Consider possible official protocol name change/branding

[Former user]

As a viewer developer, we'd like to use LSL-driven scripts for complex automation of the viewer-side tasks. This would enable a number of sophisticated possibilities for use in SL, such as games similar to "LindenRealms", team sports, team combat, stage choreography, machinema, and more, beyond traditional RLV uses.

Since RLV has already made great strides making this possible, it seems wise to join forces and improve this effort, rather than start another separate one.

However one obstacle is attracting developer, user, and idea-person buy-in. This would be simplified if the RLV project had a more emotionally neutral name and brand, for example "Remote Lsl Viewer" instead of "Restricted Love .." or "Restrained Life...", etc..

If the official spec, documentation, and branding could be more neutral like this and announced, it would allow greater involvement from communities outside the traditional RLV base of support.

The RLV spec and implementations have greatly surpassed their original intended uses! This is the mark of highly successful software, but more could be done to take it to the next level.

[Marine Kelley]

It is true that the biggest drawback of the RLV now is its name. Clearly "Restrained Life" and later "Restrained Love" are fetish-oriented, and clearly people who use it for vanilla purposes (and there are many) have to overcome their hesitation to use something that sounds so "niche" and borderline.

So yes eventually a name change would have to take place... again. I was forced by LL to change almost two years ago, and I absolutely wanted to keep the acronym "RLV" so that vendors in-world would not have to change their pics. "Restrained Love" came from a voting, it was what the users liked the most (and actually suggested the most often, even when not asked), that's why this name was chosen. But even now, nearly two years later, some manuals and vendors are still not updated (mine are not either). It takes way too much work. Besides, some brand include "RLV" in their name, so changing the acronym would hurt them as well. In their point of view, doing so would be a treason.

As a result, it is very important, capital even, that the RLV keeps those letters, even if the name itself changes. And that's where it gets hard. But I do like your "Remove LSL Viewer" suggestion very much. It's neutral, and means exactly what the RLV stands for : an API to let scripts control the viewer. Very elegant choice here !

But let's not stick to one proposal, people, if you have other ideas, by all means please share them ! :)

[Lance Corrimal]

If the letters "RLV" stay visible, the bad connotation will stay as well, I fear.

What we "need" would be a "cool buzzword" name, that does not remind people who actually don't know enough but have heard and read "stuff" of RLV. Of course, technically the "RLV" could still be around, for script backwards compatibility, just not visible for the normal user looking at the UI of the viewer.

On the front face of the whole matter it could be called something like... EVIE. EVIE is cute, and stands for: Enhanced Viewer Interactivity Extension.

Or how about AIVAS. As a little nod and bow to Anne McCaffrey, if nothing else. Stands for: Advanced Interactive Viewer Addon System

I can actually see Verkin Raven announce his next generation of dragon avies to be "aivas compatible".

[Kadah]

One possible rebranding strategy could be to just rename a subset of the RLV spec and reserve the "obviously fetish oriented" commands under the existing RLV name. This way everyone making RLV things or wishing to use it can continue to do so under then original acronym, and everyone doing non "bondage stuff" can use a functionally identical API that has a name not synonymous for only being kinky. The new named feature subset could be defaulted to a first-use case to enabled/disabled it, similarly to how media used to work in the viewer.

Just a thought.

[Alan Glover]

I think "RLV" needs to be maintained too, at least within the original market segment that RLV was first intended for, however it can be evolved to not have any specific meaning. It becomes a name in its own right, not an acronym.

However, as an acronym, it is outdated. Whether it's Restrained Life/Love Viewer, this is no longer appropriate when Marine's code appears in at least two viewers and RLVa appears in further viewers. There is no longer one Restrained Love Viewer - we have an API with two implementations, with each implementation appearing in two or more different viewers.

The new name and its acronym should point at the API or the protocol, reflecting the way that the RLV API appears in multiple viewers now.

[Satomi Ahn]

If the audience of RLV should suddenly be extended to these wider horizons, maybe it is not only the name that should change, but also the API (syntax and command names), as for those new users there would be no need to carry all the weight of the past (all the burden kept for backward compatibility along the many iterations of the API).

Were I the opener, I would not worry about what the fetish crowd thinks and just choose a new name and think about a new cleaned up API (using the same backend as RLV or RLVa where it makes sense). Besides, the new API not being directly compatible could reassure vanilla people that no kinky RLV device can control them.

[Former user]

Yes, if people are so dainty that the name offends them, perhaps satomiahn is right, and a separate, limited, and sanitized API should be available.

Personally I find it distasteful that people who hold BDSM in such low regard should have any say in how a BDSM community-driven resource is handled. But that's just my opinion.

[Lance Corrimal]

nudge

This still being discussed?

In light of the upcoming "Experiences" that LL started to roll out at that new "premium wilderness" this is more important than ever.

I would bet quite some L$ on LL making those "Experiences" only available through the estate manager tools... like region windlight... and by that leaving all land owners on mainland or rented parcels out of the loop.

RLV under a different name could totally be marketed as "Experiences without owning a full sim" to game developers.

My vote goes for "AIVAS".

[Kadah]

From what I've been hearing now for a while, the new "Experience" features will have a single estate-wide permission system where the avatar only has to grant once for all regions involved in the "experience". It possible that some other perms might be covered by this, like animating, but I haven't heard much about this part.

I don't think there are many people that would want to see things like forced attach and forced teleport on mainland.

I've been working on getting region Windlight officially expanded to the parcel level for a while, but these things take a long time to get product approval.

"AIVAS" sounds like the car rental company to me.

[Lance Corrimal]

I would like to revive this discussion. Here are some points to consider:

• For the layman RLV refers to the protocol, and "Restrained Love" refers to Marine's Viewer.
• For the layman, RLV and RLVa are the same thing.
• As long as the letters RLV stick, the average user will keep thinking of "that weirdo BDSM shit", no matter what it actually does.
• as long as the average user connects RLV with "that weirdo BDSM stuff" it will never be seen otherwise, especially not by "the media".

and what Kadah said... There won't be any "Experiences" enabled on mainland. And that includes zindra as well... which might irk the people who want RLV for the BDSM usage XD

So... new name ideas, anyone?