Microsoft and SL

Was the releasing of the source code for the SL viewer inspired forward thinking, or a huge blunder on behalf of LL?

The advances being made by OpenSim and RealXtend, in such a short period of time, really make me wonder. The news of Micro$oft's involvement should now make us all sit up and start to take notice.

http://www.ugotrade.com/2008/06/12/microsoft-dev-community-in-opensimrealxtend/

Rock

Hmmm... will need to read this properly

Is it actually M$ involved or a bunch of ppl involved with technet/msdn which is slighltly different... Guess i better RTFA

Modded +5 Interesting

Interesting.

From what I skimmed thru, MS is 'curious' but not totally interested in something like SL. From a Corporate standpoint they're probably waiting to see if it'd be worth incorporating something like this into one of their usual products like Windows 7 or XBox Live.

Just one thing to remember Microsoft- Bob.

I thought Bill owned Microsoft?

Bob is Bill's alt

A big company truly interested in creating a Second Life competitor doesn't need the source code. A big company could drop sufficient investment capital in programmers to catch up in months with what Linden Lab has developed over five years, in terms of the software.

Because Linden Lab has five years of development in Second Life does not mean it has a five year headstart on the nearest competitor. Linden Lab never had a lot of investment capital to pour into intensive research and development.

MS only cares about the conferencing capability. They don't care about the economy or content creation angle, probably because it's on a micro scale.

I was part of the SL Views group that was consulted on the open source idea, several months before the general public was informed. While I can't go into detail on anything discussed, I can say that the advance version of the question you're asking now certainly went around the table, as I'm sure you can imagine it would have had to. "If you release the viewer code, won't people use it to make competitors to SL?"

The answer from the Lindens present was a resounding "Of course they will". But along with that went three significant qualifiers:

1. As Amity mentioned here, if someone is serious about making a virtual world, they certainly don't need the SL's viewer source code in order to do it. Even before the code was released, the LibSL guys had already been making steady progress in figuring how the whole thing worked. And that was just a bunch of volunteers. Imagine what a company with a respectable budget could do.

2. The server code was not (at least at that time) to be released. Anyone seeking to make their own SL-like virtual world would first need to write their own simulator. Access to LL's viewer code certainly doesn't hurt in that endeavor, but it's not going to make or break anyone's effort to do it. Again, if someone really wants to make their own VW, they will, with or without LL's help.

3. What makes SL worthwhile is not its programming. It's firmly established and entrenched for reasons that have nothing to do with what's under its hood. It has a firmly implanted economy, and a large population who care about its development and well being. It's a full blown culture at this point, not just a piece of software. Any competing world that might come along would have to play catch-up to that, which would be exceedingly difficult, and would take a long time.

And besides all that, both projects you mentioned have plans to connect to the SL grid, not operate completely separately from it, which was what LL wanted all along. The idea is for SL to be a foundational part of "the 3D Internet", not to remain forever its own closed system.

Microsoft has a long history of buying up technologies that interest them.