Servers going Open Source?

But if modifying the open source server software lets people get their server up and ties into the big LL Secondlife grid somehow ..

It depends which level you open things up. The asset servers are the big issue since it is difficult to see how those can be opened up whilst preserving the permissions system.

From the horses mouth: January 26, 2007 Mitch Kapor - Chairma of the board of Linden lab stated that servers will be open source in this interview (listen to the first 5 minutes). You cannot get a better source than that.

http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/01/26/interview-with-linden-lab-chairman-mitch-kapor-in-davos/

As a matter of fact everything I said came from a linden

I cannot post the words verbatim or this thread and maybe even my account will be locked.

I do agree that LL wants to get out of the land business.

In 2006, 70% of LL's revenue came from land sales and tier so why would they want to pull out?

LL wants to get out of having to offer support and deal with silly little things like abuse reports, but they're not about to kill their own income when they have nothing to replace it with.

What about the service fee of being able to connect to the main grid? What about the potential boom in customers with thier own sims? There are a lot of people (me included) that would buy their own sim if they had a more solid company to work with on the server hosting than LL. I think they're making a high-risk move that could have a huge return.

What about the whole concept of turning SL into a 3d internet which has been Rosedale's big thing for SL this whole time? He's already rich so I think he's going for an ideal more than anything with SL. He'd probably be happy being able to one day say "I invented the 3d Internet"!

In 2006, 70% of LL's revenue came from land sales and tier so why would they want to pull out?

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LL doesn't have to open source a single line of the sim for third-party licensing either. They can simply sign a contract with a hosting service and drop them an installation DVD, grant them god mode on their hosted estates and done. Given the way Lindens have always described sims as a privileged entity with no restrictions, I doubt LL would ever allow a rogue coded sim into its grid.

And what is the 3D internet? A 3D store you walk into only to click on a prim and get directed to a web site? That's not a replacement for what we have now, it's flashy fluff added to an existing website. The 3D element serves no useful purpose.

For meetings and presentations it's outright clumsy and primitive compared to an Instant Messenger where you can fire up PowerPoint, run the slides, and share the application with all those attending, along with a video and audio feed for each participant at the same time.

SL is an entertainment product and it will never be more than that.

How would that be any different from having your own sim and being able to rollback at will?

For meetings and presentations it's outright clumsy and primitive compared to an Instant Messenger where you can fire up PowerPoint, run the slides, and share the application with all those attending, along with a video and audio feed for each participant at the same time.

SL is an entertainment product and it will never be more than that.

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

Well, yes. But only if you have some expensive hardware and enough bandwidth for your visitors.

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?!!??!!!???

Oh, and also, I want me a little mini sim.

This would be just like a normal sim, but maybe a fourth or an eighth of its size and price. Visually, it could be something like a desert island or a spaceship in space (or any other metaphor for a small build by itself). The benefit of it is the private island level of privacy and aesthetic control.

Because when sims are open sourced do they all have to be exactly like the ones we have now? Things could get really creative.

Good idea. I want my world to be like a Mobius strip.

Well.... Hmm....

There are actually a few reasons you don't hear much of the good stuff coming from the open source viewer. First, it pales in comparison to the "OMGBOTS!!!!" hysteria, it's just little important stuff for the most part. Second, if it's an exploit being fixed, you dont want to know about it. The Forums would break under the load if someone posted about exploits before they were closed, but you would get some attention that way I wager. I posted about one months after it was fixed, should be easy enough to find if you look

As to the quality of the code, it's pretty decent actually. Every software developer knows that in the normal course of a product's lifetime the quality of code degrades over time as layer upon layer is added to meet each new requirement or bug fix.

So, normally an application that has undergone four years of continual development - and has evolved as far as Second Life has - is either horribly fragile and nearly unmaintainable or has been worked on by very smart people who know how to refactor thier code in smart ways in order to keep the quality of the code high enough to support continued development. The Second Life viewer shows many of the signs of the latter and perhaps a few signs of the former in places.

But it is still a relatively mature, enormously complex application in terms of what any average script kiddie is capable of grokking.

I can only imagine that the server side must be at least an order of magnitude more complex. There are hints in the protocol files that there are at least logically a presence server, an asset server, a space server, etc, etc. There is an enormous amount of talk between all of the backend components in order to pull off the digital magic that is Second Life, and that is something no average script kiddie in the world is capable of wrapping their brain around.

At best, they might be able to find a little loophole, small attack vector, the obvious stuff for people that are looking for it. But for every exploit that can be found by the wannabe hacker, there will be highly qualified developers dedicated to eradicating such problems, many for personal or professional reasons.

And... Since people will be building businesses on this platform, it is not out of the realm of imagination to think that there will actually be people "on the payroll" maintaining server-side code for larger businesses, much like there are *nix admins in the IT world who get paid to maintain open source operating systems as part of the critical infrastructure of the company. Multiply that by a couple of big companies that want to have an in-world presence and have deep pockets....

Right now Second Life is a relatively small, provincial node in what it could become. A ubiquitous 3D web will in many ways mirror the WWW. One of those ways is that there will be many people dedicated to making it work for personal or professional reasons. The WWW can be said to run on open source and standards, and the world at large has a vested interest in keeping it that way, and keeping it running smoothly. Second Life will be the same, eventually.

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Open sourcing the server code, combined with libsl and the open source client, will give birth to ServerBot!

It will log into its own self with multiple avatars and buy it's own mispriced land and objects and sell them back to itself at massively increased prices, ban itself from its own property, copy its objects and textures and file DMCA notices against its own self, drive itself mad by asking itself how to get the box off its hand over and over and over, spam itself with notecards, build giant full light objects and file abuse reports against itself for doing so. All without the slightest need of human intervention.

That will leave us free to try Hipihi and Splume.[/QUOTE

ROFLMAO..

Thanks for a great morning laugh Suzzane..now to wipe off the coffee from my monitor!

I am an OpenSim user. (edited) I am currently running 25 sims and can access them over the internet.