LOWDOWN on Central Grid please

1) Second Inventory has a multi-avatar version that is very flexible in its latest version vis-a-vis avatars with different names in different grids. They also have a more corporate multi-user multi-avatar version, as well as the simple single avatar version oriented toward creators backing up their work in Second Life. You can download sim engines and clients that let you create complex avatars with full perms that you can then move to any and AFAIK all Open Sim grids. I have the same av in several grids right now, as well as the one on my server.

2) People in Second Life are incredibly parochial and seem to think all Virtual World work is being done by LL. The fact is that LL has a credible commercial product which like Open Sim is more 'lowest common denominator' than high end, state of the art, whether you are talking server, client or engine. There is a lot of knowledge, both commercial and academic, in this field and there is no assurance that the SL model will be the final model, or even the prevalent one next year. And there is no reason that some corporation might not come up with a scalable model that is superior and at the same time makes sense to drop it on Open Sim. That means that Open Sim is, by its nature, only one distribution from overtaking SL. Will it happen? Who knows? But SL owns relatively little of the underlying and underpinning technology, all of which is touched by other areas, such as gaming and graphic display, which means that it is subject to being overtaken overnight (perhaps such as a giant like Intel tasking a top graphics firm to come up with a set of open engines optimized for their next major foray into graphic processing).

3) Which is the other reason that heavy investment in 'land' in Second Life is a really chancy endeavor, as that worth is not only partially based on a changeable supply and demand in SL, but also on all the non-invested avatars in SL that provide renters and business. A superior model that SL can't follow could cull most or all of those avatars very quickly. Frankly, I've seen at least three low scale products that if they scale and are reasonable will pull me away, no problem.

The SL models were a mistake from the beginning and from those I have seen, the other grids make the same mistakes.

The reason I said "models" is because there is a business model and a technical model.

Open Source will always fail. Any "model" that uses open source is proof that it will have a failing business model.

This is not to say that these grid will not make money and operate for a while, just like SL has, but it will just all be ruled by international scammers.

So Openoffice.org has failed? Their next conference in China is reportedly their largest yet, and their product has larger, if still extremely small, penetration than ever. Open source linux a failure? GIMP a failure (arguably, their interface is...)? All these products sit on my server and newest PC and all receive regular updates and work well. All are open source in the trunk versions.

And you know for a fact that these open grids are all run by International scammers? Funny - I'm willing to bet I've held more conversations with the founders of some of these grids than you and you are simply wrong. Period.

The biggest problem that these grids have is that they are very small potatoes in a field that overlaps other fields too much. They are unlikely to dominate or 'win' the metaverse sweep stakes simply because too many players with far more resources could step in in short order. There is no reason, however, that they won't thrive. And open source could be the victorious model IF an IBM or Intel gets behind it for other reasons (much as Linux has sponsorship for indirect reasons by IBM).

Open source also has one big edge - universities and some non-profits provide the horsepower for many web farms and they lean toward sourcing from open sources. If the universities begin to host 3D metaverses, then open source does get one edge there. Its not all on the side of pure commercialism.

Utterly.

Of course within the cult it's one of the holy grails. As a piece of software I can't stand it. I lost two documents last week because of it's weird bugginess. I had it on my machine to see how the latest version was. It is terrible. It has seriosu issues. Copy and pasting to the writer is like asking for trouble,

And ultimately it is just a rip off of MS Office.

Keep in mind also that these are platforms at alpha stage. Many, many things don't work yet, there is no economy at all, etc. So you're getting a cheap price, but you have a LOT more limitations as to what you can do there right now unless you are a directly capable 100% out of the box from scratch content creator and scripter and animator. You can't purchase these from anyone else who is specialized in producing them -- at least not easily, as there is no currency (yet).

Actually, I use OpenOffice Writer quite a bit, with no problems. I update it regularly, but it works remarkably well. I think that the future is going to be away from expensive things like MS Office and more towards slimmer open source software that is similar or even web-based solutions like Google Docs. Sure, there isn't really a "business model" for it, but at a certain point certain types of software like word processing are simply going to be utilities, and the money will be made, as in every maturing industry, by focusing on more specialized, high-end software which isn't as readily capable of being replicated by open source producers.

The final nail in the coffin for Central Grid is that Frank Corsi is not only involved, but seems to be pushing his partners out and taking more control. Would you trust your money to a man who, if not committing outright fraud (provable in several instances), made such stupendously bad business decisions that he lost over L$10 million of his depositors funds with stupid investments or business move??

