Slashdot Mirror
Second Life Faces Open Source Challenges
ruphus13 writes "Linden Labs has talked about Open Sourcing aspects of their platform for a while, but have not always followed through. Now, the OpenSimulator project has been gathering some solid momentum, and this was followed by an announcement by IBM that showed interoperability between OpenSimulator and Linden Servers. What this means is that you can use a Second Life client to log on to an OpenSim server. Beyond that, anyone can run their own server. 'Working with the protocols derived from the official Second Life client, and a knowledge of how Second Life works, these people have implemented their own compatible server code.' It is only a matter of time before users will be able to move profiles, virtual goods, and other elements of their 'second life' on to any server in a truly open world, thereby threatening Linden Labs' virtual world experience. With Google and Sun at the fringes of this space, things are going to get very interesting, virtually speaking."
The reality is far from what the submitter is claiming. Open sim has always used the SL client for access, and there are no plans for anytime in the future to allow people to transfer content on/off the SL grid to an Open Sim system.
The IBM test involved a single OpenSim setup where bridge software IBM is working (with Sun) allowed a person to exit SL, and simultaneously login to a OpenSim system. NOTHING was transfered, the avatar shows up in OpenSim in Ruth form.
Linden Labs has clarified that this was a proof of concept test, and that they would like to expand it in the future, but those goals are a good bit off.
What IBM and Sun are working on is a handshake/system protocol for a transient user ID which online systems will recognize and auto negotiate log-in, and if you don't have an account, make you a default account on the new system. eg, you cross over from SL to WOW and if you don't have a WOW account, you start out in a default configuration based on some personality preferences you have preset.
Calm down people, nothing to see here, move along.
Except for the cybersex, I think the most popular feature about Secondlife is the ability to make something (art!), that will theoretically be seen by the masses. Of course the tools are crude and the service is slow, but the ability is there to make something cool and have it be explorable by people from all over the world.
I read the internet for the articles.
There are about thirty English language university campuses in Second Life. Most of them seem to be used as advertisements to get you to attend, with information about the buildings that they reproduced. There was one by the geology department of an Indiana university, I think. I didn't notice the ones I visited using them for class learning, though a few did have virtual classrooms that looked abandoned.
I noticed that Cisco helped make a virtual model of the planned Palomar Hospital, so that local residents could log into Second Life, go there, and offer criticism. NASA and NOAA, a U.S. government agency that studies the oceans and atmosphere, have virtual land in an area called the "SciLands," near the University of Denver Biology Department. An International Spaceflight Museum built by Second Life residents has scale models of rockets and missile technology like the Proton rockets. There's an attempt to simulate Google Earth in 3D going on, and a Mars terrain-based region there, too.
Second Life may have a lot of furries, flying penises, and the less renowned screaming goatse-textured cube mountains, but they tend to concentrate in the Welcome Areas, in clubs, and in areas where security functions aren't enabled. The people I meet in Second Life also use less Internet chat speak than the ones I see on IRC. I think that's because when you're in even a virtual simulation of face-to-face talk, using slang and emoticons feels awkward.
Potentially, Second Life could be good for learning other languages. Did you know that the English speaking countries make up less than half of Second Life's active user base? Reuters says 31% are American, 13% are French, 11% are German, 8% are British, 7% are Dutch.
Yes, I do.
Every time I see something posted to Slashdot regarding Secondlife, its always the same.. "I can't believe anyone uses this..." or "I logged on for 10 mins and it was so laggy/lame/crap".
I use SL to chat to people, sure I could use an IM client, but quite frankly, I like being able to walk around things that people have created. Yes, theres a lot of crap out there, but theres also some great user content. I also make my own stuff, it gives me a little room to flex my creative muscle and share it too. Sure it can be laggy and crash, but let's not forget our favourite OS (linux of course) hasn't always been a dream to use, and I've been using it for 13 years.
There are obnoxious people in SL, and yes, obnoxious people use linux too! Shock! Horror! They exist outside of myspace and secondlife.
I guess my point here is, I don't mind that you don't like it, but there are people here that do, and dare I say it, enjoy logging in and exploring the SL universe. If you logged in for 10 minutes and then logged off you may just have missed out on actually enjoying playing a so called game without needing to frag something.
Of course, this is Slashdot, where people voice their opinions.
This was mine.
"Nope. more often than not it's multiple sims running on an underpowered server. Most people buy the cheap-o option which is like a quad-core opteron with 24 other sims running on it.
Umm, you have no idea what you're talking about. There is no "cheap-o option" if you want to connect to the SL grid - currently all server space on the main grid is leased directly from Linden Lab and each simulator has a processor core dedicated to it and runs on an individual server instance. Running Debian IIRC.
Parent is absolutely right - a big reason SL has such inconsistent performance from sim to sim is that many of the builds are NOT done by professionals with performance in mind, and use needlessly costly scripts and high numbers of visible prims. Even more so, people will use insanely large numbers of insanely hi-rez textures, which not only adds download time but also works video cards much harder than a proper game does just in terms of shuffling gigabytes of texture data back and forth.