Kitely Mentors Group Meeting, 17 July 2013: summary

[Sierra Jakob]

Ilan Tochner lead the meeting. Attendants (in alphabetical order) included: Ada Radius, Allen Partridge, Carole Osei , Cider Jack , Dundridge Dreadlow, Jeddin Laval, Marstol Nitely, mat mahogany, Min Tigerpaw, Minethere Always, Rosa SlGardner, Sally Cherry, Shelenn Ayres, and Sierra Jakob.

Ilan opened the meeting by asking if anyone had anything they would like to share before the meeting started.
• There was general praise for OAR exports from Minethere and Dundridge. (Later in the meeting, OAR content export permissions were discussed, as detailed below.)
• Ada asked “can we get specular and normal mapping working, whatever's needed server side, also the new mesh morphing”. Ilan responded that “mesh morphing is completely client side so that depends on your viewer AFAIK… Regarding materials support:… It is currently under development in the OpenSim 0.7.6 dev branch… h[url]ttp://bearlywritten.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/opensim-materials-progress-and-observations/[/url]... (this link is a bit old)… OpenSim 0.7.6 is a development branch which isn't stable… We don't [run] dev builds… We'll get it once it's stable. Mesh morphing is nice tech - not a lot of code… I like it…” Shelenn asked “with kokua only?” and Ilan pointed out that it’s in “the dev branches of Firestorm as well AFAIK.”
• The meeting region, Kitely Mentors Group Hangout, was admired. Mat inquired about the particle script for the “slow snow effect” which Ilan says was actually meant to be fireflies. Sierra inquired about the lovely bird songs. Ilan responded that the build was mostly created by Serenity Sinclair, and that Stio and a few other Kitely Mentors had helped as well.

At this point, Ilan moved the meeting forward with a continued discussion of “how long we can reasonably place a hold on new USD purchases before enabling merchants to cash them out (in the automatic process)” Ilan pointed out that “PayPal has a 45 days dispute window, after which they won't take away money unless they get a credit card charge back… that's [where] the problem lies they can charge back after a year… we originally wanted to do 30 days, but that may be problematic as people won't have time to get a bill and chargeback if their card was stolen and used in Kitely Market to try to launder stolen money.” There was some discussion about mitigating risk, standard business payouts and banking practices. It was then generally agreed that 45 days was reasonable.

A discussion of the Kitely TOS & User-Friendly Info ensued when Ada segued with “IF you explain why in big bold in your TOS”. Ada and Sierra opined that for non-techies it is difficult to locate information on the website and that the Kitely forum search could be improved. They both suggested that Ilan and Oren should test accessibility on non-techies. Ilan provided a link to the Kitely Market documentation: https://kitely.atlassian.net/wiki/displ ... ely+Market (also linked to from the bottom of each page). Ada pointed out that although she knows where the overall TOS is, it is difficult to direct people to the merchant TOS and instructions. There was a comment about the TOS being rather long, but Ilan explained it’s a legal document and cannot really be shortened. Several people expressed support for Kitely to further development of more everyday-user-friendly information. Allen expressed this particularly eloquently with “eventually as critical mass grows it's important to create easy to consume messages / micro-training kind of solutions that help people get the meat of a thing upfront. A walkthrough of how to list a product with voice and screen video, a quick video overview of how Kitely pricing works, where to get my free world, that sort of thing.” Shelenn and Sierra particularly expressed agreement. Shelenn suggested “…a checkbox for ‘read the ToS’ when creating the account...” Ada,Cider and Shelenn expressed support for a merchant TOS separate from the user TOS. The hot topic of “gamification” was brought to bear on the TOS discussion when Jeddlin offered “Jane McGonigal would turn TOS-reading into a game... for instance, make TOS-readers put some credits in that come back paragraph by paragraph as they read and sign off.” Shelenn thought this might be ok for first joiners to Kitely, but maybe not for every update. People suggested earning credits or badges reading the TOS(es). Several responded that “quizzes” should be avoided. There were both supporters and detractors of gamification. Ilan stated “Gamification has benefits , the problem (as with many things) is that we lack resources to work on it and other higher priority items at the same time.” Sally offered a good resource for VW info: http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2012/0 ... your-grid/ and Shelenn suggested that a group of interested parties meet for discussions to develop ideas that could be presented to Ilan later when he was ready. She asked if the group/committee could meet at the mentor “hangout” and Ilan agreed. Allen mentioned recently observing the arrival of a noobie to the Kitely Plaza and her general confusion. He wondered if the existing information in the Kitely Plaza might be improved personal Q&A touch might be helpful. Minethere mentioned the existence of a greeter hud that is helpful. Allen wondered if it could be auto-attached for genuine noobies.
TOS Updates were discussed. Ada suggested that updates should be email notification to all Kitely users. Ilan expressed reservations about using email, because some Kitely emails had already been reported by users (some folks pointed out it could have just been automatically flagged) as spam. Ilan explained “we need to retain a good standing with ISPs so important emails won't get sent to spam automatically.” Ilan suggested “I think we can give notice on the site (red notice that shown up on every page unless dismissed).”

