Servers going Open Source?

From http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/19/1611252&from=rss



Any more details? Anybody?

Some day the sim code will be open. There are plans for it, but as for exactly when, I am not sure.

Yeah, cool huh? I can't wait!

I have been following the OpenSIM project, and it's kinda cool, but still very early stages.

How much cooler if LL actually open-sourced the servers, though.




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I have no idea what it means, but it's something else for us to get hysterical about...*applauds*

Does that mean I could own my own server and own land for free?

If you call the cost of a dedicated server (or at least a VPS) in a datacentre 'free'.

To the best of my knowledge, SL sims use quite a bit of resources when compared with, say, an FPS game server with the same number of 'players'.

I suspect if this were offered as 'standalone' sims. You'd really need to be a corporate entity with using the sim for your marketing/training needs or a total eccentric SL nutter with more money than sense.


I'd guess any such model would work nicely for LL still as they get to both spread the use of SL by third parties while maintaining the original grid for those who don't want to pay to run / manage their own sims. (Obviously those using 3rd party sims for the first time may be inclined to come back and use the main grid)

A nice thought... but LL will find a way to charge some kind of liscensing fee or something.

My guess is that, initially, you could point your viewer at your own server and use it as a sandbox or whatever. My guess is that you would not have inventory and woud not be able to transfer things from the server to your main-grid inventory. That would be the isolated, entry level usage.

I think LL will offer 'premium' access to their network where your server would integrate with the rest of the grid and allow other residents to find and visit your server with their inventory and L$ balances intact.

Although you own the server, LL will still maintain users' inventories and handle L$ transactions - access to their network would give you all that.

I suspect that there will also be some way of backing up the server data since prim data is relatively small. The only open area is the on-going location of prims and scripts.

I assume that if prims and scripts are stored on the server itself, then we'll all have access to that and be able to peer into everyone else's code -- making SL completely open source. Given that, the integration would have to be quite high to prevent users from being able to do that - so scripts would run on LL servers instead of users' servers. With that, I suspect that bandwidth requirements would exceed what is available to home users so you would have to have you server hosted somewhere.

(I'm going on and on...but I think LL would offer hosting too -- 24x7 support, backups, restarts, data center level power, etc).

Could Strife or Torley please ban me from the forums ASAP? I just can't bear to see this thread develop. Copybot? Open Source Viewer? Landbot? Searchbot?

OPEN SOURCING THE SERVER?!!??!!!???

You don't have to connect to a 3rd party server if you don't want to.

When did you last connect to an opensim server?

Hysterical? SWEET!!! I love it when people get hysterical over stuff and they have no clue why!

Seriously, what was the point to your post? Was there a point, or is it more "boo hoo open source is bad"?

Cause I want my own sim to run locally for my own entertainment and as a way to do offline building and a whole host of reasons. I am truly excited about the prospect.

And for reasons that would likely not make a great deal of sense to you (I am guessing based on the posts you make in other threads, which seem to be so strongly anti-open source as to be hysterical haha [Edit] which it seems I was mistaken about as Brenda posted below) I strongly believe that it is not only inevitable but absolutely critical that LL open sources the servers if they hope to have any good chance of achieving thier dream of what SL is supposed to be in the long run.




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Uh.. Define free.

If you're talking about a sim that you could have all to yourself and that nobody else could connect and that you wouldn't have access to your inventory from and all that then yes, you might be able to have your own server for free.

Heh. I can't tell if you are being overly sarcastic on purpose or not.

But, the whole "open sourcing the server" news is kind of old, right? So, are you saying you hate the idea, or you just hate seeing another *@&#&#&# thread about it?




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And that is something that would make me happy as heck, for now. Imagine being able to actually build stuff on a completely empty island that doesn't have lag or packet loss or constant group chat or any of that stuff.

If I could use that as a building platform to flesh out ideas in peace, I would love it. I would love it even more to be able to export from that privately hosted sim and import to Second Life, which is technically possible.


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If you run the sim, you can have all your friends in there whether it's connected to the main grid or not. Clothing, who knows?

This'd make for some great private parties

Me too.. I was just trying to burst the "we all get free sims on the grid!" bubble before it got too big..

I'm not sure how I feel about this. But here's some food for thought:

The viewer went open source and with a few exceptions, no one has done much with it. Why is that? Could it be that the code is such a rat's nest that no one wanted to take the time to unravel it? Would it just be easier to go ahead and start anew, meaning develop your your own 3-D world?

So, assuming the code for the client is that bad.. imagine what the server code must be like. Definitely not script-kiddie friendly, that's for sure.

I would so build a server for myself, as long as it had the ability to use the main asset server.

Sandboxing and building on your own server on your own LOCAL network? Im in. I wouldn't care if others could get on the server. I'm sure you could even use your old computer after you upgrade, or even run the viewer and server on the same machine. My new X2 4600+ with 4Gb of RAM would surely be able to run both at the same time (assuming there was a wndows version of the server), at least for a single user. The specs needed to support one avatar would be much less than what LL uses now, which in itslef, really isn't all that special if you are only hosting one simulator on it.

Imagine the boon for sim developers? Build your sim on your own server, take the saved server state and upload it to the main grid.

Multiple saved states of your own server... tons of posibilities

The latter. I'm totally keen on open sourcing it. This is going to be the mother of all "sky is falling" threads.

I wouldn't say nothing's been done with it - there have been numerous bug fixes submitted by residents as well as a lot of discussion on ways to make the client better. Some of these discussions will (or have) lead to residents submitting more fixes.

SL isn't small and the source hasn't been out that long...

Or could it be that they still are trying to figure out the best ways to get the fixes into the system? Or maybe they have only had a few months to do anything with the code? I bet there are also many people just trying to understand what the heck all those lines are really doing. Give it some time and we will see where this open source takes SL.

People are doing things with the OpenSource client... but contrary to what the Chicken Littles like to scream, they're not making hacks and cheats. They're fixing bugs, they're optimizing code, in generall they're helping make the Official SecondLife client better.

But then there is the L$, your inventory, your friends list, etc. that is still hosted on LL servers. I think LL wants out of the land business.

I would assume, and hope, that Linden Lab would retain proprietorship over the core essentials that give Second Life value, such as the asset and financial systems. What's on the map for release is the simulator code, which is separate from those other systems. And in an open grid environment where service providers other than Linden Lab host simulators, they'd be fairly useless without connectivity to the database and economy. Sure, there would be many scenarios where simply a simulator would meet a need - closed environments. Pondering where Linden Lab stands to generate revenue after giving the recipe away? Subscription services which enable other providers to connect their sims to these Linden-run systems?