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More to the point though, would or should the suggested foundation be one to guide the development of OpenSim?

Thanks Sean for such an amazing discussion. I’m sure most people have other things that excite them on a Friday but this is as good a way to end the week as any.

I believe there’s a movement afoot with the OpenSim folks on the foundation idea – something I ran across today:

http://mrtopf.de/blog/secondlife/1-year-architecture-working-group/

And I love your final paragraph, because on that we can unequivocally agree.

But first… making money is a red herring. Many of the virtual worlds of the future will not be about making money. There will be non-profits, educational institutions and groups of like minded people setting up virtual worlds for themselves and their friends (e.g. furries). The hosts they will use will be making money though, by charging for hosting services (in the same way that web hosts charge for web hosting).

On to policies… So Mozilla Foundation has a policy. But OpenSim is not a foundation – it is a piece of software being developed by a team of programmers from disparate backgrounds. At this stage, anyone can contribute to it. They do, however, have a policy with some Core Values – http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Contributions_Policy.

Would it be a good idea to set up an OpenSim foundation to help guide the development of the software along beneficial lines? If this is what you are asking, then it’s a good question.

I believe that the metaverse (whatever shape that takes) has the capacity to greatly enhance humanity, as the Internet and the WWW have, but that can only happen if it is based on open standards, protocols and formats. A foundation and a policy at this early stage sounds like a good idea. The Apache Foundation looks like a good model. The Mozilla Foundation policy you list looks like a good guideline for a policy. One day the OpenSim guys might form into a foundation, but until then it’s just a team of individuals working on software.

I’m neither a programmer or a member of the OpenSim team, so perhaps the next step in this discussion is to ask one of the lead OpenSim developers what they think about the idea of setting up such a foundation and developing a policy.

I will point out though that a policy guiding the development of the software upon which virtual worlds are based is very different from the end user bill of rights and responsibilities that are used *inside* those worlds, which is where you started.

And Mony is right – if you want it, maybe you have to build it. Perhaps your next post should be about what you think the guiding principles of the coming metaverse should be (you have a great start with your substitution idea above).

Even better, if you believe in open source, then stick it up on a wiki and get the community involved.

Even better still, how about suggesting a meeting in-world to discuss setting up a foundation and a policy? Contributing to open source projects is not just about contributing code… there is a lot of admin type work too. I’m sure Adam et al are very busy with what they are doing and would probably appreciate you taking an initiative on this.

I’m up for it. I don’t want to leave the evolution of the metaverse in the hands of the hundreds of commercial virtual worlds startups that are training kids to be good consumers. And who wouldn’t want to get in on the ground floor of developing the rules for the New World?!

OpenSim on the other hands is NOT for profit it’s the companies who use it who will be profitable. Which is why it’s so odd that there’s always so much resistance, I feel, to discussions of policy. I mean – look, the Mozilla Foundation has POLICY, why is this such a stretch?

They have a manifesto, they have a Statement of Direction, and all of these things help govern how all the bits of code help end users – the ants. That’s the point of open source really, or I thought it was – to rip coding out of the hands of closed off corporations so the ants could have rights and the common good could be advanced.

I mean…do the OpenSim folks subscribe to the following for example (just sub in the words virtual worlds for Internet):

1. The Internet is an integral part of modern life–a key component in education, communication, collaboration, business, entertainment and society as a whole.
2. The Internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.
3. The Internet should enrich the lives of individual human beings.
4. Individuals’ security on the Internet is fundamental and cannot be treated as optional.
5. Individuals must have the ability to shape their own experiences on the Internet.
6. The effectiveness of the Internet as a public resource depends upon interoperability (protocols, data formats, content), innovation and decentralized participation worldwide.
7. Free and open source software promotes the development of the Internet as a public resource.
8. Transparent community-based processes promote participation, accountability, and trust.
9. Commercial involvement in the development of the Internet brings many benefits; a balance between commercial goals and public benefit is critical.
10. Magnifying the public benefit aspects of the Internet is an important goal, worthy of time, attention and commitment.

So, sure….Linden Lab is a company. Metaplace is a company that decided to give avatar rights and perhaps will benefit strategically. OpenSim I’m told is Apache and is a bunch of code, and is divorced from the policy that’s built on top of that code, and yet OTHER open source projects subscribe to policy and principles, I just continue to be baffled.

Wasn’t this a private company selling a hosted service, to users=clients? Don’t we understand that there is huge pressure to become profitable, have growth, expand to international markets, maybe become a public company?

Whats does this have to do with, citizen rights, and stuff?

This is not a constitution, its a contract, like in a restaurant, you don’t like the food? you can leave. And we are not a society, we are bunch of personal interests hosted and linked in a virtual scenario.

Well anyways, of course I am totally joking, if virtual communities want to grow as they plan and become this huge phenomenon, they NEED to release control, specially to the citizens. Who in return will always understand the community is run by a a profit oriented company. Managed by not perfect human beings.

