Non-Disclosure

Non-Disclosure Agreements -- ever think about them much? How they rule our world? Heavens, I've had a long life of signing all kinds of contracts, some with NDAs, with publishing houses, government entities, etc. I've never been in anything, even dealing with the KGB and presidents and whatnot, that had so much Secret Non-Disclosed Activity as in Second Life. Here, in the land of "information wants to be free" and "open source" and "copyleft" and "Free Culture," we suddenly encounter stony poker-face after stony poker-face of silence. Non-disclosure, the dark side of the open-sourcerers of Second Life.

I'm waiting to see if a Linden gets back to me with my query: how many NDAs has LL signed with residents, SL companies, and RL companies? And when did they start signing them? And about what?

If you think abuot it, NDAs rule out world. If you wanted to finally understand the Secret of Second Life, this would be it.

On December 4, 2003 -- so an oldbie beta-era Charter member tells me -- he signed his first Non-Disclosure Agreement with Linden Lab.

Oh, you say, what was *that* about? Secret work on secret inventions?

No, it wasn't like that -- the main motivation seems to be an "avoidance of drama". Why drama? Well, it seems that back then, the Lindens were just about to change their business model right before v1.2.

They decided to go from a model where, like tekkie utopians, they just rolled out land and let people have it in endless amounts, but just pay a "prim tax," something they put in eventually, for what they built, to a model that involved selling land as a virtual commodity. The "prim tax" had proved unpopular, so they conceived of a method which would overnight, reduce all the land holdings of everybody down to one 4096 m2 parcel (a good historical precedent that it would be prudent to remember).

At that time, the currency was play money, there were no land barons, and Lindenor was at peace across its many rolling bare, brown core-sim hills.

All the big landowners -- read: all the big project developers who had a *use* for big amounts of land with "value-add" and weren't just silly pancake flippers like they are now -- were summoned for a telephone conference. In those days, there wern't that many people, of course. Some of the people in that telephone conference have since left SL; some remain, some very, very successful, others less so.

What those who took part in that conference that winter day all had in common was that they all signed an NDA before the phone call in order to participate. The secret was about the forthcoming changes that would radically alter the world and introduce a capitalist economy. No doubt this early tip-off helped some people to then buy the charter accounts in multiples so that they could even put together enough 4096s to make a whole sim on the mainland.

And thus was made a superior class of people -- the people trusted by the Lab to sign such contracts, and those not. Those disclosed to -- those willing to keep a secret -- and those not. Those who were able to keep mum for a month until the information became public knowledge -- or for a year -- and those not trusted.

Aimee wasn't even born yet; Flipper was only a gleam in Philip's eye, as was Jeska. Asked how old she was when she signed her first NDA, Aimee quipped that she remembers it well, it was in the backseat of a 1957 Chevy...When I persisted and asked her if this was in 1956, she suggested I could come to a slumber party to talk about boys, because having contacted her now twice inworld, I was nearly "her friend". (Of course SLStats.com had already established me, her, and Cristiano as "friends" long ago).

Now...was Cristiano in this December 2003 call? Who else? Wouldn't you like to know? Imagine, being 22 or something, just starting out in your big metaversal design career, and this plucky young start-up in California signs an agreement with toi.

Like omerta for the mafia, the NDA is the secret seal on our world, a ritual passing through the veil that only a few get to partake in, and which has some pretty interesting effects. I think we'll never fully understand them.

Did you always wonder why some people seemed to enjoy such immunity and impunity on the forums with their foul mouths and personal attacks and insults even of Lindens, with never an eye twitch? Well, perhaps Jeska and Pathfinder, initiated into the rites of the Tao of Linden, saw the marks on the foreheads of those avatars who had Signed the Non-Disclosure, and were given pause.

It just wouldn't do to ban somebody who was needed on an important NDA-signed Secret Project!

No, it just wouldn't do to try to rein in those Creative Types and Plan-Ahead Types who were worthy of the Company's greatest confidence.

Did you ever wonder why some people just always get ahead, get picked over and over again? Trust -- the kind of trust gained with a successful NDA signed and kept -- is like money in the bank. Who needs an easily-gamed reputation system when you have NDAs??

Who gets to sign an NDA? Sadly, not Gwyn Llewelyn -- she flat-out denies that anyone ever needed her to keep a secret, not with her intelligence, which grasps what the Lab is going to do anyway -- five minutes before it does : )

The Electric Sheep -- as it has been reliably reported to me and this is my sincere belief and opinion -- signed an NDA in 2005 to work on an improved search engine...erm some kind of search thingie -- I wouldn't want to get this wrong, now would I? Millions of Us is interested in the same subject -- but are they getting there any faster and did *they* get an NDA?

