Back in the day, companies didn't try to make you subject to contracts of adhesion simply because you wrote a client that has the ability to connect to their service.
There is another angle to this that wasn't realized earlier.
This new policy makes Second Life incompatible with CC-SA and GPLed content within the world as well.
It places a new restriction on the export of content that is incompatible with the terms of CC-SA and GPL.
"You must not use or provide any functionality that Linden Lab’s viewers do not have for exporting content from Second Life unless the functionality verifies that the content to be exported was created by the Second Life user who is using the Third-Party Viewer."
So you can only export what you have uploaded, not what you have received from someone else. This makes Secondlife incompatible with GPL and CC-SA content within the world.
It's more like Mozilla saying that any browser capable of connecting to their forums is subject to a million terms that dictate what features it may or may not include and make the developer liable for what the users do with it.
It's not really fair to compare with desktop games.
Those games would look like SL too if they had to stream every object and texture over the net as unbaked primitives, had to do all lighting dynamically, and had to build worlds that look good from every possible angle because the camera can go everywhere.
A lot goes into level optimization in games that just can't happen in SL.
"if you use a client to connect to our servers, that client must abide by our policies.".
No its, "if you produce a client that is able to connect to our servers"... since developers are liable for what their users do with the client under this policy.
You have to follow these rules if you produce a client that is capable of connecting to their servers. And you are liable for what your users do with the client. So everyone that produces a second life compatible client is liable under this policy, even if they never logged into Second Life.
Maybe you should read the policy. Merely distributing a client compatible with the Second Life service makes you subject to these restrictions. You are liable for what your users do with the client. It also includes such terms as "You must not violate or promote violation of any law or the rights of any individual or entity"... which is categorically incompatible with the GPL.
There's also a clause that says you agree to delete any data you downloaded using the client.
And that they can compel you to remove features that they don't like.
If their remedy was limited to terminating access to the service, it wouldn't be as much of an issue. But you have this "agreement" that you become subject to by merely writing a compatible client, which subjects you to all kinds of requirements far beyond the GPL.
Sure, and you could do without a computer. And without an apartment. Just think about how efficient it would be if everyone lived in communal housing.
Also, making all different kinds of food is pretty wasteful too. We could probably engineer some kind of food that satisfies all needs. We should then force everyone to eat the same food as well.
I don't give a flying fuck if ideologues like you want to steal my money and spread it around.
If you want socialized medicine, get together with all the other people who want it and have your little party. But you won't do that because you want to steal from all the people who don't want it.
The person who pays the bill has all the control. We were stupid to let insurance companies take our money and start paying all our bills for us, and we'd be even stupider to let the government.
Insurance should be for unforeseen accidents. Things that cost over $5,000 lets say. Not for your viagra or birth control.
That BLS newsletter opens with massive ad hominems, followed by some very convoluted and stupid logic.
They set out to "debunk" that they don't "substitute hamburger for steak" and then give an example of them doing exactly that.
This is their example:
Pre-inflation consumption: $1 per chocolate bar, 2 bars per week $1 per peanut bar, 2 bars per week
A total of $4 spent per week on candy bars.
Now inflation causes chocolate bars to go to $4 each while peanut bars stay the same... Instead of calling the new cost $10, they call it $8.. because peanut bars are just as good as chocolate bars... in their opinion.
So while they don't literally substitute hamburger for steak... they actually admit to doing the exact thing they were accused of doing... imposing crappier substitutes into the CPI in order to deemphasize price increases.
SecondLife is basically a gigantic Internet Drama Engine. Worse, because it creates so much drama, it tends to gain the attention of the mass media who seem to think it's the final realization of "cyberspace" that they were promised in the 80s. In reality, it's Deviantart with a crappier interface.
Make something better... Seriously. None of the "competitiors" to Second Life really "gets it"... they all want to give people prepackaged experiences with professionally created content... completely missing the point.
Reality B: It's 20xx, suddenly there's no oil. Mass panic. People flip out. People die. Fuel shortages lead to water/food/heating shortages lead to war. Private industry doesn't have a chance to adjust. People aren't prepared to buy a new vehicle on the spot. Californians ride the nearest comet to Heaven's Gate. Crime increases, lawlessness arises, civilization breaks down, I'm forced into a Thunderdome with Cowboy Neal for my right to live.
The only way Reality B can happen is if government artificially lower the price of oil through price caps or subsidies.
Oil producers have no motivation to lie about oil reserves. They need the price to rise as the supply falls so that they maximize their profits. This will inevitably lead to your Reality A, a slow increase in price as supply falls.
Emergent systems exhibit extremely non-linear outputs that can be effectively impossible to predict.
As a bad but somewhat apt example, think of a PRNG. It only needs a few bits of internal, hidden, state in order to produce a mostly unpredictable output.
The unconscious and consious, minute to minute desires and subjective valuations that actors in an economy make form the "hidden state" that is likely unknowable when talking about economics modeling.
Because it's made up of a collective subjective experience that can't be simulated without omniscience into often subconscious motivations behind consumption wants and needs.
Slashdot Mirror
Back in the day, companies didn't try to make you subject to contracts of adhesion simply because you wrote a client that has the ability to connect to their service.
There is another angle to this that wasn't realized earlier.
This new policy makes Second Life incompatible with CC-SA and GPLed content within the world as well.
It places a new restriction on the export of content that is incompatible with the terms of CC-SA and GPL.
