Servers going Open Source?

Yes, that's pretty spot on... What Nika said The OpenSim project is the one made by independent persons (not LL) and it is coming along, though things like scripts and physics are not fully supported at this time. LL has not made any sim tech available as yet, and when they do they may or may not make an open source model, but they do plan to make sim software 'available' in some way.

So you kind of have two camps of sim provider, official from LL, and unofficial. I imagine if LL starts giving out their sim software, it will probably integrate with the main grid. At this time there is no way for third party stuff to integrate with 'The Grid', because it is effectively it's own grid, of one or more sims.

One thing I do know is the more options we have, the better we will be collectively. And the more possibilities we will all enjoy

I'm no expert in this arena, but since no one else answered you... I believe mainland will remain on LL servers, probably at a very reduced tier. Very likely only PI's will movable to 3rd party servers.

I believe it will be a couple of years before this happens. In my opinion Land ownership will be come very cheap, and people who have thousands invested now will probably lose out financially, *if* they don't cash out before the private servers start connecting, and the transitions that will fall upon us beyond that..... but there will be ample time to to start cashing out... THIS IS ALL JUST MY OPINION AND NOTHING MORE. So take it for what its worth...

I would like to go on the record as stating that I am one of those with tons of money to lose, but I am all for it, for the good of the community and whole concept of virtual life that I have *bought* into..

I think some people here are under the misaprehension that every man and his dog will be able to host a sim on their humble PC. It is true to some degree, but for 90% of the general SL populous this is just wishful thinking. Even your humble website host will not do a sim justice.

The main reasons are:

1) Bandwidth. While most can boast some sort of potential multi-MB Download streams, very very few can say the same with Upload. The maths in simplistic forms goes something like this. 1 sim users downloads (uploads to the server) say 50kbps, the server responds with sim parameters like textures, prims etc at 200kbps. Now from your hosted sim, your bandwidth would be 50kbps download against 200kbps upload, and thats per user per second (taking a mean average). Add say 10 users all arriving on your sim, and you only use 500kbps of your download bandwidth, but are uploading at 2mbps. With the vast majority having a ratio of 20:1 Download to Upload connection speeds, you will hit a saturation point long before you have even used 20% of your quoted bandwidth speed, which only mostly quoted as Download (ASDL average 2-20mbps download, 256-512kbps upload).

2) Packet loss and Time Dilations. The further apart the elements of the Grid are, the greater Time Dilations increase. Thats latencey syncronisation between the various server elements that form the Grid. Packet loss is another potential issue. The more network nodes between the server elements, the greater potential for packet loss and degrading in node caches.

3) Cost. Whilst most of us enjoy 'unlimited bandwidth' the small print interprets this under the 'Fair Usage' clause. You may appear to have unlimited usage, the term Fair, is almost undefined. Should your ISP determine that you are using an unfair amount of resources, you could find yourself on a reduced connection for a period of time, or worse, they could cancel your contract. Should you choose to host your Sim on a 3rd party server. The average host package wouldn't give you enough HD storage, CPU cycles or constant bandwidth (despite their mega bandwidth claims) to host a sim even half as good as LL do currently. Should you choose a dedicated server option, you will roughly pay what you are now to LL to host your sim. Even with a resonable dedicated server option, you may find bandwidth is capped, even with the 'unlimited' packages, these still have to contend with load balancers for connection bandwidth. Should you have a huge budget, you could probably afford your own fiber optic connection to the backbone Teir 1 node, but then you could afford 20 sims from LL for about the same cost.

4) Downtime. Should LL release the server source code, which I'm pretty certain will be the basic code to support the current features, and the API calls to the Grid. Assuming they withdraw from the sim hosting business and concentrate on the asset/core server systems, whenever they release updates, each sim owner will have to shutdown their sims and upload that new code. Once installed, this would have to be resyncronised with the Grid and lord help you if you bork that up.

5) Security. The average home PC isn't secure enough to host its own sim. The threat of migrating exploits, will add another layer of checks throughout the grid, slowing down response times.

6) Power Outages and Connection Loss. We all complain when sims or regions go down for whatever reason, and for the most part (99% of the time I suspect) LL are blamed for loss of content, profits etc. If you host your own sim(s), you will have less chance of blaming LL and may find yourself having to use disclaimers to anyone using your sim(s), against losses. You may even find yourself with a legal claim against you if your 'contract of use' isn't just and fair (TOS).

This may all spell doom and gloom, but it is a reality. The first teir of Sim will no doubt come from the Corporates or those with enough time, enthusiasim and money to host their own unique brand of sim. In time, that could spread, much the same way internet hosting has over the years, to allow the ordinary Joe in the street to participate. The 'sky' isn't falling for quite a while with those that own LL land.... well not yet.

The only thing I wish though I have no clue if its possible or how it work is this fantasy I have been having is way to have virtual private worlds offline or within personal systems with special world cams that could be shown on a web page if they choose too.
Not sure if that is possible. It wouldn't be for virtual land market purposes but their could be content available to buy or trade like their was in the orginal sims games.
There was a whole lot more developement and options as I recall but the program caused limitations. The only limit of offline version would be based on skills, computer ressources and hard drive space of the users.
Would this ever be possible?
It would be nice to have way to create sim like spaces that are unique not neccesarily focused on what is currently available in LL.
Example a private outerspace sim, A sim that has multiple levels that includes deep underground catacombs.etc.
Though the problem with for majority of content distributors for the orginal sims at least the popular ones was bandwidth issues often they ran into problems sharing content when they became more popular.
Their still was content theif sites sadly though too.

Your reasons are sound as regards running a sim at home - with the exception of down time. The newly introduced het-grid (in theory) permits different sims to run different versions of the sim code - this is already being used to test new code on the main grid.

However, if you search you will find hosting companies that will host a dedicated server for you at a colo which does have sufficient power and bandwidth to host 1 - 2 sims quite happily for about half the monthly price LL would charge for a single sim. These often do not have the upfront cost of a LL private island either. (indeed I pay for such a server to run my own stuff on)

So if we assume LL will not charge a connection fee, we may well be in the situation that for an upfront cost of 1600 plus 295 per month you could have 1 single LL hosted island, or for 150 per month and no upfront cost you could have two islands hosted elsewhere.

The impact might not be as large as those thinking you can run islands on home PC's but it will still have an impact.

Matthew

LL might allow connecting to the grid at no cost (although I'd think that at the least they'd charge a nominal recurring fee to reserve a "grid location" for your sim(s)), but anyone tp'ing to the sim could end up with a dissapointing experience.

All a sim contains is a list of assets that are currently rezzed: the only thing the sim likely needs are the prim params for collisions, the compiled code to run scripts and the baked textures of any avie on the sim.

Currently all downloads go through the sim, but in the future the client will receive asset downloads from the asset server(s) directly (or through a cache) and those will supply 99% of all the bandwidth, with the sim only sending the initial rezzed assets and any updates. I very much doubt LL will eat those bandwidth costs.

Additionally there's the question of how LL will solve insecure sims. Any non-LL hosted sim could potentially be used to make full permissions copies of everything it sees, or mess up the avie of anyone that tp's to it. If non-LL hosted sims (and avies present on that sim) turn out to get no (or only partial) access to the main grid assets, inventory, or L$ balance then that might be good enough for corporations, but arriving Ruth'ed with no inventory won't appeal to too many people.

Finally there is the problem of licensing: things like Havok and other third-party technologies aren't freely redistributable.