Surely a part of Hamlet nee Linden Au's golden handshake book arrangement and Reuben nee Linden Steiger's departure from LL involved NDAs? Or...things like them?

And Spin Martin...did he sign an NDA? Have you truly arrived in SL if you haven't signed an NDA? Spin, if you haven't signed an NDA...why are you slacking on Slackstreet!!!!

How about CNET or Reuters? They wouldn't need to sign an NDA...would they? Yet NDAs are passed around like candy -- to the properly initiated. The people on SL Views tell us that they felt like they were under NDAs, and should behave as if under oath -- such is the climate! but they weren't...were they? We've heard very little of the aftermath of these privileged sessions.

Baccara Rhodes was one of those December 2003 NDA-signers -- did this help establish her role as Queen of SL? Did she sign another one when she made Neverland? Did Ulrika Zugzwang sign one -- or any form of contract -- to get her first purchase-price free sim? What about Bedazzled?

I'm told that to get on the developers' list, you have to sign an NDA. Well, it's only fair, because you get heads up on stuff like the dwindling supply of islands before a price hike, and the third-party site registration API -- and probably more.

But we can't know what exactly, can we, because like Max Schachtman's old joke about the secret police ("The reason they call them the secret police is because they're...secret"), the reason they call them "Non-Disclosure Agreements" is because...you're not supposed to disclose stuff. In fact the very existence of the NDA itself may have to be kept hidden.

Like, the presence of an island in SL in the first place. That's why we might see a hasty renaming of islands with serious names like "U.S. Government Testing Facility" renamed to innocuous things like "I LOVE KIMMY" before tomorrow's patch.

NDAs rule our world. Those who have proffered them to others who signed them rule our world. They are outside the rules of the game.

Comments

[Jesse Malthus]

Not all information wants to be free. "Loose lips sink ships", remember?

[Eric Rice]

Why do I need to sign an NDA to pay money to a company to use their hosted software product? Oh, I *don't*.

NDAs are pretty cookie-cutter, as are non-competes. I worked for the web arm of a bank, and naturally signed NDAs, and non-competes. Even signed an non-compete for six months with Weblogs Inc when I did a stint with them.

That doesn't mean I am not allowed to support Linux, one of those tekki wikinistatorial things, oh uh open source, etc etc.

NDA's also don't have anything to do with tech at times, like if company A is working on a big project witha big client, they don't want you talking about it publicly, or more relevant, with the competitors.

This is nothing exlusively with SL. Hell, it doesn't even have exclusivity in tech. I signed on when I worked for a Fortune 500 *restaurant* company.

So, I sign them when necessary. And I have people sign them when necessary. But I'm not a developer, I'm a content creator and am not concerned about processes disclosed--heck I'll teach people our methods.

Why is this weird?

[Prokofy Neva]

Well, that would be my attitude, too, Eric -- why would I sign an NDA with a host company?? Except a certain select list of "developers" and hangers-on *do* sign it, and if *you* haven't, are you sure you're cool? Are you sure you're doing something so cutting edge that you shouldn't be talking about it?!

And did you or didn't you have to sign an NDA to get on the "developers' list"?

Yeah, NDAs and non-competes are "fairly standard" except...why? for this? In the way it is done.
For so much.

Depending on what you did for the restaurant company, it might seem odd or not, but the creation of a society where there is a constant flow of talent to cult leaders that savagely control their subdued tribes through threats of reprisal if they talk about things creates a horrid, horrid, sycophantic climate. That's why you see this interlaced webbed world of celebratory blogs all interacting with the brand and touting it. They've all signed NDAs. It shows.

An NDA is a license to drink Kool-Aid.

Yeah, I realize it isn't about tech only which is why a mere landowner being told about a release that will bring losses to some, wins to others signs it because it's a "secret"

Sure, a software company does this -- but not nearly as much, I'll bet so that it sets up groups of customers against each other in this way. And they don't stratify the users into such a hierarchical caste system. And they don't also run "a world" and "forums" that determine the very nature of the world.

Like, they don't have one set of business partners trying to use the events list for their business, and have the events list for their use, and another set of more vaunted, trusted business partners who have signed an NDA trying to take over and destroy the events list and control it.

They don't have one set of business partners or contractors who lobby say, *for* being able to map on friendship cards and another opposed. They don't have one that wants push and aggressive security orbs and the others who don't. They don't want one who advocates for telehubs, and another who don't -- and who wind up getting telehubs for their exclusive use on private islands ROLF.

That's what I mean. They don't have worlds. And we do. And that's what makes it more glaringly offensive as a practice because of the privilege and political control it awards to a new class, at the expense of others.

