes] [No] [Mute]

Simple as that. Granted, I'm not a scripter or a coder, but I'll bet that doing this will make far more people happy than the people you're about to piss off by breaking that.

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meow :)

 

There would not be a need for TPV is linden labs had a full understanding of the use cases of there own product.

The features that make me use Firestorm more often then V3 are fairly basic to implement, its just that without the use cases you have no clue that there are big usability holes.

 

rant rant rant :)

 

The grunts get paid crap, the PMs says when will it be done, and the leads pat you on the head and say yes yes yes, good idea, now we got to get this other thing going, lets talk later ok, thanks bye

 

Anyways, maybe if they just turn off all the servers i can get back to something that means something, or maybe not, its to late for me, save yourselfs :)

 

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2.k : You must not provide any feature that alters the shared experience of the virtual world in any way not provided by or accessible to users of the latest released Linden Lab viewer.

 

This is the one provision that  is giving  me fits.  It really needs to be  defined better. How do you define  the "shared user experience"? Does this mean all  users have to have  the same experience? and that  a customized viewer is  not allowed?

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That's how I read that clause: it's software being used by another player. And it could also ban the feature in Phoenix/Firestorm that, only in the Phoenix/Firestorm support group, signals which Phoenix/Firestorm version you're using. That's optional, you can switch it off.

2.i : You must not display any information regarding the computer system, software, or network connection of any other Second Life user.

Nothing about permission there. So it can't be displayed. And if you can't display it, it can't be used in-world.

2.j : You must not include any information regarding the computer system, software, or network connection of the user in any messages sent to other viewers, except when explicitly elected by the user of your viewer.

OK, that would allow the data to be sent, with permission.

That is a damn strange pair of clauses. I don't know how a lawyer would interpret them, there are general rules on how that is done, but it looks to me as though they have just put Firestorm and Phoenix outside the TPV, because of a feature that offers better support to their users.

 

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FUD.

LL would not be so insane as to alienate the third to one half of their users who use TPVs.  Phoenix and Firestorm are not about to be banned from SL.  The Phoenix team has repeatedly mentioned their good working relationship with LL.

You don't have to pay to test upload textures, just use the Beta Grid. It's less convenient, true...but it's not a hit to your wallet.

The online status thing worries me a little...not for privacy reasons, but because it may break a lot of useful tools that show when employees or managers are available.

SL has been drifting away from a rational shared experience for some time now.  For example the "derendering" feature that lets me not be bothered by my neighbor's ugly build can lead to confusion. ("Wow, that's a big rock there!"  "Rock?  What rock?")

One of the areas of confusion exists in ALL viewers, including LL's...the ability to choose whether to see Display Names, user names, or both.  (Lindal:  "Hello Sally."  Sam:  "Hello, Jane."  Lindal:  "Who are you talking to, Sam?"  Sam:  "Jane...right here in front of us."  Lindal:  "All I see is Sally.  Who's Jane?")

I am all for new features.  I am also convinced that there needs to be some similarity in what I see and what you see in order for us to communicate about the world clearly.

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the problem with that one is simple.  We had Avatar hysics and mutiple attachments for well over a year before Linden Labs realized it was a feature worth having.  Sometimes, in order for them to see there's a needed feature in the stock viewer, they have to see it out there first.  by adding this restriction, they stifle innovation, and make it so they won't know when there's a new idea that is wildly popular.

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