Second Life Technology Problems and Glitches
Most of you have probably heard of open source. lts basically a software development concept which mandates that code cannot be sold for profit. Anybody and everybody has access to the source code of any open source software application and if they want, they can change it for their personal use.
Second Life (SL) resident Wright Juran believes in this so strongly that he feels all corporations making money out of software should be banned. So he is leading a whole bunch of folks in the community to build anofher version of SL using open source technology In case you didn’t know, SL is the internet-based virtual 3D world where millions of people are leading an alternate ex-istence. This means that Linden Lab, the creator of SL, is in big trouble as it is their source of revenue.
Linden Lab’s monopoly over SL
technology has been under threat from rival grids for quite some time now. But before we proceed any fur-ther, I need to explain SL technology mechanics to you.
Like any web-based system, SL also functions in a chent-server model. You need to download an SL cliënt (also known as a viewer) and install it to connect to the SL server, thus providing you a gateway to the virtual world. So we are talking about two distinct fhings here. One, SL the product, the virtual world where you are an avatar. Where you need to pay Linden Lab to exist and purchase land. And two, the SL technology platform also known as the Second Life Grid (http://secondlifegrid.net).
Now the SL product is built using the SL Grid technology and has so’far been proprietary to Linden Lab. But last year, they announced the separation of the two and the obvious decision to open source the grid technology It is no surprise as rival open source technologies are already in place to give you a similar experience without having to connect to SL. And the best part is that you can use the SL cliënt for this, which is a free download
Among several such platforms, the most promising is the one which Wright Juran works on. Called OpenSim, it is an open source server for hosting virtual worlds similar to SL. OpenSim uses the same connection mechanism to handle communication between the cliënt and server, so it is possible to connect to an OpenSim server using the SL client. Currently several worlds are in operation including the increasingly popular DeepGrid (www.deepgrid.com) and OpenLifeGrid (www.openlifegrid.com). About 300 servers have installed OpenSim server code to form DeepGrid which has over 20 OpenSim re-gions running on a near continual basis. While there’s no centralized inventory server, meaning that an avatar on DeepGrid can’t take ob-jects from one region into anofher, users can cross region boundaries seamlessly, experiencing no dis-ruption as their cliënt connects to servers on opposite sides of the world. Several SL residents are taking a curious look at this new baby as more and more technical glitches erop up with the SL servers.
OpenSim is still not perfect. For example, it does not allow you the most obvious “taken-for-granted feature” to change the appearance of the avatars. Being wholly developed by the community, it takes time. But irked residents who are forced to stop their businesses in SL due to their illegal nature are switching worlds and taking refuge in these new worlds. This opens up the un-believable possibility of a digital world with boundaries. Think of it as digital immigration to a better country So if you don’t like SL, move to OL (OpenLife).
Work on interactive connections between worlds has already begun. The open source community is hoping that corporations like Linden Lab will allow connectivity to their worlds, thus building a seamless mechanism of moving between different virtual worlds. Folks are also working on ways to export items out of SL so that inventory can be reused and no one needs to reinvent the wheel. This brings up issues about intellectual property rights but that’s a different discussion.
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Posted by Starwin on 28th July, 2010
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