The Kitely Market and Hypergrid (HG) are the top work priorities for Kitely. Ilan plans to have the Kitely Market open for business prior to September 7 or 8 when he is scheduled to speak at the upcoming OpenSim Community Conference - giving a presentation on the Kitely Market: http://conference.opensimulator.org/2013/schedule/. There is no target date for HG, according to Ilan, as “Exact timing depends on how many of the planned features we can get done in time.” Kitely Market “Delivery to Hypergird-connected destinations is one of the features on our Kitely Market roadmap so it's high in our priorities.” Ilan said there are two HG issues to be addressed: “one, is allowing people to HG in/out of Kitely... the other is having an automated delivery system to HG... we want to have both. the question is timing.” Whether HG comes first is one of the questions that must be dealt with, as the tech is different.” Shelenn offered that “the interest non kitely folks have is whether kitely can offer instant delivery to user accounts on other grids if they come into kitely via HG to make a purchase.” Ilan responded with “HG may limit us to sending data to users on other grids - direct delivery requires access that HG blocks for security reasons.” Ilan said they will use HG2 or HG2.5.

In other news, Kitely has fixed an OpenSim inventory bug. Some users were experiencing receiving items twice in world. The fix will be rolled out in the next site update.

Permissions for marketplace exports, inworld purchases, and OAR exports were discussed after a question from Sierra. This is such an important topic, I’m just going to transcribe part of the conversation here:
[14:05] Sierra Jakob: I have a question concerning permissions and HG, kind of. I notice that when uploading an OAR all the full per items are uploaded--even if you are not the creator. Since that is the case, shouldn't the Kitely Marketplace reflect that?? I'm very concerned that merchants should understand their full perm items are exportable, even if they don't check the export box on MP.
[14:06] Shelenn Ayres: so on the MP, if we set to full perms and no export, users should not be able to use the item outside of kitely... is that correct?
[14:06] Ilan Tochner: Items sold inworld follow the Copy+Transfer rule for export control. People wanting the benefit of the Export perm protection need to sell via the marketplace
[14:06] Ilan Tochner: The expert perm isn't just a flag BTW, it's a whole paper trail system
[14:07] Sierra Jakob: ahhh. So the item, once in world, remembers the export setting and cannot be downloaded by exporting an OAR unless yes export was checked? Is that correct?
[14:07] Ilan Tochner: If you sell something via the Kitely Market the Export flag value you give it is what will decide its exportability
[14:08] Ilan Tochner: yes, Export perm setting is saved with Assets and Objects
[14:20] Ilan Tochner: It's a logical AND - if Export is disabled for a component then the entire object is non-exportable
[14:23] Ilan Tochner: It has to be an item sold via Kitely Market but yes, once you have a no-Export item you can make other items no-Export by including that no-Export item inside them
SEE THE ADDENDUM BELOW FOR FURTHER EXPLANATION.

