Alex: thx, i’d just run across that. still, seems weird that S3 doesn’t support that out of the box.

Andy: “Do I expect Linden Lab to hold ownership of the platform forever? Not hardly, clearly at some point either Second Life will be openned up or surpassed by an open system.”

agreed. for Linden Labs’ sake, i hope they open it up sooner rather than later, because it seems important that a “world” that’s going to have actual economies needs to be controlled not by a vendor.

Anthony: “Much as you hear people complain about media DRM by saying, “I bought it, I should be able to do what I want with it,” you will have people paying a company (perhaps for “service” rather than bits) and receiving a product that at least has the specter of curtailing what they may or may not do with it.”

but that’s just it, to me. many of the GPL advocates - think MySQL - are perfectly happy to issue corporations licenses that let them do as they will - it just costs them extra. they have a choice, but so far fear of the GPL is still the overwhelming problem.

Dan: “And the fact that you have to spend time thinking about Freedom means you have less time to think about the other stuff, which means that (all other things being equal) the software is Not As Good just because it’s GPLed.”

with all due respect, i strongly disagree. i don’t think that the license choice has much impact at all on the quality of the code delivered. it matters if the code is developed as open source, yes, but the license? not so much, IMO. i don’t think, as an example, that Linux, or MySQL or - for that matter - Java - are lesser pieces of code b/c they chose the GPL license. far from it.

Jason: gotcha, thx for the response. might be useful to have that in an FAQ on the site, b/c i doubt i’m the only one to ask that question.

Also, RMS’s zealotry frightens and confuses me and if I can avoid dealing with him and his pack of zealots, I do.

As for the GPL, it still maintains a special (dark) place in (some) people’s hearts because it’s defining quality is a stipulation that specifies what you, the user, may or may not do with the software. Much as you hear people complain about media DRM by saying, “I bought it, I should be able to do what I want with it,” you will have people paying a company (perhaps for “service” rather than bits) and receiving a product that at least has the specter of curtailing what they may or may not do with it. I think the mindset ends up following along an analogy similar to one of buying any other tool: If I could buy a dual-licensed screwdriver, where one of the licenses stipulates that I can’t use the tool to build a doghouse, or a screwdriver whose license has no bearing on what I do with it, I’ll take the latter — other qualities being equal — just to avoid the chance that I run afoul of that overly-restrictive license on the former. Why add any extra worry to the transaction?

My first response to your SL vs Prodigy comment was, “well yeah, it is pretty much the same,” I was a Prodigy user back in the day and to my recollection it does seem rather similar, a centralized company pushing forward, offering an online experience that includes more interface complexity than has emerged from the community to date. But, then I did a quick read-down of Prodigy in the Wikipedia and noticed a few other differences:

1. Linden Lab has seen Prodigy and AOL run their course and further has seen the legal and societal treatment of them.
2. Prodigy set out to be a service providing and arranging content for users as well as heavily moderating it. Second Life is a platform with slim to no moderation.
3. Prodigy and most of the rest of the internet is a one-way channel, users cannot create by default if at all. I don’t know how even companies got their content into Prodigy, but in SecondLife most users have created some small portion of content and many users have some content of their own “on display” through a land rental or purchase.

Do I expect Linden Lab to hold ownership of the platform forever? Not hardly, clearly at some point either Second Life will be openned up or surpassed by an open system. How long will that be and will Second Life attach it’s virtual space to that system or die behind it’s garden walls? We’ll have to see.

Can I use rsync with Jungle Disk?

Yes! We recommend using the –inplace and –size-only flags to ensure proper operation.

Bingo.

Now, I mean, if there were tools to create 3D representations of information that could not easily be shown in 2d, and Second Life was a tool to collaborate on those representations, I could see the benefit.

But as it is, it represents an otherspace without a compelling reason for me to exist in it.

Sure it’s amusing to go in and fly around and yak with people, but so is yaking on IRC.

It’s like the UI enhancements that are going on with Linux right now. Yeah, sure eyecandy, but how is it actually helping me manage information?

As it is, Second Life’s only real benefit (outside of simple novelty) is to advertisers as another space to carpet with marketing.

I don’t think embodiment adds significantly to the online experience either.