What Exactly IS OpenLife?

Well, there's a tradition of white room development - there are no laws being broken or copyrights or patents being walked on. True, LL could close it out of spite.

"White room development," has nothing to do with it.

I just thought I'd quickly chip in.

Our small company has recently started an R&D project based on the OpenSim infrastructure.

We've started the project in partnership with various members of our client community with the idea of exploring what exactly real SMEs could leverage from such an environment.

One of the key functional requirements is a common protocol supporting a single login across multiple installations hosted across multiple locations. This will include local/intranet storage of avatar and inventory so that you can take yourself and your belongings across environments.

We will also not be implementing a trading token like the L$, but integrating standard e-commerce interfaces allowing nomal credit card transactions between participants.

We'll also be concentrating on the integration of RL business applications and the internet.

Why are we doing it?

Well I like SL, but understand the misgivings business has with SL.. security, image, market demographics.. etc.

I'm pretty sure that a "3-D" environment has substantial advantages in certain scenarios and I'd like to explore those with the help of SME businesses who can only afford and will only pay for real value.

That's about it really. We are pretty sure that what we finally come up with will have little resemblance to SL or other OpenSim based products but we do appreciate that the current OpenSim project allows us to hit the curve without a 5 year initial development.

We're looking to have a Beta Environment up in the first quarter 2009 and we'll see what happens from there.

I know that many of the OpenSim environments look less than finished when compared to SL. What you have to appreciate is that these guys have been in the game for months rather than years. I suspect that given the progress being made, that there will be serious alternatives by the end of 2008.

From our point of view at least, we see OpenSim as a stepping stone to a new systems infrastructure. We're not planning on simply replicating SL.

Anyway, that's what we're doing...

Hmm does it mean we can't use our own textures?
Also what knowledge and computer requirements does the offline one need?
I would sort of like cheaper way to test things like textures, clothes, practice building without
being online sometimes.

I think I can hear the sounds of foundations cracking throughout the entire MMO industry.

Interesting. To me this sounds more like a 3d version of e-commerce, rather than a virtual world, so it doesn't seem, to me at least, to be something that would compete with SL.

I signed up to some OpenThinger but I never found any way to actually get in.

Other than that, I wonder what Linden Lab patents these reverse engineered SL style simulators are infringing.

Hi FD, please don't pay attention to alot of the misinformation that seems to be circling around about OpenSim. If you want the definitive information in terms of what features are supported, go to OpenSimulator.org. http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page

Yes you can upload your own textures, sculpties also work! Take it one step further and download the RealXtend viewer and you can build up to 100m prims!

If you can run the SL client you should be able to run the OpenLife standalone server no problems. There are several binary versions available that make running it a snap, allthough if you wish to run it on your home LAN for example some knowledge of router configuration and ports in needed. Keep in mind that the standalone is not an offline version unless you want it to be, and that any of the OpenSim versions allow for connectivity to other clients located on your lan or elsewhere.

I see alot of comments here defending SL fervently, pointing out the flaws of OpenSim and how it will never succeed etc. My question to the naysayers.. why dont you feel there is room on the block for many grids and competing tech? I think everyone here can agree virtual worlds are here to stay, and that alot of growth is currently possible. It is obvious that SL is not for everyone, especially in the case of business who needs more control over their environment.

Allthough the numbers published by LL in terms of user base are impressive they are peanuts compared to major internet applications like Google, Facebook, WOW, Youtube,.. and the list goes on. It seems to me that alot of people who have invested substantially in SL may percieve OpenSim as a threat, but I don't see it this way.

The more virtual worlds that are more accesible to the masses in terms of social context and content can only mean one thing .. growth for the industry..LL can and will benefit from the gained exposure of virtual worlds in general, being a true pioneer of the industry. If they don't mess it up completely in the next few years they will always be considered the premier virtual world platform.

-whyroc

Thanks Whyroc,
I don't own Lan, I don't know really what lan is, anything fancy and technical I am clueless
If I was going to use something like opensim I would want to do it offline.
I will check out the wiki. Actually I have read it, re-reading it and lot of its beyond me
some stuff though is very familiar.
I keep meaning to message you privately but keep getting distracted.
I love hanging out with friends here, lot of stuff in SL.
But it would be also nice when I don't want to be online but want to test or experiment to be able to have my own virtual space, especially when SL is being strange and I can't do anything in world.
I miss having private creative 3d like environment sometimes....and land and space I would like to have is way too expensive here for me.