Now, before one of Jasper's alts comes on here, I will state that we at Ancapistan Capital Exchange (which is NOT involved in CG and remains in SL, active, and operating legally) and BNT Holdings rescued the shareholders of Countless Galaxies last year, and recently helped the shareholders of AVC recover some of their assets in ESN, which is coming under new management. I have commented extensively on the facts of the history of Frank Corsi's businesses in SL in press releases. It is also true that we had hoped that Central Grid would be a viable independent grid, but those hopes have been dashed by the acts of Frank Corsi, so we are looking at other grids, and setting up our own.

Its also simply that Central Grid is a bad deal, evidently for those who have a defective search function in both Google and Yahoo, because you can find better terms on either side - either free or hosted. Ugly web site too - just saying.

3RD Rock Grid is a viable alternative to some of the other grids that are out there. For instance, 3RG is the first outside of SL to have a working currency system (effective Tuesday August 12th). Land prices are very good, a working vendor script and awesome support!
Congratulations to Butch for being the first to implement a currency system.

Hi All,
I own the 3rd Rock Grid.
(www.3rdrockgrid.com)

We currently have 106 regions and over 400 users.

Thank-you Santo for your comments.

We "ARE" the first OpenSim Grid with currency (Luna Dollars) and our users can buy/sell land just as in SL.

We do still have many bugs.. and stability issues as the software is in an "ALPHA" stage, but we are a very viable option to SL if you can put up with our shortcomings.

We are currently selling our 1x (15,000 prim) regions for just $100 which includes first month tier charges.
This price will not last as it was meant to spark the growth of our grid.
We also can offer 2x (30,000prim), 3x(45,000 prim) as well as half, 1/4 and water only regions. Come check us out if you're looking for an alternate grid.

We've had many very nice comments about our grid.

Come see what the buzz is all about!

-Butch

This isn't quite correct.

OpenSim hasn't used any information from SL. OpenSim is "sim" software, and LL has only opensourced the viewer so far.

You use the official SL viewer to log into an OpenSim sim, though there are a number of other third party viewers built for it (like the realXtend viewer and the Hippo viewer-- also any of the other third party SL viewers will work, too) so obviously because of that it's going to "look" similar, but the technical backend has been put together without any information from SL or LL.

It's only been around since about January 07 or so, but in that time has made really great strides. It's still alpha software, obviously, but it's a lot more stable than it used to be even a few months ago. I use it personally to build content offline and then bring it back into SL.

As to Central Grid, the thread on SLU is really a good read. I personally think it's wrong to charge near-LL prices on software that they aren't even developing (not to mention unstable as it is), but that's my own moral compass. The greater issue involved is the fact that the owner of the company has been involved in many questionable things within SL, and has an extensive track record of using various alts to defend himself and his company. That's not the sort of behavior I want to financially invest in.

OSGrid is free to use and lets you connect your own servers for free. Lots of people from IBM to Microsoft to ESC have grids hosted there. (It's not quite backed by ESC, Mac. )

Not knowing anything about 3rd Rock Grid before this post, let me caveat that it's not meant as a direct critique but a general concern. That general concern being that given the freely-available nature of OpenSim and its source code and the very generous license it has, it concerns me that there will be a continued dilution when grid after grid claims to implement features that are really inherent to the software out of the box.



Well Central Grid was claiming to be the first to implement currency as well, and they didn't. The hooks for currency systems exist in OpenSim already and are (if I recall) just turned off by default. A simple line change in the config file enables that and buying/selling of land.

That's not to say that's all you've done because really, I don't know, but I'm raising the point that that stuff already exists and at least one grid operator claimed to be the first to implement it and promised to retract that claim.

Coupled with the fact that unlike OpenLifeGrid or OSGrid, for example, Central Grid contributed all of two very irrelevant bug reports, it gives off an impression of simple leeching. OpenLifeGrid has sponsored and paid for an OpenSim developer and are very involved in returning their bug reports and fixes back to the core code.

Again, I don't know anything about 3rd Rock Grid, but clarifying how much of your own work went into enabling this firsts is a real good step to not fall into the same traps as Central Grid.

I guess Apache, the web server software that powers a significant chunk of the internet, and MySQL, the database software that powers a good chunk of software as a whole (including both SL and this forum!), would be surprised to discover that they are failures then.

Good to know. Thanks for saying so.

i use , love it, no problems at all.

I can understand your concerns, however one must realize that the OpenSim "Platform" is simply that... a "Platform" on which to build other applications. Mine for example is a "GRID" similar to SL. Other mays choose to use this platform as a standalone "Sandbox" to perfect their building skills, others may use it for communications while yet others may use it for another application.
While the software "IS" very capable "Out of the Box" it does have it's shortcomings and "As-IS" is not ready to be used for a "Public" grid.
It is designed to be very flexible so that many people may find many different uses for it. This "By -Design" "Flexibility" has some shortcomings when a person wants to use the software in "GRID" mode for public use.
For example... an out of the box setup of this software allows "ALL" parcel owners to have "FULL" permissions on any item once it is on a parcel owned by them... even if the creator applied limited permissions.. this in itself would be very detrimental to operating a grid for public use where users expect "SIMILAR" permissions to SL to protect their content.

