Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 10:43:34 +0200
From: Henri Beauchamp
To: "Oz Linden (Scott Lawrence)"
Subject: Re: Problems with your deformer use and participation
On Wed, 26 Sep 2012 17:08:59 -0400, Oz Linden (Scott Lawrence) wrote:
> Henri... as you should well know, the deformer falls under rule 2.k of
> the Policy on Third Party Viewers.
LOL !... And you said in the past it was OK for viewers to include it,
since mesh deformer was bound to be part of LL's viewer !
So, are you saying LL is going to abandon the mesh deformer project,
or are you just taking back your own words on the OK you gave in the
past for viewers to include it as an experimental feature ?
Interestingly, I saw this coming, and this as soon as that policy
rule was announced
(see
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=741 ).
Another "I told you !" from me, I guess...
> As such, since it has not yet been accepted by Linden Lab into
> the common code base, incorporating it into a regular release of
> your viewer is in violation of the Policy.
It is included only as an experimental feature, which I always
advertized as such and that is off by default (and it's switchable
from the Advanced menu only, not from the Preferences floater).
> To some extent, I'm normally willing to give you a little more
> leeway on these things than larger viewer - Cool VL has so few
> users that the potential for harm (in this case in the form of the
> proliferation of assets compatible with future viewers) is reduced,
There is 0% risk of any harm in that particular case, and this
independently from the number of users of my viewer: my backport
of the mesh deformer is 100% compatible with Qarl's.
> but the fact that you are so heavily advertizing it puts me in an
> awkward position.
Heavily advertizing ?... I'm just giving feedback from the TPV
developer point of view and providing solutions, for the good of
the project itself. For your info, I also pointed out bugs to Qarl,
that were unspotted by the other developpers (such as, but not only,
the use of fast timers in a thread (leading to crashes), caused by
the creation of a dummy avatar in that thread, instead in the main
loop of the viewer: this bugs has since been fixed).
Also, is it "heavily advertizing" to post on my own forum, on the
JIRA the feature relates to and on a single other blog (Nalates'),
and only to point out when some helpful function has been implemented
to ease the testing of the feature, such as the backward compatibility
code with older deformer-ready meshes (and yes, you can reuse that
code too in LL's viewer if you wish: it's *your* call !) ?
Come on !!!
> In general, it's problematic that you post suggested changes to our Jira
> in general
So, basically, you are telling that only JIRA users that have signed
a contribution agreement are "welcome" (read: allowed) to suggest
changes on the JIRA ?... I'm starting to understand why LL "closed"
the JIRA and forbids everyone to see any new reported issue (by the
way, *this* is harming TPV developers and making things harder for
them: now we can't know if a particular issue is caused by our code
or by LL's and we can't ask the users of our viewers to check for
an existing JIRA before reporting a bug either: the load on us is
going to increase badly, as it will increase on you, because of a
gazillon of duplicates and the lack of constructive suggestions
and temporary solutions (workarounds) suggestions by JIRA users).
> - we both know that you won't agree to let us use them under
> the only terms we can accept, and so the fact that you do them actually
> inhibits developers who will contribute them from doing work we can use.
Please, don't attempt to turn the tables !!!
*YOU* (note: you = LL) are the responsible for this situation in the
first place, not me !!!
By *demanding* that TPV developers give up their privacy (by providing
their snail mail address and their private phone number), *you* are
*violating* the French law Informatique et Liberté (as well as EU laws).
I'm sorry, but I won't give up my anonimity and privacy on Internet just
for a game !
I'm ready to *sign* your damned agreement under my *real name*; together
with my ISP-based email address and IP, this is more than enough for
any court (including civil courts) to identify me without any possible
mistake in case of a legal issue. You *don't* need more info, and by
requesting private info that is excessive for the purpose, you violate
the French and EU laws on privacy.
Plus, I *specifically wrote in that JIRA* that I was giving away the
patch as LGPL code so that anyone (including you, LL) can reuse it in
their viewer ! If you like it, just reuse it !!!
(and I've been doing this many times in the past)
Plus, since the JIRA page mentions "All submissions to this site are
governed by Second Life Project Contribution Agreement. By submitting
patches and other information using this site, you acknowledge that you
have read, understood, and agreed to those terms." it pretty much
covers LL's ass and any patch submitted to the JIRA falls automatically
under the CA terms, meaning that even if I (or the gazilions other JIRA
users) didn't sign the latter, you can reuse any code I submit (and I
never pretended or said otherwise !).
> Unless you're willing to change your position on contributions,
My position on contributions has always been the same. My code is
Open Source, and I'm ready to sign any contribution agreement with
LL *as long a neither my snail mail address nor my private phone
number* are required.
The ball is in *your* camp. I think I demonstrated enough, all along
the now 6 years of constant development and contributions to the SL
community that I was more than willing to help out the community at
large and LL alike. If you turn down this help because you don't
want to comply with French (and EU) laws, it's your problem, not
mine ! Shooting a bullet in your own foot is something that seems
like a custom, at LL...
> I'm going to ask you to remove the deformer support from your publicly
> available Cool VL viewers, and refrain from discussing your use of it or
> changes to it on our Jira issue.
Again, this feature is *experimental* and *fully compatible* with
LL's (Qarl's) code. I think it is important for users to be able to
test it in a variety of viewers (correct me if I'm wrong, but AFAIK
the Cool VL Viewer is not the only TPV to provide it) so to spot
possible implementation-related issues, including in LL's (Qarl's)
code.
Would you be more "at ease" if I limited it to the experimental
branch of the Cool VL Viewer (v1.26.5) thus removing it from the
stable branch only (v1.26.4). I could even add a dialog that would
pop up when enabling that feature, explaining it's experimental and
should not be used to create commerical items till it is aproved
by LL.
Again, I'm ready to cooperate and comply with the TPV policy (even
to the broadest, most obscure readings of this extremely badly worded
policy) and in fact the Cool VL Viewer was the very first TPV to
become 100% compliant with it when it was issued (it took me less than
a week to make the viewer fully compliant and publish a compliant
version), but I don't think a reaction such as yours is going to help
the SL community at large.
Regards,
Henri.
PS: please, understand that I might have to publish the emails we
exchange on this subject on my forum: they cover matters that are
important to share with SLers and I can't decently remove a feature
(even an experimental one) from my viewer without explaining why to
its users.
I'm also CCing to Qarl, since you are pretty much forbidding me to
contribute to the JIRA any more and he posed questions to me there
that I won't be able to answer any more (and he got to understand
why).