I always have to smile, when I see arguments like this here where people defend their position (or the support they expect) with “but I am not making a profit” or other “accusing” them of making a profit.

Why is it bad, to make a profit?

Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Aren’t projects and communities who ARE making a profit those which should be supported? Because - as we all know - projects which are not making a profit depend on the goodwill of a few people with money to spend. And that goodwill may wither in time …

There are many wonderful projects in Second Life which probably do not turn in a profit, though. And thats fine, too. But it should not be the norm or the standard, which defines if it is “good” or “bad”.

I would not compare our own project with the sailing sims. But The Otherland Estate is a small sub-continent of some 150 sims these days. It was created because of the fun I had with creating beautiful landscapes. This got an expensive hobby, soon, of course. :) So I had to sell this land to be able to create more ;-)

I think, what has been created this way, is a beautiful addition to Second Life. Different from the mainland (and not as realistic in its landscaping). Different from many other Estates, too. You will find many unique and truly beautiful landscapes here - as well as wonderful projects by our creative customers, who really ADD VALUE to SL.

Otherland was generating a small profit for a while - and all of this was re-invested into new land. It was never very profitable, because we leave a lot of land protected and a lot of the land does not sell too quickly because it caters to customers with a special taste. But the project was able to pay its costs (initial investments were never recouped, though). This was bad? :)

We accept a loss every month now, since Linden Lab started experimenting with the real estate market, lowering prices, flooding the main land market, changing features, raising prices again … etc. etc. This is good? :)

We keep our water ways open to sailing (no regattas). Some people do sail. Some dont’t. Still … except one area of the mainland and the sailing sims, our Estate is probably the largest connected water area of all of SL. But we do not focus on sailing alone. People do many different things here. Most just like to “live” here, create their homes, decorate them, meet friends, dance in the gazebo, build crazy stuff. Some might even - gasp - have virtual sex in their homes. So what? :)

It has a bad taste, that currently it feels as if our government condones certain kind of resident activities and looks down on others. I, like many other residents and entrepreneurs, do accept this - what else can I do? But I - and many others, judging from the articles and comments I read a lot, lately - won’t shed many tears, probably, when we will leave the Second Life Grid sometime next year to re-build our businesses elsewhere.

Or maybe I WILL shed a tear. Second Life was a great vision and an incredible opportunity.

I am just not sure (read: I doubt), that selecting one of a few projects and keeping them alive with added incentives while killing most others is a successful strategy in the long run. Second Life is like the better Web 2.0 platforms (although it was created before the term was coined) in that it depends on the creativity of its users. Weeding out user-generated projects into nice ones and bad ones weeds out most of the creativity in such a community.

I understand that - from a PR point of view - supporting the sailing sims seems to make much more sense than supporting other communities (say, the Goreans, for example). Such a strategy might look good in the board room, too. But in the end, what you saying to your customers is basically: “I like what you do here. I will support it.” and “I don’t like what you do here. I might not forbid it, but I will certainly try to make it harder for you.”

No one denies Linden Lab (a company with a vision and shareholders) the right to do so. But it looks a bit like a planned economy to me. And it is my belief, that - while a certain degree of regulation is necessary - a free society and a free economy will usually win in the end as it utilizes resources and creativity most efficiently.

And as soon as there will be platforms around, that support the building of such a free society (like it can be found on the web of today) Linden Lab might see, that basing its business on a (un-defendable) monopoly is not a wise stragey

Fair to say you and I are not only on the same page of the same book…we’re actually reading the very same lines! :).

To be honest, when I referred to “fredom of expression within SL”, my words were not well chosen; what I should have said was “freedom of expression among SL users” - for while I wholeheartedly agree with you vis LL’s attitude on the forums, etc., - we still have places like this and other blogs, and other forums where matters can be discussed.

I don’t th¡nk LL is interested in freedom of expression whatsoever; as far as I can see they are trying to convert SL into a Disney-like world, treating customers as retarded children, closing forum threads as they see fit, deleting inconvenient posts, and mandating what’s proper to be discussed and what’s not (the infamous “let’s keep the subject focused” of Katt Linden).

And I don’t think either that the trust issue can be solved in any way (short of firing M, Katt and Jack, amongst others, offering a public apology, and giving us one year of free SL as an indemnity for the time and money they’ve already made us lose :-) ).

For me the only question is how long we’ll have to wait to be able to do our things in other worlds.

For educators, as I see it, only voice is needed, OpenSim is otherwise almost ready for production, as it can consistently deploy simple “sit” scripts and texture changing scripts (for presentations). The first company which offers voice in an OpenSim environment will receive a big part of the SL Exodus.

