More Newbie Questions -Open Source?

Hello again!

I keep getting great answers from all of you here, so here I am with more questions.

I'm curious about open source. I keep seeing references that the source code to run SL and the browser to view it are or will be, open sourced.

I think this is a great thing...but am curious as to exactly what changes it will bring. With most of the open source stuff I'm familiar with, lots of people play with the code, then make new versions with different features. Some of them resell the new versions, but most just offer them for download somewhere, leaving a new user with a dozen choices and no idea which one is best.

Will that happen to SL? Will we have the "official version", "Tony's version", Sam's add-ons" and "Patricia's hacks"?

If so, where and how will there be any form of cohesion and organization? Will people have to install multiple new features themselves to keep up with the changes? Will someone be making sure the new versions meet some kind of standard for usability?


Next.... I assume this means anyone with a server can install the codes, and add their own hard drives to the mix. Will this allow them to create their own little "islands" on the current map? If so, will they still be constrained by prim limits and have to pay membership & tier payments? Will they be able to store/backup their inventories on their own hard drives, will in-world items still be unavailable off-line?

I'm sure there's more...I just haven't thought of it yet. Forgive my ignorence -I'm not new to the web, but SL is a whole new world for me.

And thanks in advance for any opinions and ideas you can give me....I'm really curious about all this.

Currently the viewer is open-source, and what I think I'll get out of it is an improved LL viewer as there are now many, many knowledgeable people finding bugs. I probably wouldn't use Joe's Leet SL Viewer.

The server code isn't open-source at the moment although that is on the horizon.

If you want to know more, here is the wiki page for the open source: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Open_Source_Portal

Thanks! I saved that to my favorites, but sadly, most of it is Geek to me.

As Osprey indicated, currently only the viewer is open source. That's the software that you download and use to connect to the Second Life grid. The viewer source code is available for download to anyone who cares to, and they are free to do with it as they please, provided their build complies with Linden Lab's Terms of Service for Second Life prior to connecting it to the grid.

The open source viewer project is still in a very early stage, and is coordinated officially here. Residents have been modifying the viewer to suit their particular business needs, in the form of land bots, which are controversial to say the least, and other customized viewers are undoubtedly in use across the grid.

The most positive result of releasing the viewer into open source however is that residents are actively building patches and bug fixes, and submitting those to the Second Life JIRA, Second Life's official project management platform for tracking and resolving bugs, and introducing new functionality to the platform.

Somewhere over the horizon is the release of the simulator source code into a similarly licensed open source form. This is when the world turns upside down. Linden Lab will be very cautious about this, as they realize that it will result in a substantial and fundamental shift in the business models currently powering the land rental and sales markets. Expect focus to remain on improving and perfecting the Second Life infrastructure for the remainder of 2007 and probably into Q2 2008. Expect an announcement of open source server no sooner than Q4 2008.

When it's all said and done, the average joe will NOT be able to operate a Second Life grid-connected server. There will be rather stringent requirements. You will probably be able to run your own, isolated simulator, and let your friends connect to it, but that's about it. Don't expect that any old Joe Resident will be able to open up an estate of islands, L$ Economy Enabled, Asset Server Enabled, and compete with Anshe Chung.

Zaph

That's quite all right as I'd be happy to be the customer of someone who is willing and able to host sims to rent out, just as one might get an account to have a website hosted. It would be like having a private island, but hopefully with more customization and control, and with more creative pricing/sharing arrangements so that un-wealthy folks like me have a shot at trying it.

One thing I've always wanted is a micro island. That is, instead of hosting a whole sim sized sim, have a little island that is a fourth or an eighth of that. It would appear as an island surrounded by water or whatever the edge would be, but small. It would still have plenty of prims and privacy for a small building project like a village or large home, or a small business.

Also, open sourced sims might play with interesting combinations of power not available now; one could have a sim where massive numbers of prims were supported, or many scripts, and do interesting things with that.

I think the landbots are not modified versions of the Second Life viewer but are instead clients made with libsecondlife. Those are two different things.

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The only modified viewers I have heard of are a version that worked on Vista better than the standard release (which may be obsolete by now), the naked viewer, and the shooped-life viewer. If there are any others, such as, for example, one in which the sun looks like the sun did a year ago, I wish someone would tell me.

Producing modified versions of the Second Life viewer is made rather difficult by the frequency with which the protocol and backend changes. Every time there's a mandatory update of the LL provided viewer, an alternate open source community produced viewer would also need to be updated. This is a non-trivial task. I think that the rapidly changing changing target LL provides is the main reason we won't see to many alternate viewers.

I'm extremely interested in this--any idea of who the "Above-average Joe" will be? That is, what does anyone see as the requirements and constraints one would have to work within to run a private sim on a private server that could connect to the LL grid? I'm thinking that they would be mostly HW and BW related (CPU, RAM, OS, disk size and access speed, and fibre-optic high-BW connection).

Also, I'd imagine there'd have to be some sort of business plan to accompany this, i.e., some sort of connection and service fee with LL to tie into their grid and DB services. Eventually I can see this following a web-hosting model, but I'm sure there'll be some twists.

If I was planning this, I'd try to put together a package of application SW, server SW, and OS that one could download or buy on CD/DVD, with well-defined HW and connection requirements, for a single price. The package would be equipped with an auto loader/wizard so when you hit the "go" button it installs itself on your personal HW suite and connects up to the LL grid. You can then connect via your client directly to your private sim on your private HW, and pay a monthly fee (US$20? US$30? More?) for your LL SL serices (inventory, friends, updates, TP, etc) that allow you and other residents to seamlessly move from your private sim to the rest of grid and back again.

Wow, what a great BP--LL you can have it for free!

Any other guess, comments or ideas?