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Just upload and run OpenSIM and give accounts to the 300,000 people that signed up.

Na i think Open Simulator is far more useful in a classroom setting

Well, no, not really. Gtk#, for example, is available on Windows, but only as part of Mono.

Nope - the usual way to use Gtk# on Windows is with Microsoft .Net and not Mono. In fact, not only do nearly all of the bits of the Mono project that aren't half-arsed reimplementation of Microsoft stuff work on Windows with Microsoft .Net, they generally work better that way than they do with Mono itself! There's a large C#-based piece of software you probably won't have heard of called OpenSim, and it has a lot of problems running on Mono because the libraries from the Mono project that it uses aren't compatible with newer versions and only have decent forwards- and backwards-compatibility if you use them under Windows with .Net.

You have not studied source code from the GPL Second Life viewer or its derivatives within the last 6 months.

See also the other terms there.

Just for clarification, OpenSimulator doesn't have anything to do with Second Life other than it uses the same protocol. The official SL servers are just as proprietary as ever.

If you're interested in something like Second Life, but where you have complete control, check out OpenSim. It's an open source (BSD license) virtual world engine.

Open Simulator (which is what OSGrid runs) and Second Life both support LSL, and you can see tangible results from your code almost immediately after writing it. This will probably be a little bit more attention-holding than your typical hacking environment.

The controls are fiddly and odd, the world is not always easy to navigate in, there are other people around, unexpected interruptions, lag preventing any sort of decent real-time training...

Why not just run a local Open Sim?

I didn't know there was a matrix MMO- and I'm pissed to hear it's shutting down, because I would've played it. No point in signing up now though. Shame.

Look at it this way: maybe you'll get lucky, and someone will fork OpenSim to create a clone.

Why would you want to fork it? OpenSim looks like you could build an MMO over the top of it without any adaptation at all.

I didn't know there was a matrix MMO- and I'm pissed to hear it's shutting down, because I would've played it. No point in signing up now though. Shame.

Look at it this way: maybe you'll get lucky, and someone will fork OpenSim to create a clone.

We can rebuild it. We have the technology.

Actually that energy would be better spent working on the OpenSim project to improve a well established grid and help solidify standards for interaction between the Second Life grid and other grids, than to waste energy on a dog that doesn't have a fraction of the capabilities already present in the open simulator.

So I can set up my own second life server, using the open sourced SL server code? Oh wait, there isn't any!

There is one actually. And the Second life viewer is opensource too.

For an example of a .Net project targeting both Windows and Linux, see OpenSim. http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page

Opensim allows use of either a basic physics engine or OpenDynamicsEngine which has COD 4 on its list (see here)

It supports LSL, OSL, and c# for scripting with a few limitations (see here)

For centralized inventory servers, that depends on the grid owner's implementation since Opensim supports several database types.

I'm not saying that opensim is anywhere close to Second Life's level as a finished product, but I would hardly call it useless, especially since it is impossible to run a Second Life server of your own. But that's just my opinion.

There are a number of grids using OpenSim. DeepGrid and OSGrid have been in existing for over a year. Others less then that. The common OpenSim grids in order of their appearance are DeepGrid (http://deepgrid.com), OSGrid (http://osgrid.org), OpenLifeGrid (http://openlifegrid.com) and CentralGrid (http://centralgrid.com). There are several thousand users. Not large by SecondLife standards, but growing rapidly. And some of these grids encourage individuals, companies and universities to attach their sims at no charge as part of building a community and helping to develop the OpenSim software. Refer to http://opensimulator.org/ for a complete list and the FreeNode IRC channel #opensim for a discussion on configuration and use including interop work between various grids, including, the SecondLife maingrid.

Why isn't there any OpenSource/Open Community virtual world yet.

That would be OpenSim using the open source Second Life client for the user interface.

If there is an active open source project working on virtual worlds, we'd like to know, too.

You mean like this?

This isn't anything new really. People have been using 'SecondLife' to do this for a year or so.

In addition, there's even an Open Source server component compatible with the SecondLife client at

http://www.opensimulator.org/

They should in theory - a swedish company a while back did a prototype facebook integration with OpenSim* a while back which did a login, messaging and contacts sharing. It would be very cool to see a major player take it and integrate it into a big existing VW.

* - Open Source virtual worlds server (can run out of the box a second life environment, full disclosure: I'm a developer on the project)

Here's a better example, http://opensimulator.org/

It's written in C#, and using third party physics libraries and translating LSL for scripting. (We also support other languages in the server as well.) We use Mono and it works just fine. In fact, because of the way .NET types work, all of our functionality is plugin-based. Physics engines are plugins. Script engines are plugins. Databases are plugins, even NHibernate is a database plugin. Every piece of functionality is a plugin, mostly.

Once you get over the "microsoft is an epic patent troll" shit it's actually a very well designed system, WinForms not withstanding.

They are. See http://opensimulator.org/

They have promised to open up the server code for years, the only reason they are doing this now is so they don't get left behind.

http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page