Comments on: How HG 2.0 is coming along

By: Diva Canto

Diva Canto — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 01:38:56 +0000

@Han, policies are specified by whoever runs these worlds. The specification language is as expressive as can be — “all, except…” and “none, except…”. Grid operators have all the freedom in the world to decide what the right policy is for their specific grids. For large grids, I would imagine that the operators would pay attention to what their users want. But that’s not a discussion to have here.

By: Han Held

Han Held — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 01:03:06 +0000

I’m very concerned about the user access control feature -and I think that will end up being used by grids to herd their users away from competing grids (“you can go see bob’s 4-sim grid on a stick, but we don’t want you seeing avination and gettin ideas in your head of moving over there”).

I think that anything that needlessly censors what adult hypergridders are exposed to is bad for the metaverse. Potentially, the free market would route around rouge grids that try to misuse that feature because people would simply choose to avoid grids that engage in that behavoir, I think instead they would hide behind hysterical PR instead (“but-but-but avination is full of copybotters! ooooo” [when clearly it’s not]).

Time will tell how this will all play out, and hopefully my concerns will be for naught. I read on hypergrid business that people will be able to communicate/hop between 1.5 and 2.0 enabled grids so hopefully people like me who are uncomfortable will be able to stick w/ 1.5 for a while.

By: Diva Canto

Diva Canto — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 14:21:22 +0000

@Susannah See the Update note under HG Inventory. Go ahead and put your inventory on the Internet if you want. The restriction is not on the grids you are visiting, it’s on whoever hosts your inventory. If you host your own OpenSim world, you can do whatever you want.

By: Gaga

Gaga — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 10:04:37 +0000

Thank you Diva. This is looking good. It would have been nice to have creator perms in HG2 as it would have been a strong message to send to merchants and content creators but I understand the problems with the viewers. Hopefully, now Linden Labs are effectively going to force that hand of TPV developers we might get some of them turning their attention to Opensim’s needs. I hope so. Anyway, I am glad you mentioned HG2.5 for creator perms.

Thank you for all your hard work!

By: Susannah Avonside

Susannah Avonside — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 04:16:47 +0000

Interesting stuff, and provides some enlightenment on what to expect from HG 2.0. Whilst I personally welcome the configureability of HG 2.0 it still allows, in my opinion, too much control over virtual goods that an individual has paid for – true, in ‘reality’ all that has been paid for is a licence to use that item. In Real Life I don’t have to duplicate my wardrobe item for item every time I move to a different country, and so I don’t expect to have to do that in the virtual world. However, grid controllers are of course free to make their own decisions over how their grids function, but if they are too restrictive they risk being boycotted by those of us with a more open and tolerant approach. Eventually sanity will reign I guess and the paranoia and greed of some grids and creators will be replaced by common sense and reasonableness on the commercial front:charge reasonable prices and the incidence of ‘content theft’ will reduce. I hope that attempts to entice the commercial grids towards experimenting with Hypergrid are more aimed at creating credibility for the concept amongst those who are at present sceptical about the economic potential of the 3D web. I personally have nothing against fair trade and economic activity that creates opportunities for the many, but I do have serious concerns over those who would strangle an otherwise wonderful idea because it threatens their profits. Though I do welcome anything that makes the metaverse a better, more interesting place, I still think the security worries are a red herring predicated on the fallacy that Open Sim is a hotbed of copyboters, something that some peddlars of FUD are keen to spread, which seem to be those who have the most to lose from an opening up of the metaverse. HG 2.0 won’t do anything to change this, and one of the first questions that those contemplating visiting or moving to other girds will ask is “Can I take my inventory with me?”. A fair question, as many of us have invested considerable sums of RL cash on our inventories. HG 2.0 ignores the real elephant in the room, and that’s the fact that most copying of items goes on within closed grids, not without as is often erroneously assumed. This is not to say that there is no copied content in the open girds, but that it’s occurrence is grossly exaggerated. It’s my guess that the implementation of HG 2.0 will not serve to open up the commercial grids to the wider world, and if it does, what point does it have if you subsequently are not allowed to take your purchases home with you and use them on your home grid? True, it’s early days, but I think in terms of user base Open Sim have far more to worry about than this kind of ‘security’… far more important is the awareness, or lack of your average SL user has about the even the existence of other virtual worlds ‘out there’. I understand some of the dilemma, as to be successful, the 3D web needs to be economically viable, and for that to happen it needs users, and for users to come, (well the bulk of them who are more consumerist oriented) there needs to be content and activities…it’s all a bit Catch 22.