Okay, I knew there was going to be a lot of chatter about this coming up.  A tool called SecondInventory is out.  On paper it allows you to make a local backup copy of your inventory.  A completely sane idea.  Something that is preached religiously by computer professionals since like the beginning of time.

I can personally attest to loosing items, and I might add some expensive items to Second Life.  Failing to rez and going poof.  I’ve seen it happen right before my eyes.  Think it won’t happen to you?  I know someone who just lost something precious today.  It failed to rez and went poof.  It’s basically irreplaceable too and it was no copy.  I’ve take losses myself of about L$15000 over the last year and half.  One item was expensive and it did disappear out of my inventory.

I have become pretty obsessed about inventory loss.  To the point that I have boxes in which I stuff most of the things I can copy into.  I keep these boxes rezzed in another location  Hopefully in case my personal inventory takes a loss, I can recover some things.

But why on Earth is it to this point?  It’s pretty much inexcusable.  If you’re going to design a system that handle items that have value – assets in Second Life, then you make damn sure you don’t loose them.  Concepts like not loosing transactions (items could be considered transactions) have been around for ages.  Consider a double entry accounting system.  Someone screwed up and Linden Labs knows it.  If they didn’t loose things, this sort of product would have no real reason to exist (other than for naughtiness).

Which goes back to the flip side.  For content creators this is not really a good thing.  It potentially allows their items to escape the content control system in Second Life.  It has of course potential for misuse.  Computers are very good at one thing, adding and copying data.  In fact when you boil down how they work, that’s all they do.  Preventing them from copying data is really quite hard – if not essentially impossible.

Now I’m a big supporter of the content creators.  They are the ones who make Second Life what it is.  I am like a shopaholic.  I think the root of the problem rests squarely at Linden Lab’s feet.  They give you no means of backing up your data.  They give you no guarantees that your data is safe.  So, this program is a solution for a known problem.  Someone was going to do it eventually.

How do I feel about it?  Personally, I would love to have a tool like this.  Why?  Because I have a – uh – well, way to much invested in my inventory.  For example, I use a Huddles EZAnimator HUD.  A cool device.  It cost me L$1500 (I think).  Okay, not too expensive and it’s also a mod/copy/no tran HUD.  You load it with animations, poses, etc.  I’ve used it for over a year.  Mine has dozens of dances and animations, and I think over a hundred poses.  Things I’ve collected over the last year.  Of course, some of them are no copy.  Thus making that copy of the HUD no copy.  My guess is that there is about L$50,000 in animations, dances, and poses in it, maybe more.  Whenever I want to make changes to it such as adding dances or changing configurations I have to rez it.  I usually start getting nervous before rezzing it.  More than once it has taken a few moments to appear and start getting that sinking feeling.

I also have things that are one of a kind items, things you can’t get anymore, from people who are not around anymore.  I personally could use the tool ethically, it would certainly make me feel less anxious about my inventory.  I suspect a few other will try to use or use the device in naughty ways.  So, if content creators want to protect themselves from this program, the solution is not to go after this program, but to go after Linden Labs.  If no one is going to loose content, no one needs this program.  If I’m possibly going to loose content, I probably need this program.

It does have some upsides to it.  Even for content creators.  It could allow content to flee Linden Lab’s  Second Life for another SL platform.  Linden Lab’s SL is only worth anything because of the content in it.  If that content could escape to another grid, they loose their “monopoly” on it.  A content creator could conceivably pick up their content – which they own – and easily move it to another grid.  And then setup shop there.  Lack of content has probably been the biggest impediment to the other grids going anywhere.  Just being able to pickup all of the SL freebies out there and move them would be a huge thing.  Granted there are a lot of stick bits I’m ignoring here, but I think you get the idea.

I’m sure the yelling has already begun, but is the solution to inventory loss completed?  As of today I can attest it’s not.

-Veyron

Well, I lost two no copy items with this weekend’s fun. While attempting to rez them, they failed to rez, but still appeared in my inventory. I gave up trying to rez them, and then when I logged in later, they were gone from my inventory and not rezzed where I tried to rez them.

Really irritating. Sometimes I’ve had objects like this reappear a few days later or when a sim is rebooted. We shall see. It’s just not acceptable for a computer system like this to loose items to easily, especially when we have no means of backing them up.

-Veyron

Okay, so I have a huge inventory of clothes, shoes, and other assorted items. That comes from being a shopaholic. Some people can sympathize. The unfortunate part about this large inventory is that this represents a a rather large personal investment, which I don’t really like to think about. Not only for the cost of that inventory, but the amount of time I put into acquiring it and “organizing” it. Reading about inventory loss in the Official Linden Blog sent a shiver down my spine. Removing your inventory by setting it to the default, sounds rather horrific. I think if I logged in and found my inventory missing in would probably have a nervous breakdown (well maybe not, but I’d definitely start throwing things)….

I’m even more astounded to read from Lordfly’s blog that Linden Labs does not backup your inventory. A substantial amount of my objects in my inventory are no copy, which prevents me from making a backup. But let’s just say I could make copies of my inventory objects and put them into a container and store them in a running sim. Look what happened to the Blue Note. A database crash fried the running plot of land and Linden Labs response was, should have had a copy of what you needed in… drum role… your inventory…. It seems to be a catch-22.

Linden Lab’s is going to try to defend themselves with some boiler plate terms of service, etc ad nauseum, that they are not responsible for the database. I don’t think that will work, you cannot have it both ways. It is inexcusable. My inventory has a comparatively small value, wait until someone’s inventory with a high value gets fried and cannot be recovered – send in the lawyers….

-Veyron