OK- so for curiosity sake- I went and downloaded the viewer...
It was cool because I felt like what the Firsts must have felt like in SL... Wow! I was Ruth!!!!

Col in a perverse sort of way.. so there was this nice avi - self appointed - helping noobs shake off the dust and all was cruising fine, I was having a great time at being a noob but was tired so signed off... this morning guess what? Cant get in for nothing! Awww..feels so homey

Anyway- I am assuming it is not my system since I can run SL with very minimal problems But if anyone else is trying it , let me know if you guys can get in there.

I am not in a business frame of mind- I think it wd just be cool to be in on the ground floor of another SL like exerience should it work out. And if it doesn't - well it would have been fun for the experience sake... assuming I can get it to run of course

FD:
OpenSim is easy to get up and running on your single machine, just by carefully following the instructions, and not trying to rush at it. I have a personal grid running on my 2 to 3 year old XP machine.

whyroc:
I don't recall anyone saying that there is no room for other grids. I did say that they would fail, but I changed that in my next post. Right now, people are mostly just playing with OpenSim to make grids for fun. OpenLife may be having a better go at it (also using OpenSim), and busniesses like Dave is in are using it for relatively small projects, as are IBM, but OpenSim is so far behind SL that it will take far too long to catch up, by which time, SL will have moved off into the distance again. LL is creating - OpenSim is copying LL as best it can. OpenSim is not innovatory, whereas LL is. For a future metaverse, LL is the only known player at the moment.

Inter-grid protocols are the most important thing for a future metaverse. LL is some way down the road towards that, as it's been their aim from the start. IBM will be running SL serverside stuff for their self-hosted customer grid so, whilst it's a step forward, it isn't the interlinking of grids of two different server types. When OpenLife grids and SL grids can link as a larger whole, then we'll be well on the way.

I would suggest you take a look at some of the groundbreaking work being done by RealXtend, http://www.realxtend.org/ they seem to be heading in this direction. The main points being a Global Avatar where you can retain appearance over many virtual worlds and viewer technology that will allow you to teleport from OpenSim to SL grids.. IMO and humble it is, the Server technology is less important to this whole interconnected idea than the viewer is.

-whyroc

Their demo movies look nice, especially the real time shadowing. I'm not sure I'd call any of it groundbreaking though. It does point out that SL, for all that's great about it, has really been stagnant as far as new features go, over the past several years. Sculpties, flexi-prims, streaming media, and Windlight are the only major feature additions we've had since custom animations were introduced in 2004 (which is why my mind tends to boggle when people scream that LL should stop adding features and concentrate on nothing but stability). It doesn't seem to me that anyone is really innovating in this genre. Everyone's still trying to catch up with the fundamentals of what SL already has, and that's been relatively stagnant (imo).

I still can't quite wrap my brain around portable avatars. I can understand why it might be desirable to users, but if avatars have to be standards-based across many worlds, won't that mean that any progress, innovation, or upgrades to avatar design and technology will be glacial? The focus will have to be on interoperability instead of innovation. It also seems like it could be an IP nightmare and lead to the corporatization of avatar related asset creation and sales.

The beauty of SL has been that it's so entrepeneureal, allowing small designers and hobbiests to become successful entrepeneurs. If a single designer's good's are valid for many worlds that could lead to several big fish from a small pond becoming several enormous fish in one enormous pond, rather than hundreds of big fish in dozens or hundreds of separate ponds. To me that seems contrary to the best aspects of user created content, which to my mind is that we support and buy from our local peers. To me that's really the heart and soul of all of this.

I can understand the benefits of having a portable identity (name, friends lists, that sort of thing), but portable content could keep local economies from flourishing, allowing the rise of the metaverse equivelant of walmart. Maybe I'm just not visionary enough to grasp where this is all headed.

I'm no visionary for sure, not even an enthusiast, but that thought chilled even me.

I understand your thoughts here Chip, I too am a little confused by where this is all headed, espcially in the portable and user created content areas, but IMO this is the next major hurdle for virtual worlds SL included..

