Re: [mmox] Permissions

[Jesrad <[e-mail]>]

Imagine for a second that the cross-grid protocol mandate somehow that
objects made on one grid be hosted and served to clients from this
grid, and not transfered to other grid servers / simulators (though
the owner may have the third-party possibility of exporting from one
and importing to another so it is hosted multiple times and thus
exists in multiple instances).

>From there any specific policy of "DRM" would purely be a matter of
specific grid implementation. I would say that a lot of headaches and
flames would be averted, saving us the trouble of directly addressing
these matters in the MMOX scope itself and leaving them for
grid-caretakers and their own customers to discuss and decide policy
about.

Please, everyone, let me know what you think of this.

On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Gareth Nelson <[e-mail]> wrote:
> Just been talking to Adam about this and knocked out a very very rough
> spec. It may be early in the game to discuss this issue, but it's one
> that drives a lot of emotion in people on all sides of the debate.
>
> So, without further a-do, here's a rough spec for a DSL (Domain
> Specific Language) for permissions to discuss (copied and pasted from
> my vim session, excuse any formatting weirdness):
> Original concept courtesy of Adam Frisby, see
> http://www.adamfrisby.com/blog/2008/08/hypothetical-permissions/
>
> Very very rough thinking out loud
>
> Each asset has a set of metadata fields:
>        Author
>        Creation timestamp
>        Last modified timestamp
>        Logs of modifications? (TBD)
>
> Possible actions:
>        Copy
>        Modify
>        Transfer
>        Transfer for cash
>
> Each action attached to a simple function that returns a boolean value
> if action is allowed.
> Data types:
>        Entity
>                Describes a user, organisation, system or network
>        Asset
>                Describes an asset ;)
>        Location
>                Describes a virtual location, rather than a physical system
>        Time
>                Date and time :)
>
> Entity has these fields:
>        Name
>        UUID
>        Class (person, organisation, system, network)
> Optional fields for person entities:
>        Agent domain? (TBD)
>        System (what system is the user connecting from - may be withheld for
> privacy reasons)
>        Location (where in the metaverse are they?)
> Optional fields for organisation entities:
>        Organisation type (nonprofit/commercial/government etc)
>        Company type (for corporations: LLC/Ltd/PLC/whatever)
>        Address (i.e postal address)
>        Technical contact (a person entity!)
> Optional fields for system entities:
>        Platform
>        System hash (hash of various bits of hardware, HD serial and ethernet MAC etc)
>        Network
>        Current IP address
> Optional fields for network entity
>        Technical contact (heh, redundant)
>        CIDR prefix
>
> Asset
>        Name
>        MIME type
>        UUID
>        Creator
>        Creation time
>        Last modified time
>        Last modified by
>
> Location
>        TBD (Obviously not the SL style Region/x/y/z)
>
> Time
>        You need to ask? ok,
>        Day
>        Week
>        Month
>        Year
>        Hour
>        Minute
>        Second
>        All integers
>
> Simple comparision operators to match on what is passed to the functions
> !=, ==, >, <, >=, <=, a few simple string functions, the usual suspects
>
> function prototypes:
> copy(Entity src, Location location, Time time, Asset ass)
>        src      == the user currently holding the asset who wishes to copy it
>        location == the location the requesting user is inhabiting at present
>        time     == the time the request was made at (just in case there's
> batch processing or serious latency)
>        ass      == the asset being copied
> modify(Entity modifier, Asset ass, Time time, Location loc)
>        modifier == the entity trying to modify
>        ass      == the entity they're trying to modify
>        time     == the current time
>        loc      == where is our modifier while they're trying to modify?
> transfer(Entity src, Entity dst, Location loc, Time time, Asset ass)
>        Same as copy essentially
> sell() is just transfer, but invoked for transfers in exchange for compensation
>
> The modify() function could probably do with a description (if
> possible) of the modification being requested, for example in my own
> work i'd want to prohibit modifications to the permissions in order to
> enforce the GPL, others may have different requirements.
>
>
> DANGER! DANGER! READ:
>        Any system that can be proposed here can only be used to express
> intent, it can express that intent very clearly using a DSL as i've
> roughly
>        spec'ed out above, but it will never be possible to actually
> enforce it on systems that do not want to enforce it. I'll note that
> personally I
>        absolutely hate DRM for the most part, but if it's going to be a
> reality it should be done right, and should allow any type of license
> to be roughly
>        expressed in a way that can be handled by automated systems. If for
> no other reason than mere practicality, a decent DSL for specifying
> what
>        permissions an author of a copyrighted work has granted under
> existing copyright law can be useful and saves having to pester the
> author.
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