Copybot Viewers concerns were brought up during the meeting by Shelenn. She felt that more could and should be done to discourage theft. She suggested that “if all allowed viewers have an encryption key that is referenced in the login sequence... and the server at kitely contains the lock... only those keyeed viewers allow access to kitely worlds… this is the method used in other technologies to prevent ip theft.” The whole issue was discussed for some time, and the general response was that there is no way to totally prevent copying by extraordinary means. Ilan pointed out that “If people sell to HG the content is out of our control in any case... you should assume that if you set no-Export there won't be any tool we provide for exporting it. Copy botting is out of scope at this time.” He again pointed out that export is enabled by “Copy+Transfer if sold inworld and the Export perm for things that include objects that originated from the Kitely Market.” “(they can be sold inworld but the Export perm overrides Copy+Transfer for blocking exports)” “Once exported it's up to the destination grid to control permissions - that may or may not happen depending on what that grid is.”

Rogue Grids was the next topic of discussion. “White Lists” and “Black Lists” were mentioned. Dundridge opined that he would be happier with a whitelist and Shelenn agreed. Dundridge pointed out “and hopefully people would queue up to be approved.” Cider suggested that Kitely just not sell via market to grids that don’t enforce anti-copybotting measures. Ilan explained “We don't plan to create a whitelist of grids you can take content to. A blacklist may be included but that would require a lot of manual work to define...- currently the plan is that any grid, even closed private ones in schools and such, will be able to buy from Kitely Market... Forcing grids to register prevents a lot of potential buyers from being able to just hear of Kitely Market and use it without delay.”

Purchaser UUID was the next topic. Dundridge asked, “If someone buys on marketplace, will there be a purchaser UUID, so that item can be locked to the UUID and disabled (by magic) later?” Ilan responded with “We'll have the ability to not only track the item Dundridge but also all it's copies in inventories and worlds (as long as it's in Kitely).” Dundridge explained, “if I can drop a script that checks the "registered uuid" I'm a lot happier.”

OAR Exporting Test – Sounds: Dundridge reported some OAR exporting test results which surprised most of the techie people present. He uploaded an OAR which included an object which played sound in Kitely. However, the sound was not placed in a prim—it was only referenced in a script with it’s UUID. Therefore, Dundridge had expected that when he set up the OAR on his own home computer, the sound in that object would not play. He assumed that he would end up having to upload the sound separately. He was astonished to find that the sound actually played fine in the object in the OAR set up on his home computer - and he did not have to upload the sound itself. Ilan’s response was that “sounds are assets in the sim... it exports whatever is part of the world and isn't export blocked… including terrain, many region config settings, etc... It may be a coalesced object... UUIDs are saved in the OAR, it is up to the OAR loading logic to decide whether they'll be used ro replaced… it doesn't scan the script… it gets all the objects contained in the world… the sound is one of them… the UUID calls something, where is that something stored?... in order for an object to be able to play a sound the sound has to exist in a place it can get to it... i.e. it is most likely embedded in the object... OAR files don't [reach] outside the boundry of the world they are archiving... it won't backup anything from your inventory only things that are rezzed.” The tech people present were intrigued by the details of tests Dundridge performed to figure out where the sound was actually being pulled from. They seemed to agree that more information and discussion was needed and the topic would be further pursued.

Plans for an In-Kitely Concert was announced by Allen, to include some friends and fairly well known musicians iSL. He asked for recommendations on scheduling and was accommodated. Allen seemed to be settling on the first day in August. Allen also mentioned he’s building a little venue to prep and is looking for dances if anyone has links and got several responses.

Shelenn reminded everyone that MOSES dgs experiments are open to the public and “still time to register now for this weekends experiment... 75 more slots are open.”

Allen suggested a weekly Kitely ubergeeks forum.

Bringing the meeting to it’s close, Ilan asked about our efforts to spread the word on Kitely Market to additional merchants. Sierra mentioned she had been trying to get a couple of the big merchants at SL to come look at Kitely. Shelenn said she had done what she can on G+, “posting in Kitely Virtual, then sharing the link from there advertises Kitely by design.” Sally said she would be posting Kitely events and info now at "Virtual OpenSim Happenings": http://pinterest.com/cherrynetwork/virt ... appenings/ and asked that anyone who hasn’t joined kitely virtual to please do so. Rosa sent a note to a prominent animator in SL, today, to ask him to consider joining. Ilan encouraged people to post events to the forum as well: http://www.kitely.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=17 and Minethere offered this link: https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/113904954 ... 4656181042.