I think there may end up being a seperation of asset type of services and world or grid services.. Right now SL's asset system is so overloaded that it is hard to conceive that it will last much longer in its current format technically speaking.

LL definitely has the huge advantage, and SL's best resource that is unmatchable by any competitors is the user created content that already exists, the blood sweat and tears of its residents. Perhaps it can be broken down into more modular and portable content that could be transferred to other worlds if desired.

Maybe instead of groundbreaking I should have said mud-squishing as in between the toes.

-whyroc

Content my friends is king and until it is portable you create nothing but a mirage who's final owner is the one who controls the database ... but there is hope out there, I do think opensim is a pleasant diversion and a hint of what is to come, but right now I see no plans to free the content to the creators so what you have is just another form of fiefdoms.

Read this and rejoice:

Grow your own community

The VastPark platform is unique in offering online communities and media corporations an integrated "portfolio solution" that enables them to run multiple official virtual worlds and offer exciting community features such as user generated virtual worlds that can connect together to form an immersive community hub. The VastPark platform is the platform that offers a solution to the emerging reality where users will expect separate virtual worlds to connect seamlessly together to suit their immediate personalised requirements.

Up to now, virtual worlds and games have been "walled gardens" requiring you to download special software for each one. VastPark provides a browser application able to connect "gardens" together and enables communities to step smoothly over the "hedges". We've solved a number of the hard issues facing virtual worlds such as enabling content to be portable across worlds and be independent of worlds and enabling seamless linking between worlds...

it'll be a nightmare for me trying to push carts over sim borders.

I wasn't aware of RealXtend. I didn't suggest that the server technology is important. I said that it's the protocols standards that matter, which is what RealXtend seems to be about. LL has been addressing it - I believe in conjunction with IBM. When there are interconnecting protocol standards in place, then we will be well on the way.

Right now, OpenSim isn't anything new. It's a copy of SL that lacks a stack of functionality. It's great to play with, but it isn't doing anything creative. So there are two players, and it may be that RealXtend comes up with a set of protocols, and LL come up with a different set, or maybe they'll cooperate. Who knows?

Interconnecting with open grids wouldn't lead to Walmarts, it would lead to the SL equivalent of "warez".

You have the "choice" to buy your music legally or simply download it for free... you would have the same "choice" whether to pay for content or just go pick that same content up on some rogue grid for free.

LL will have to decide whether it keeps its own world strictly regulated as to who can and can not link up, or it will have to abandon any pretense at being able to enforce permissions for the larger goal of having freely interconnected worlds. I really don't see how it could accomplish both.

I don't see how they will either. Developers tend to decry the "walled garden" approach, but I think the desire for interconnectivity blinds people to the ways in which that may work against the benefits of user created content by turning it into a free-for-all and making it much harder for the small creator to benefit from their labor. Maybe that's a notion that will have to be abandoned for the "greater good," but as someone who's been making a few mortgage payments per year from those benefits I have concerns about the demise of local economies in favor of global interoperability.

Maybe it will turn out completely different than that, and actually make it easier for individuals to make a name for themselves (and a profit for their trouble). I don't know. I just wonder if in the rush to create interconnectivity and standards driven worlds, will portable content lead to a homogenous metaverse rather than the flourishing of local cultures and economies?

One other thing... RealXtends sounds like it was named after a penis enlargement cream.

LOL

I signed up back in Feb and everything was down at that time also, I've still yet to attempt to log in. There has been a *lot* of active discussion on OpenLife, OpenSim, etc over at SLU -- where many of the older SL accounts who are true early adopters hang out. And, like you said, it is still in the very early stages - anyone who wanted to know what SL was like when it was "young" can go through the same process at OpenLife. If you think SL is unreliable now should have been around back in the day -- and I came in late to the party It took SL roughly 3 years from the start of open beta to full mainstream awareness in Q3 2006.
There is a reason why beta testers of early products refer to them as "crashware."

My impression is that LL is fully behind the efforts to bring all these things together as part of the master plan.

Thanks for the info on the old SL account hang out- I will come by and hope they don't mind the "newbie" gawker

And honestly... I am looking forward to participating in the crash fest and hopefully adding to the test market.

I would love to be able to freely explore across the Metaverses

I moved my comment's to a more appropriate place (trash bin)