Such a balance needed!

But our virtual community owners will never release control, or act (apparently) against their best interests (money and growth) until we prove, as a virtual society that, this is precisely the best thing they can do for their capitalist interests.

Our good is a common good. Etc. you know the drill.

Lets go prove it.

There is a lock on the door of my house that makes it clear to people that this is my space and I don’t want people to enter without my permission. But it’s not really the lock that stops honest people from entering – after all, any serious burglar will jimmy it if he wants. The lock represents a social contract to not enter. But that social contract is backed up by law.

I still say the answer is to be as open and flexible and extensible as possible, and then let world builders create a TOS that will create the type of community they want then enforce it. Sure, add things like permissions where you can, but don’t rely on them. You will always need to fall back on the TOS, especially for grey areas. We are talking human behaviour here, and there’s nothing black and white about that.

And if OpenSim doesn’t have a feature you want, patch it. You want to let users choose any name they want for themselves (which seems to be the default at this stage), fine. You’re a boring ol’ business who wants to insist that all users use their own name, or use their corporate login, add a patch. I see no universal rules that can be associated with the software. That’s not OpenSim’s responsibility (even if it were possible).

As for the legal veracity of TOS… if a website or web service doesn’t do due diligence then it’s their own fault if they get done. Anyway, I was talking about web hosts, not the websites they host (although in the case of large services like flickr, facebook or Amazon they are one and the same).

And I’m sorry, but of course platform owners get to decide the rules for their platform. If I don’t like it I can go elsewhere. If YouTube won’t host my porn videos I’ll just go and find a video sharing site that does. This is the freedom of a free market. If they do choose to have responsibilities, like Raph is doing that’s fine (although I personally think it’s problematic), but platform owners are under no obligation to do so. You seem to have fallen for this myth than many SL residents labour under that because it’s a world (albeit a virtual one) users should be treated like citizens and have rights. Nope – not unless the world builder/owner grants them (and they can always change them without notice).

Hmm… I wonder if we aren’t talking a bit at cross purposes here because of the confusion over platforms, hosts, world builders, world owners and software. Perhaps we do need a glossary!

To me the future of virtual worlds should look like this – if you find a virtual world you like and are willing to abide by their rules, great! If not, find a hosting service and build your own world with your own rules! The underlying software needs to be so open, flexible and extensible you can make it do anything you want. The rules are in the TOS, not the software.

The ONLY tools available for a TOS to be valid are code-based. I know this is going to sort of sound self-evident but a violation of the TOS only occurs because the software allows for it, and the enforcement of the TOS is only possible because the software provides mechanisms for doing so.

Let’s say the TOS says “Thou shalt not steal.” Perfect. You try to build systems to prevent stealing, you put permissions in place maybe, or like Warcraft you can try to embed all kinds of snoops and devices on the user’s machine. I’m not saying these things SHOULD be done, I’m just saying that out of the TOS arises the need to make sure that it’s synched up to a degree with the code.

You won’t write a clause in the TOS that says “Users have the right to be anonymous” and then (like, say, Twinity did) have the user’s real name floating above their head as they wander around the grid. So, obviously, you try to synch the TOS with the code.

This doesn’t mean you try to write the code in a way that monitors behavior, enforces it, or prevents it – all it means is that the code and the TOS work together.

I think this is really critical, because over time, worlds evolve. And I pointed this out on Raph’s site as well – that one of the critical elements in all of this is the fact that the TOS and its enforcement is evolutionary. You can try to be as specific as possible about your codes of conduct or TOS, but there will always be things that are open to interpretation over time. Second, being evolutionary as code is built and deployed platform owners will need to be keenly aware that there is an interplay between conduct and code.

Look at Facebook. They build a system, they build code, and that system denies entry to anyone who’s not at a university. Or later they open it up, and deny entry to anyone without an invite from a friend. Each shift in policy is accompanied by code, and the more tightly coupled you can make these, the more consistency you can create, and the deeper the sense of commitment by the community.

Now, I am NOT saying that code needs to be developed to monitor or enforce individual elements of the TOS – just that there needs to be a consistent coupling – whether loosely or not. Second Life is a hotbed of lessons learned on how the code and policy can become disjointed, or can result in unexpected outcomes, or can work beautifully to facilitate benefits to both the user and platform.

The ability to sell your work. That’s a TOS item. And it leads to code that includes micro-transactions and permissions.

The code is also the only source of enforcement. You’re not going after the PLAYER’S bank account, you’re going after the avatar. You don’t ban a player from heading down to the local mall, you ban the avatar from entering the world or sections of it. If the code isn’t constructed in a way to allow the platform owner to enforce it, then obviously there is no TOS.

And this is also an important point, because the TOS and enforcement, coupled with code, allow the platform owner to set a context for the community – but there will always be griefers or, well, people who want to understand where the limits are and will push up against those limits.