For the rest of the people it’s a bootstrap problem: you need a platform stable enough to support simple scripts, the m/c/t rights schema, and a currency, a company which looks serious, and some big names in content creation. Then people will start to move, reduce presence in SL until they become homeless, and SL will slowly become a skrinking museum of its own past splendor.

And yes I’m copying everything I created too, to several worlds, in addition to my own PCs :-)

You have possibly in part hit the nail on the head. However you look at it LL rarely acts in a altruistic manner - moreso since Kingdon arrived. I’ve already posted myself on this matter in terms of waiting for the “other shoe” to drop - i.e. what LL’s real goal is in moving in this direction, and “divide and confuse” may well be a part of it.

Certainly I’ve had the feeling that this kind of move is a extension of policy we’ve seen elsewhere (noticably the blog and forums), which has been to gradually eliminate the voice of those who take issue with LL.

Should we ignore it? Weellll…there’s actually not a lot we can do about it physically at this point in time, so in a sense you’re right. However, there is an argument that goes the other way: if we ignore it, we condone it and thus freedom of expression within SL takes another hit.

Personally, I accept what has happened as being something I cannot change; corporate wheels in motion. However, I care enough about SL (for as long as I remain there, and that in itself is open to debate as other grids start to stabilise both in a technical sense and in terms of investment and financial footing) to continue to discuss matters such as this and use the message it sends as a possible barometer of just how far faith / trust in LL is liable to be further eorded….while simultaneously moving the content I’ve created in SL down to my PC ready for a move elsewhere - or at least creating copies elsewhere.

It is, however, fair to say that one sailing community has been offered a substantial benefit over the others - and this is reflected within comments by their own members. How long this advantage remains - and how effective it actually is - also remains to be seen.

Leaving aside Prok’s inevitable wanderings into personal attacks, her blog entry on the matter is potentially more to the point:

- If this is the “first” of a range of possible partnerships, how is LL going to openly promote this?

- What are the detailed criteria for engaging with LL so that other groups can benefit from such arrangements? Again, Jack in his forum posting only gives the vaguist (and totally subjective) allusions to the requirements (groups must be “strong” and “established” - and potentially “PG”, itself a limiting factor)

In this, I’d say that whether this stands as an indictment of the “new” openspace sim capability or not is besides the point. What is important and needs addressing is (as in fairness Ciaran himself pointed out in the forum) the entire lack of transparency on the matter.

- Why no announcement in advance that LL was considering doing something like this?

- Why not simply post a blog outlining the requirements in clear-cut terms, and invite submissions from all?

It is simply insufficient for the potential for other “partnerships” to be hinted at in a forum reply post (rather than up-front in a blog post).

It’s also not enough for Jack to play the other Linden “get out” clause that, given these vague parameters, it is down to individual groups to come up with ideas to pitch the LL. Aafter all, if we don’t know the guidelines, criteria or selection process, LL have a fairly free hand to simply reject anything that comes in as “not meeting requirements” for them to consider further.

Given the way things are being handled by LL, then one can see why people are upset - this does very much smack of the feeling that because MTW and his friends screamed the loudest and kicked the hardest, they were “cut a deal” and any idea that this is the first of a series of opportunities reeks of back-pedalling on Jack’s part.

As Crap says, trust is, and remains very much an issue where many of LL’s longer-term users (dare I say investors - given we have all invested time, effort and money into Second Life, however insignificant the amounts may seem in relation to those provided by Mitch Kapor and others). Right now, this announcement does very little towards rebuilding that trust.

That said Jack’s posting is again proof of the new Tao of Linden is working; leave us not forget the Tao insists on transparency and openness in communications within Linden Research - but only between colleagues; it is pointedly not extended to include communications with users.

Yes, Miss Gwyneth, I realize this all to well. My alluding to the FIC was self-irony and my opinion on this move from LL dual:

It’s indeed great that they are willing to help out an existing community, and I’m sure that a lot of avatars appreciated. But for those that “can’t be helped”, before January 5th or those who already deleted there sims, this must come as an extra blow. Because, well, if the USS gets linden ocean to go with their estate, then should not everybody who owns a full sim or so, get a free (linden owned, but still free) ocean to go with their sim? I feel glad for the USS, but this is giving them an unfair advantage. So a complaint “about the evilness of the FIC” as we sometimes see by certain others seemed to be ironically appropriate. ;)

@Anonysomething. This is MY PERSONAL BLOG, and your comment will be deleted. If you are going to be an ass on this blog, have the nerve to back it up with your “real SL name” or STFU.