Teacher In Second Life Trademark Dispute Sets Up Education Outpost in OpenSimulator

Remember jokay Wollongong, the Australian professor whose Second Life education wiki was hit by a Linden trademark infringement notice last week? Here's a notable post-script to her story: "Rather than focussing on the negative aspects of recent events," she announced last Sunday, "I have created a new jokaydia Outpost on Reaction Grid as a next step in our virtual worlds explorations and hopefully the first in a series of outposts across a number of platforms!" Reaction Grid is, of course, an education-centric virtual world running on the OpenSimuator platform, which is in turn an open source offshoot of Second Life. This isn't a full departure from SL, Professor Wollongong insists. "I love Second Life and continue to be passionate about virtual worlds (of all flavours) in education," she says, but adds, "this whole [trademark] episode has offered us some great learning opportunites and we are using it as chance to diversify."

A similar reaction occurred in the wake of last year's OpenSpaces dispute, with numerous Residents loudly expressing their interest in OpenSim. (Though judging by user numbers afterward, few of them actually quit SL.) Still, I wonder if this phenomenon needs its own jargon. Here's a try:

SLOPEN: When a dispute or controversy in Second Life causes a Resident to publicly express active interest in moving some or all metaverse activity to OpenSim (though not necessarily a full commitment.) Usage example: "I'm not sure I can cover next month's land tier, but I'm SLOPEN to other options."

Image: jokaydia.com.

Comments

[jokay Wollongong]

Thanks for the follow up, Hamlet. I wish I could claim a professorship - but Im actually an educational technologist and designer. ;)

This week has been a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows as we deal with the pointy legal end of the lab, but I'm looking forward to (and very SLOPEN to.. hehe) continuing with new and old projects in both Second Life, ReactionGrid and beyond in the coming months.

Also I must say a huge thanks to jokaydia community members and other educators from the SLeducation community who have rallied around and shared their energy and willingness to explore with me. Thanks everyone!!!

[Iggy O]

Hamlet, you might want to add "SLapped" (as in "by LL") to your jargon list. A few of us on the SLED list have been tossing it around!

jokay got one very unfair SLap because LL had eagerly promoted the same site they later cited as infringing on their trademarks.

Perhaps the company's SLegal Eagles meant to warn her earlier, but they couldn't type the warning with two Smithfield Hams coming from the sleeves of their pinstripe lawyer-suits.

[Metacam Oh]

Reaction grid has it good, all they have to do is sit back and watch while Linden insults everyone of its paying customers or SLaps them in the face.

[Ann Otoole]

Does the leadership of Linden lab have any clue at all about the exodus under way or are they not going to believe it until the Chinese Lady sings and pulls the plug on that giant estate? I mean LL has to deal with it's copyrights and trademarks and all but isn't sluniverse infringing? Or does LL allow friends and lovers to infringe and not others?

[Metacam Oh]

I wonder if SL.com is infringing....

I wonder if anyone has the initials SL has to change their RL name

[Ari Blackthorne™]

If Linden Lab doesn't get their act together, I'm SLeaving.

I know a few people who claim to have already SLeft and others are SLooking at others.

I guess I'm SLopen to your term, Hamlet!

LOL :)