Addendum re Exporting:

In addition, I asked for some clarification from Ilan on the topic of exporting after the meeting. Here is his additional explanation:
Sierra: If I place an item in the MP and mark it as exportable in MP---does that effect the permissions on the item in my INVENTORY? In other words, if I take the original item from my inventory now, and sell it inworld, is it marked as exportable automatically? Or if I want to make sure it has the special exportable permission, do I need to deliver myself a copy of the item from the MP?
Ilan: When you add an item to a Kitely Market product the item is copied to another database that is separate from your inventory. This means that you can modify or delete the inventory item afterwards and it won't affect the marketplace copy of the item. The same goes for changes to the marketplace copy (such as the addition of the Export flag), it won't affect the copy stored in your inventory.

Ilan: If you want an item's exportability to be controlled by the Export flag it will have to have come from the marketplace to get that flag added to it. You can use the Test Delivery option to get such a copy from your marketplace product listing. However, if you don't intend to also sell that item in the marketplace we recommend you create a small notecard asset, make it no-Export in the marketplace and deliver it to yourself. Then embed that notecard in any item you wish to make Kitely-only (reusing the same export-blocking notecard is recommended over creating multiple notecards for that purpose). Only use this notecard export-blocking option for items sold inworld and not via the marketplace as the embedded notecard will be shown in the marketplace product listing and will make your listing look a lot less professional.

[Dundridge Dreadlow]

Thank you Sierra for agreeing to write this week's meeting summary. You did a good job

[Rain Drop]

This is good things are really moving forward in kitely as promised, also just wanted to thank everyone for making kitely a great place,
this genuine transparency in how kitely is growing not only brought me here but has made me feel very comfortable investing in my future here.

Rain

[Constance Peregrine]

something I have been trying to do and cannot figure it out is to use bvh files I have in tgz/oar files and import them...

they are small 1 or 2 kb files that do not import...i seem to recall such size files just hold basic header type info...i also tried renaming them to a simpler name from the uuid name

ex my curtsy anim Linda gave me is 59 kb

but they are in the tgzs i made and given full perms rights and i would like to be able to save those anims as useable and import them

i think it must be something simple i am missing.

[Ada Radius]

I just tried it, Miney, and I'm getting "Unable to read animation file. Invalid HIERARCHY header." I don't know anything about bvh files, and I don't know what that means. I'm getting textures with no problems from the tgz files, after unzipping the tzg and reformatting the jp2. I haven't tried sound files yet.

[Constance Peregrine]

I just tried it, Miney, and I'm getting "Unable to read animation file. Invalid HIERARCHY header." I don't know anything about bvh files, and I don't know what that means. I'm getting textures with no problems from the tgz files, after unzipping the tzg and reformatting the jp2. I haven't tried sound files yet.

yea, that's the message....it's odd

[Marstol Nitely]

I don't know that this will be much help... I've always had to import bvh files through the viewer individually. Upon import they become animations. Animations can be added to an OAR after they've been converted. Not sure that you can bring bvh's in without going through that process.

[Constance Peregrine]

I don't know that this will be much help... I've always had to import bvh files through the viewer individually. Upon import they become animations. Animations can be added to an OAR after they've been converted. Not sure that you can bring bvh's in without going through that process.

that is what i tried to do also.

I do have some bvh's that work but not any of the ones in oars/tgz's....maybe i can figure this out someday as I could really use those anims...

[Marstol Nitely]

Let me know if you ever find another process. I'd sure be glad not to do it the tedious way!

[Constance Peregrine]

Let me know if you ever find another process. I'd sure be glad not to do it the tedious way!

as this is the second place i have asked with no fix...i kinda doubt it....lol...but ya never know-)) and I will...