I personally have "FIXED" this problem for our grid and our permissions work as they would in SL except for a persistent "Copy" problem I can't figure out.. I have also shared my "FIX" with the openlife grid and will still share this "FIX" with anyone else who requests it if they ask.

An "out of the Box" setup does not propagate the permissions set by content creators.

Concerning the currency issue... it is true that out of the box... if you use the "OpenSIm" Wireredux site package you can indeed enable currency... however... an "Out of the Box" install of the software allows "ANYONE" to purchase as much money as they want. The software only give you a "STUB" implementation on which to build a custom solution.
The package does not include the back-end programming required to support this feature.
I've spent many hours of writing code to support and enable this feature for our grid.
It was no "LIGHT" undertaking by any means.

Out of the box... it has the ability to use different databases.... SQLite, MySQL or MSSQL.. you choose... but each has their own "TWEAKS" to get them to function smoothly for the application.
I have chosen MySQL because that is what I know best and feel comfortable with, but if anyone has had any experience with this database knows... there's a lot of "TWEAKING" that is needed to "TUNE" it to an application of this magnitude.

The point is this... contrary to the popular beliefs... this software is not capable "Out of the Box" of running a grid where users expect similar permissions to sl and for currency to work. It takes a lot of supporting code to get it to that point. It is this additional "WORK" that is required which makes it a reasonable expectation that a "Public" grid may want to charge for this service by "SELLING" land or charging tier fees. I cannot speak for the other grids... but I do know what additional coding was done on our end to allow for our grid to become the grid that it is.

Just as one can't expect to go out and buy a car off of the showroom floor and enter a race and then win... it would take much modification and "SKILL" to have such success, the opensim platform must be "Molded" gently into the application you have chosen for it then one must learn to "DRIVE" it.

I offer you this thought... is it not expected that an artist "SELL" his/her work if they choose?
Even if the tools they used to make their art was not "CREATED" or "TWEAKED" by them?
An artist does not manufacture the products used in making their art.
Should a doctor work for free? All they have is knowledge... most have not designed any of the tools they use to perform the work for which they charge.

Just my thought on the issue.

Reading your website now, Butch. I will be trying 3RG out very soon. It looks like you have a professional outfit going.

Butch Ive had so many problems getting this working right. Also is anybody creating anything for the standalones? I am using opensim for my family members and some freinds and it's been nuts having to enter there names by hand over and over.

Thank-you for your kind remarks.

I can provide a download area for you to download my pre-compiled binaries to use as a standalone if you wish. Please contact me at: [email]butch.arnold@3rdrockgrid.com[/email]
Please note:
My binaries include my fix for the permission issues I talked about.
They do not provide any support for currency beyond what is provided by OpenSim.

My intentions are not to simply "LEECH" from other people's work.
I would indeed offer to help with development of the software, however I've gone with the route I've taken and intend to contribute back to the development team once my grid becomes profitable.
Grids like ours provide a very good "Proving" ground for the capabilities of this platform and through collaboration with others helps in the developmental process as well.

Those with general "concerns" lack a bit of understanding (knowledge?) about features vs. "real world" implementation. Simply because a product has a ‘feature set’ doesn't make that 'feature' a safe and reliable solution for 'real-world' use. If that was the case any and every alternative grid would already have a functional economy.

With that stated, there is a lot more effort involved in creating a useable economic system than the vanilla package included with the OpenSim project. This is by no means a knock to the project itself, but to offer a bit of clarity to those who don’t know the entire story. The only 'dilutaion' I'm seeing are from individuals who ‘dismiss and overlook’ the hard work of others.

This would be wonderful, thank you. I will be sending an email out.

And congrats on being the first grid to have the economy in place. I read your forums and you have some nice people around. Great start.

Thank you for your kind remarks.
We are trying very hard to become a very reputable alternative to some of the other grids.

thanks butch

Heh, I can assure you I know more about OpenSim than every other poster in this thread combined.

Nevertheless, my comments were fair considering just last week the owner of Central Grid made a list of accomplishments that were, largely, already in OpenSim itself and simply required changing "FALSE" to "TRUE" in the ini file.