I can’t remember which platform introduced a “jail” for people who broke the TOS. The problem was, people got off on seeing their avatar behind bars, and so they purposefully broke the TOS so they could get thrown into jail – and who knows, maybe there was some RP that happened in there, I leave it to your imagination.

But users will press the edges of the TOS to test limits, either for fun, for commerce, or because that’s how they get their kicks. And they’ll look for exploits in how the code allows enforcement as well.

Finally – on the lawyer point….who knows what the stats are. I can only tell you from my own experience working with Fortune 500 companies – I’ve launched dozens of Web sites on their behalf, and only ONCE did they actually have their lawyers look at the privacy policy, disclaimers or copyright notices. We’ve typically used one that was drafted in 1998 – 10 years ago, as a placeholder on a site, kind of like saying “Privacy Policy Goes Here”…and the client generally has come back and said “I don’t want to have to go through legal, it will hold up our launch” and just lets it ride and prays for the best.

And I hate to say this, but some of these are Web sites about medical issues and they just shrug – a product or brand manager doesn’t have that much on the line, and to them it’s all just a big hassle that exposes them to little risk and who cares anyways. From my end, as long as they sign off it’s their business not mine.

Where I think we’re bumping up against each other however is in the attitude that ALL of the decisions about how these things get done rest with the platform owners. I have never understood why this conventional wisdom needs to remain conventional.

Why is it ALWAYS buyer beware? Um…check the newspaper…buyer beware didn’t do the US economy much good now did it?

We have obligations as users, obligations which people are slowly starting to realize have much deeper and more profound implications than they realized. But platform owners have obligations also, and is it SO wrong to say that there should at least be SOME kind of low threshold benchmark for what these obligations are? Why is that so harmful?

And please – don’t give me the “you don’t have to come here if you don’t like it” response. I realize there are laws that govern the ‘real world’ and many of these laws apply, depending on your jurisdiction, to virtual worlds as well (like hate crimes, say).

But there are also emerging issues about avatar/user rights that I’d rather embed into the discussions around policy NOW before the government steps in and sorts it out FOR us, thanks very much.

Mind you – I also think we’re agreeing, because as you say, “I agree that these sorts of discussions need to be had, because some of the decisions around the most fundamental protocols are harder to fix down the track, and the broader the issues discussed and thought through in the early stages of development the better.”

It’s just nice to agree, um, forcefully.

As far as I can tell, the OpenSim team are alert to these types of issues, and are making the protocols and the software as extensible and flexible as possible so down the track they don’t say: “Hey… we should have built it so it can do X.” Hindsight provides 2020 vision, but all they can do is the best they can for now.

As for your example, I’m all for openness myself, but some grid owners might choose to not reveal what’s going on with my data behind the scenes. It’s their choice to do so, even though I may not choose to use their service. If their TOS says they have no obligation to make my data open and available, I can go to a grid where they say they do. It’s caveat emptor when I enter someone’s virtual world. It’s up to me to familiarise myself with their TOS in the same way I should be familiar with the laws of any country I visit in the real world. I can’t blame anyone but myself if I get busted for drinking alcohol on the streets of Dubai.

I think the fact that the protocols, standards and software are all open sort of satisfies your example anyway. The openness is the policy that will ensure your data is treated transparently. Anyway, I’m no developer, so I’m talking outside my realm of knowledge, and I’d rather leave it to developer to continue on this issue.

As to the idea that the software can reflect the TOS, I can’t see how. Sure, in my example you can use software to enforce the rule that no avatar can be naked, but how can you embed the rule that “No avatar should discriminate against another avatar on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, age, race, religion etc.” in the software? I disagree that the only tools a world owner has for enforcing the TOS are in the software. Apache can’t tell if something being hosted on a website is porn or not. That’s what the web host’s TOS is for. The interesting thing about virtual worlds is that they allow for a range of behaviours, just as in the real world. The only way to enforce many rules is through either a TOS or a set of Community Standards which are enforced by the world owner and his/her minions. At the end of the day the world owner is a dictator and their interpretation of their TOS is totally up to them. The users just have to cop it. I’m sure you can find any number of SL residents who have run afoul of the Lindens for doing things they thought were within the TOS or Community Standards.

As for the issue of lawyers, I find it had to believe that web hosts haven’t thought long and hard about their TOS. They are the sort of business that would have to deal with disputes all the time, disputes that can cause lots and lots of money. If someone is running an e-commerce site and they lose money because of a fuckup from the host you don’t think there is going to be some serious suing going on? Once again, this is outside my actual experience and is just my opinion, so I’d like to hear someone with some legal experience in these matters.

But I do agree with you lawyers should be in the room when OpenSim developers are making their plans. It can’t help having someone around to raise the sorts of issues that can influence the protocols and coding. And I agree that these sorts of discussions need to be had, because some of the decisions around the most fundamental protocols are harder to fix down the track, and the broader the issues discussed and thought through in the early stages of development the better.