Slashdot Mirror

Of a very well built piece of software (after they fixed the lack of caching) that did nothing new or interesting, aside from let some University Conveners try and impress the female students in their subject.

It looked to me like someone at Google wanted to create a 3D graphically-enhanced version of IRC, isn't that what IMVU already did?
I mean jeez, WoW players were doing that (in addition to maintaining their virginity) WAY back...

hey sign up too this for me man please!!!! http://www.imvu.com/catalog/web_landing.php?p=powe r&userId=4433404

When I was young, I developed most of my code as open source. It wasn't all that complicated or valuable, so why keep it to myself? My parents always asked me "You could be making money! Why do you give away the product of so much of your time?" I dunno, it just felt right.

Fast forward six years. Working on so much open source has gotten me a ton of experience in many different areas of software, and it also landed me a kickass job at a kickass startup who, in turn, uses and contributes to many open source projects.

Take a look:
http://imvu.com/technology

Whenever I'm mentoring people who are getting into programming, open source projects are the perfect place to start. Besides, if your source is closed, how are going to benefit from the people who are willing to take a look and give you feedback?

A9's is the easiest yet. You don't have to register for any special account or get permission. You just go to the submission page, give them the URL of your site description, and they validate it (as well as your sample search), giving you a preview.

The XML itself is a few simple extra tags to your RSS 2.0-compliant feed. If you already have a site search engine (like this one) it takes a few minutes to add an XML output option.

Once you get it working, it's immediately available as an a9.com column. It's that simple.

Incidentally, at IMVU, we use a customized version of the open-source osCommerce package. It'd be pretty neat if OpenSearch came standard on projects like this.

A9's is the easiest yet. You don't have to register for any special account or get permission. You just go to the submission page, give them the URL of your site description, and they validate it (as well as your sample search), giving you a preview.

The XML itself is a few simple extra tags to your RSS 2.0-compliant feed. If you already have a site search engine (like this one) it takes a few minutes to add an XML output option.

Once you get it working, it's immediately available as an a9.com column. It's that simple.

Incidentally, at IMVU, we use a customized version of the open-source osCommerce package. It'd be pretty neat if OpenSearch came standard on projects like this.

If you're a old-time MUD refugee like me, you're invited to come by IMVU and make your own 3D environments, avatars, or games. No corporate control - make whatever you want and sell it.

Hey, I'm one of the engineers at IMVU. I thought many of the coolets things about IMVU weren't even mentioned in the article, and figured I'd post a link. Please feel free to post your comments. Oh, and if you're interested in joining one of our many free software projects, drop me a line.

For those of you too lazy to click here is some text from our About Us page:

Our philosophy

* Censorship-free micropayment economy - We're creating a marketplace for digital goods that (as one of our customers put it) is "for the people, by the people." We have worked hard to prevent the IMVU experience from ever being overtaken by our opinions, preferring to leave it up to our customers to decide what they want to create and do with IMVU.

* Open platform - We know that good ideas come from all over, not just from our office. So we're committed to creating every opportunity to open up our platform to new kinds of creativity. Let us know if you've got a good idea.

* Eat our own dogfood - We've set up our business so that if our developers don't succeed, we don't succeed. We like it that way, because it prevents any distinction between our developers' interests and our own. Developers use the exact same tools we do to create content for IMVU, and can sell in our economy just as well as we can.

* Release early, release often - We are committed to fast fixes and rapid iteration, and strive to incorporate as much feedback as humanly possible. We think the fastest way to grow a successful product is to release the product as early as possible and to improve it over time in collaboration with our customers. We appreciate everyone's patience, and believe that we will all share in the reward of seeing IMVU's exciting and rapid evolution.

* Free and open-source software - IMVU would not be possible without the countless contributors around the world that have developed, tested, and maintained the many open source and free software projects we use. We strive to use free and open-source alternatives whenever they are available, and actively engage with communities that produce the software we use. We are contributors to many projects, and have even started a few of our own.

Hey, I'm one of the engineers at IMVU. I thought many of the coolets things about IMVU weren't even mentioned in the article, and figured I'd post a link. Please feel free to post your comments. Oh, and if you're interested in joining one of our many free software projects, drop me a line.

For those of you too lazy to click here is some text from our About Us page:

Our philosophy

* Censorship-free micropayment economy - We're creating a marketplace for digital goods that (as one of our customers put it) is "for the people, by the people." We have worked hard to prevent the IMVU experience from ever being overtaken by our opinions, preferring to leave it up to our customers to decide what they want to create and do with IMVU.

* Open platform - We know that good ideas come from all over, not just from our office. So we're committed to creating every opportunity to open up our platform to new kinds of creativity. Let us know if you've got a good idea.

* Eat our own dogfood - We've set up our business so that if our developers don't succeed, we don't succeed. We like it that way, because it prevents any distinction between our developers' interests and our own. Developers use the exact same tools we do to create content for IMVU, and can sell in our economy just as well as we can.

* Release early, release often - We are committed to fast fixes and rapid iteration, and strive to incorporate as much feedback as humanly possible. We think the fastest way to grow a successful product is to release the product as early as possible and to improve it over time in collaboration with our customers. We appreciate everyone's patience, and believe that we will all share in the reward of seeing IMVU's exciting and rapid evolution.

* Free and open-source software - IMVU would not be possible without the countless contributors around the world that have developed, tested, and maintained the many open source and free software projects we use. We strive to use free and open-source alternatives whenever they are available, and actively engage with communities that produce the software we use. We are contributors to many projects, and have even started a few of our own.

Over at IMVU, we're not exactly producing your standard game, but one of our goals is to enable anyone who knows python to create their own games with high production values, using 3D avatars and assets produced by our developers and sold in our censorhsip-free micropayment economy. We use Cal3d, osCommerce, python, debian, apache, php, BitTorrent, NSIS, and many other Free Software projects to make what we do possible. We also have created several FS projects of our own, including IM Narrator. So I think anybody who's developing software today who is not leveraging the power of Free Software is really missing out.