What Exactly IS OpenLife?

So someone mentioned OpenLife in another thread...I Googled it and foudn it- but am still clueless? Is it related to SL somehow? What is it?

It's an alternative to SL.

sl's client is officially open source. then i think someone figured out how to make the sl server software, or mimic it at least. so you put those together and you have all the pieces necessary to bypass LL.

Awww...I thought I heard something somewhere about it being a thing where you could essentially host your own sim at home or something..go there to find the regions still require tier and whatnot >.<

poo

ETA:: Oh wait, OpenSim from them is just that it seems.. a standalone thingy..though maybe not

OpenLife is where people took the open source code that LL was generous enough to make available and rather than use it to improve SL they hacked together their own server code and decided to compete with LL for profit? Or maybe I'm just a cynic and don't get it either.

Sounds about right to me.

Also, it's about a bazillionth of the size of SL and you can't really do much of anything with it yet.

So is it essentially a teeny SL? And would you still connect to other people? Or does it sit alone in your machine and you wander around alone wishing for company and greifers?

Yet being the key word. IBM is putting support behind it -- mark my words, in three years or so it'll be a major force.

P2

OpenLife is a teeny SL, with other people, judging by the website. Run pretty much the same as SL, just smaller, probably less/no support, and not as well done.

OpenSim looks to be a 'just for you' sim thing, or maybe you can make it usable to others too, not sure there.

Could be but, just IMO, unless they can keep people who run sims from grabbing full-perm copies of every single thing that comes into their sim, you're not going to get content creators there. People will start calling it Pirate Life.

Competition, in general, is good. If this pushes LL towards making decisions that benefit the SL and it's community, I'm for it. Right now, it's just an interesting idea, again just IMO.

OpenLife allows 100m prims, meshes, as many URL's on a prim as you like, and other things that you cannot do in SL.

If you want to own land, it's cheaper. If you don't want to own land, it's free.

There are other grids that allow you to connect your personal simulator, DeepGrid and Central Grid are two.

They are? I just tried to find something saying that..do you have a link to someplace that does? Really interested now o.o

But at the moment you can't put notecards or prims inside other prims o.o
(According tot he FAQ)

Maybe other grids won't want many people from SL since theft is rampant there?

No, not last time I checked. However, many people on OpenLife are not interested in any type of economy, so it's not as necessary.

It's what probably prompted Linden Labs (tm) (bs) to get so strict on their logo (tm) and the letters SL (tm) (bs) (whocares?)

I thought about downloading a sim to my computer, so I can piddle with the textures without ever hitting the beta grid. Plus, just the idea of showing myself what I can do without lag, assets being eaten.. etc...

I'm considering the 'personal sim' thing myself, simply cause I wanna see what I can do with it =P

Absolutely, I use mine for exactly that. Well, and the kiddo likes to build in there too.

http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/02/ibm-launches-3.html

It is not openlife grid it is the opensim project, which is what most of these alternagrids are based on.

Cool, thank you!

That would explain why LL is trying to register the word "grid" when it comes to virtual words.

Yeah, good luck with that one.

OK, some of this might have been said before by people who know more than me but...

OpenLife is a clone of SL, using SL open source codes. It looks and works just like SL, except there are some things you can't do yet.

OpenLife also allows you to download their 'Standalone' sim that works on your own computer. You can have more than one sim - we have a 2-sim island. It's great for creating your own private fantasy paradise but it's not connected to any grid so nobody else can visit it.

CentralGrid is another SL clone.

As well as these 'clones' of SL, there are copycat worlds, like the Chinese ones Novoking and Hipihi. They look to me like blatant copies of Second Life but they are developed from scratch so they look and work slightly differently.

This is why LL just lowered the cost of a sim. You can go to one of these 'off-world' servers and get a island for $300 USD set-up and about $50 USD a month in maintenance.

Once someone does what IBM did - which is develop a 'bridge' between their own simulator and Second Life - then we will be able to walk between servers and keep most of our inventory on each server.

That'll last.