I appreciate Butch's input on the matter and I only said what I said because lots of people will be coming out of the woodwork as this software becomes more popular and it goes a long way towards establishing legitimacy in my mind if you're willing to say HOW much of your own work went into this. Otherwise there will be a bunch of people all saying "Look, we did this first!" and it's beginning to have the same tone as, "I was the first person to use the alphabet to use words!" or something.

If Butch intends to return his effort back to the central project that's great news to hear and I, personally, am encouraged by that, and it's more than Central Grid has done so far.

A caveat Butch, it is indeed possible to run OpenSim with almost identical permissions to SL by simply changing something in the configuration file. I run six sims on OSGrid and permissions behave there the same as they do in SL, with little change. I'm not sure what you've added to on top of that though, as there are still modules that need improvement, but the intention from the start of OpenSim was to support the same permissions system as SL does.

Here's some more information about OpenSim and the permissions by one of its core developers:

http://www.adamfrisby.com/blog/2008/07/copy-protection-nuances/

"By default OpenSim - right now, supports your standard SL-flavoured permissions as the default permission module, it’s there today - yes you can swap one permission module with one that doesnt respect those, and yes you could remove it entirely."

http://www.adamfrisby.com/blog/2008/07/copy-protection-vs-permissions-again/

"OpenSim supports C/M/T-style Permissions on Regions, by default (as it’s shipped), it’s enabled."

Hi Joshua,

I was not offended by the your previous statements and I too thought they were "FAIR" but I think that there are many who may see things quite differently after this post.
I just hope everyone doesn't judge ALL "Private Grid Pioneers" by their feelings towards another.

While I do not doubt your knowledge on the opensim software I can assure you the problem is very real and quite different from the posts you've suggested for reading.
Maybe there is a misunderstanding of what exactly the issue is really.

OpenSim does indeed support server side permissions and they can indeed be enabled or disabled in the ini files for the simulator... and the possibility is there for anyone as you've pointed out to come along and add another module to enhance or weaken this ability.

But nowhere in those articles from Adam did he point out the "GOD-LIKE" vulnerabilities which exist when one takes an object which has been designated with specific "Protective" permissions intended to keep others from copying, modifying back to their own land.. land that is in their name.

Once the object is taken to the owner's land... with the out of the box setup... regardless of the server-side permissions setting in the ini file... it will allow the parcel owner to have "God-Like" abilities on the object which include copy,mod,transfer.

Once I discovered this "PROBLEM" I immediately filed a mantis report on the issue(7/18/0.. you can view my report here: http://opensimulator.org/mantis/view.php?id=1784... and just 2 minutes later I rec'd the following reply from melanie.. one of the opensim developers.. and this I quote from her reply:

The current implementation of the permissions module was designed to give parcel owners godlike powers. Parcel owners are able to take and mainpulate anything over their land. This is design behavior. The permissions module doesn't represent the SL permissions system, and was never intended to do that.

This sounds like a direct conflict with what Adam is saying in his posts.

I think what Adam was referring to was the "General" permissions on an object... but with this issue.. all bets are off once the object is taken back to a parcel owned by the objects new owner.

I really felt this "WAS" a real concern and then sent an email to the developers mailing list requesting they "Reconsider" their position on this issue. I rec'd a few responses.. but nothing to my knowledge has been done to correct this.

I "Fixed" our setup to not allow the "God-Like" powers just because someone owns a parcel of land and as stated... my "FIX" is free to anyone for the asking.

To be fair... unless the other grids address this issue as we have... content theft will run rampant and it is my belief the entire project will suffer from a "Big Black Eye".
My biggest concern is that others may be "Bitten" by this on other OpenSim based grids and the general feeling of the public becomes that of distrust of "ALL" opensim based grids including mine.. which does not have this problem.

I do not know if this problem (I call it that even though the developers don't see it that way) persists in any of the other grids... they may have addressed this issue as well on their own, but I can tell you the only grid other than 3rd Rock Grid who has my fix is the openlife grid. I do not know if sakai has implemented mine, his own or none... but I did personally have communication with him and I shared my "FIX" with him.

So I guess it is simply up to the individual Opensim grid owners and users to decide if this is indeed a "REAL" problem.. I personally feel it is a "HUGE" problem that needs addressing now before it ruins the reputation of the project.
The addressing could be as simple as educating the users and owners on what really can happen... then let each decide on their own.
I just don't think it's a good idea to allow this problem to persist without first educating users on this problem.
I know many on our grid became very distrustful of the whole project when this first came to light and quite frankly I'm not sure why others have not complained about it.

You may also want to read the post I made on our forums to inform our users of the situation here:
http://forums.3rdrockgrid.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6

I didn't mean this reply in any offensive fashion Joshua I was simply trying to clear up the misconception on this issue.