Yeah, you're allowed to support Linux and open source and yet justify NDAs because you don't mind the hypocrisy and internal contradictions involved in this worldview. I do.

How can you be for open source, yet be for a system that constantly privileges a few programmers and gives them heads up on the software, or reverse-engineering, to their *business* advantage (because they all have businesses) and stick it to others, who *also* have to make use of that same software, whith nowhere near the input into its features???

[Yumi Murakami]

Why does this always remind me of http://www.brokentoys.org/broken-toys-900/ ?

[Prokofy Neva]

I have no idea, that's a pretty obscure reference, make your point about it, please.

[Desmond Shang]

>>How can you be for open source, yet be for a system that constantly privileges a few programmers and gives them heads up on the software, or reverse-engineering, to their *business* advantage (because they all have businesses) and stick it to others, who *also* have to make use of that same software, whith nowhere near the input into its features???

This is the point of the age, the big question of business in the metaverse. Business advantage is *exactly* that: advantage. Advantage, as in: something one person has, but not another.

Not everyone is for open source, of course.

But - the real reason I posted here - I am simply haunted by something. I used to work with a lot of ex-Soviets, who used an expression:

"Silence means Agreement"

I would say something in a meeting, and they would all fall silent - especially employees - they explained this was from their education system, and it meant they had no issue with what was said.

"Silence means agreement" - An odd play of words, especially in light of this post!

I can hear the phrase in my mind, but I'm dying to write it down in cyrillic but... I'm not good enough with writing Russian words I've heard, and just can't. Meh.

Ah, and incidentally, I haven't signed any NDA's myself... yet. :)

[Prokofy Neva]

Hmmm that doesn't really ring a bell for me, but I'd have to hear the Russian. Molchaniye znachit soglasiye perhaps? Molchyat znachit soglasny? it's true that they didn't exactly encourage the Socratic method and students did sit there in silence.

I know one Russian tic is to close their eyes when they mean "yes". You ask them something, and they close or squint their eyes. They don't always nod their heads, but they close their eyes, as if having to endure something against their will.

Here's the translation of the Soviet poster:

"Don't Blab!" is the Ne Boltai!

then the doggerel:

"Be on guard!
These days
The walls have ears
It starts with gossip and
chatter and
ends with TREASON"

or "it's not from from gossip and chatter to TREASON".

This is SO different than the "Loose lips/sink ships" mantra of World War II. In that mantra, you are taught to be vigilant against saying anything that might harm soldiers and make their ships sink, that if you are careless, people might die, you're responsible for your country's defense in the sense that you try to avoid something bad happening to the sailors and the ship."

The Soviet mantra is built on a different premise, instilling fear of punishment. If you chatter, YOU will suffer. The heck with the guy in the sink shipping. YOU will be going down, and sentenced for treason, which meant death by firing squad or other form of execution in the Soviet Union.

The NDA of LL is not for the good of the world or the society, but for the good of one company and to the benefit of those signing them.

[Desmond Shang]

>>Molchyat znachit soglasny?

That's it!!! Though the second two words were always blurred together, to my hearing.

>>I know one Russian tic is to close their eyes when they mean "yes". You ask them something, and they close or squint their eyes. They don't always nod their heads, but they close their eyes, as if having to endure something against their will.

It took me years to understand this - and that it was normal. Just when I finally did, I was no longer working with former Soviets... ah well.

[Yumi Murakami]

Prokofy, concerning the Broken Toys reference - take a look at this, which is what Lum said in that article about members of the old Ultima Online volunteer program:

"They had joined the program to be on the inside, to have the knowledge and access.. and now they were denied this - they were.. in the dark"

This is what I meant.. I think many people joined Second Life with the idea that it would be great to help to build a virtual world, and in so doing, "join up" with the other people also building that virtual world, and to be "on the inside" of that world, in that sense. Not necessarily even wanting anyone else to be "on the outside", either.

But when something like this happens.. when suddenly it's revealed that there's a smaller group who have been "on the *REAL* inside" all along.. that perception gets broken down. As it does when the Lindens change things because of small numbers of businesses, for instance.

It just reminded me, really. But I guess it proves that this has been happening for a while before SL.

[Prokofy Neva]

Well, the premise of "The Group is its Own Worst Enemy" is exactly that. And yes, I think the first pioneers felt like they were smart and geeky biosphere builders and that they wanted a biosphere that was built by their lights with their ethics and values (or absence of them) and they viewed others as annoying, buzzing flies against the glass.

So it's about people constantly trying to re-position to make new biospheres, private islands, enclaves with mass ban lists, etc.