"You must not use or provide any functionality that Linden Lab’s viewers do not have for exporting content from Second Life unless the functionality verifies that the content to be exported was created by the Second Life user who is using the Third-Party Viewer."
So you can only export what you have uploaded, not what you have received from someone else. This makes Secondlife incompatible with GPL and CC-SA content within the world.
It's more like Mozilla saying that any browser capable of connecting to their forums is subject to a million terms that dictate what features it may or may not include and make the developer liable for what the users do with it.
It's not really fair to compare with desktop games.
Those games would look like SL too if they had to stream every object and texture over the net as unbaked primitives, had to do all lighting dynamically, and had to build worlds that look good from every possible angle because the camera can go everywhere.
A lot goes into level optimization in games that just can't happen in SL.
"if you use a client to connect to our servers, that client must abide by our policies." .
No its, "if you produce a client that is able to connect to our servers"... since developers are liable for what their users do with the client under this policy.
You have to follow these rules if you produce a client that is capable of connecting to their servers. And you are liable for what your users do with the client. So everyone that produces a second life compatible client is liable under this policy, even if they never logged into Second Life.
They won't let you connect...
But they also have the legal power to demand that you delete any data downloaded through the client... Your own private data.
And the right to demand that you disable features they don't like...
As I said before... the remedies here aren't limited to termination of access... they go far beyond that.
Maybe you should read the policy. Merely distributing a client compatible with the Second Life service makes you subject to these restrictions. You are liable for what your users do with the client. It also includes such terms as "You must not violate or promote violation of any law or the rights of any individual or entity"... which is categorically incompatible with the GPL.
There's also a clause that says you agree to delete any data you downloaded using the client.
And that they can compel you to remove features that they don't like.
If their remedy was limited to terminating access to the service, it wouldn't be as much of an issue. But you have this "agreement" that you become subject to by merely writing a compatible client, which subjects you to all kinds of requirements far beyond the GPL.
Sure, and you could do without a computer. And without an apartment. Just think about how efficient it would be if everyone lived in communal housing.
Also, making all different kinds of food is pretty wasteful too. We could probably engineer some kind of food that satisfies all needs. We should then force everyone to eat the same food as well.
The USA isn't all private... medicare and medicaid are massive insurers.
I don't give a flying fuck if ideologues like you want to steal my money and spread it around.
If you want socialized medicine, get together with all the other people who want it and have your little party. But you won't do that because you want to steal from all the people who don't want it.
The person who pays the bill has all the control. We were stupid to let insurance companies take our money and start paying all our bills for us, and we'd be even stupider to let the government.
Insurance should be for unforeseen accidents. Things that cost over $5,000 lets say. Not for your viagra or birth control.
It's 2010 and people still have lectures? That's quaint.
Abusing science for political ends, no matter how noble, is never justified.
The core principle of capitalism is making mutually beneficial transactions.
If you buy something, the object was worth more to you than the money which was charged.
If you sell something, then that something was worth less to you than the price you got for it.
This isn't a flaw, it's the way that value is maximized.
Having an opinion or a even conflict of interest is not "astroturf".
Precedent is strongly against any "look and feel" suit having validity.
It turns out it's man.
That BLS newsletter opens with massive ad hominems, followed by some very convoluted and stupid logic.
They set out to "debunk" that they don't "substitute hamburger for steak" and then give an example of them doing exactly that.
This is their example:
Pre-inflation consumption:
$1 per chocolate bar, 2 bars per week
$1 per peanut bar, 2 bars per week
A total of $4 spent per week on candy bars.
Now inflation causes chocolate bars to go to $4 each while peanut bars stay the same... Instead of calling the new cost $10, they call it $8.. because peanut bars are just as good as chocolate bars... in their opinion.
So while they don't literally substitute hamburger for steak... they actually admit to doing the exact thing they were accused of doing... imposing crappier substitutes into the CPI in order to deemphasize price increases.
It's not really important... ethanol is a dead end.
SecondLife is basically a gigantic Internet Drama Engine. Worse, because it creates so much drama, it tends to gain the attention of the mass media who seem to think it's the final realization of "cyberspace" that they were promised in the 80s. In reality, it's Deviantart with a crappier interface.
Make something better... Seriously. None of the "competitiors" to Second Life really "gets it"... they all want to give people prepackaged experiences with professionally created content... completely missing the point.
Reality B: It's 20xx, suddenly there's no oil. Mass panic. People flip out. People die. Fuel shortages lead to water/food/heating shortages lead to war. Private industry doesn't have a chance to adjust. People aren't prepared to buy a new vehicle on the spot. Californians ride the nearest comet to Heaven's Gate. Crime increases, lawlessness arises, civilization breaks down, I'm forced into a Thunderdome with Cowboy Neal for my right to live.
The only way Reality B can happen is if government artificially lower the price of oil through price caps or subsidies.
Oil producers have no motivation to lie about oil reserves. They need the price to rise as the supply falls so that they maximize their profits. This will inevitably lead to your Reality A, a slow increase in price as supply falls.
Emergent systems exhibit extremely non-linear outputs that can be effectively impossible to predict.
As a bad but somewhat apt example, think of a PRNG. It only needs a few bits of internal, hidden, state in order to produce a mostly unpredictable output.
The unconscious and consious, minute to minute desires and subjective valuations that actors in an economy make form the "hidden state" that is likely unknowable when talking about economics modeling.
Because it's made up of a collective subjective experience that can't be simulated without omniscience into often subconscious motivations behind consumption wants and needs.