The First Architecture Working Group Meeting
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 at 5:27 PM by: Zero LindenWe imagine a future where Second Life is able grow beyond the borders of Linden Lab. We see regions running on open source, alternative simulators. We see web services that allow people to build mash-ups of Second Life and the Web. We see organizations being able to integrate their members and their members’ avatars. This is the vision of future Second Life Grid that we want to develop.
Last week we hosted the first Architecture Working Group meeting. Our aim is to build the technology and standards for such a vision by developing them through the direct involvement of Linden Lab, external developers, and the community. The initial group included Residents and organizations active in the technical development of Second Life, as well as virtual worlds in general. We hope it will be the first of an ever expanding process.
What’s this mean for most Residents now? You should know that while Linden Lab is focusing most of its development energy on stability and performance, we are also taking the time lay the foundation for what is to come. And we are doing so in the open, with community participation.
At the meeting, I laid out the current high-level design work that Linden Lab has done to see Second Life scale massively. Over the last year, while we have been mostly working on short term and medium term scaling issues, we’ve been developing this design. As the design has evolved, we’ve seen how it can enable a much greater expansion of the possibilities for Second Life.
We feel now is the time to bring this out for review, discussion and development. By involving those people outside Linden Lab who are already working to expand the technical opportunities for Second Life, and by involving the greater Second Life community, we can ensure that this blueprint goes in the right direction. And, with their involvement, we can reach the vision sooner.
Last week’s meeting was just the beginning of the conversation. We welcome the involvement of anyone willing to work on it. Join us:
- On the SL wiki: at Architecture Working Group
- In world at the Open Source Meeting or my office hours
- On the SLDev mailing list
Lastly, I’d like to thank the initial participants:
Residents: Adam Zaius, bushing Spatula, Dale Glass, Dr Scofield, Eddy Stryker, Gigs Taggart, Katharine Berry, Nathan Zetkin, otakup0pe neumann, Strife Onizuka, Tao Takashi, Tree Kyomoon, Wyn Galbraith, Zha Ewry. Others: Mic Bowman, Simon Gibbs. And numerous Lindens. Appologies if I missed someone.
All of them set aside a full day to spend with us in S.F. or in-world. Many flew to S.F. just for the event. They only had a rough agenda in advance and worked very hard to understand the information we presented, and then held meaningful discussion about it. Afterwards, they’ve been stellar at helping organize the wiki and engage in conversation on the mailing list.
Rob, Liana and I are looking forward to continuing this work with all of you.
- Zero
September 19th, 2007 at 5:42 PM
While I wasn’t “in world’ in San Francisco, I was listening in from the Lindenworld Lobby and IRC. I look forward to working with Linden Lab on the future of the Metaverse.
September 19th, 2007 at 5:45 PM
Oh goody!
More work for me and other builders.
September 19th, 2007 at 6:08 PM
Great to hear this news - I can’t wait to have a personal sim on my own server for testing and design!
Also I’ve read about creating >500km^2 sims using opensim - I can’t wait to fly airplanes in something like that!
September 19th, 2007 at 6:20 PM
I’ve got a server that I would *LOVE* to dedicate to a sim, and I am anxiously awaiting further news.
In the mean-time, I am working on using the OpenSIM code. It’s very interesting. Some day, maybe I can add it to the Grid…
September 19th, 2007 at 6:21 PM
hmm does that means that we will be able to host our own servers connected to the grid for like 1.4th of the current price and no setup fee?
if so, god knows how many islands will be ditched and no new ones orderd lol
September 19th, 2007 at 6:29 PM
Hopefully, that will lead to a properly working SL without LL borking it all the time.
September 19th, 2007 at 6:54 PM
see i think all the future thinking is the best thing since sliced bread. all my stripping and partying was just to buy me some time for the big world about to come. kudos to lindens for putting up with so many challenges and still managing to envision this future. yes IMs suck, yes friend onlines suck, yes griefing sucks, yes jira is hard to navigate, but telephones used to have cords and dials and we used to have to walk up to change the tv station. you lindens keep going!
September 19th, 2007 at 6:56 PM
What is the secret handshake for these meetings? I might have been around had I known of it.
I bet a blog would be a great place to announce such things. WordPress.com is a good place to get open source blog software… but it does take someone to use it properly to communicate things. Darned software doesn’t do everything, you know.
September 19th, 2007 at 7:11 PM
Is there going to be a roadmap of the plans Linden Labs has for the client and server? I mean, where things are going as far as the open source versions and where we are heading with this sort of federated model of a virtual world?
Thanks!
September 19th, 2007 at 7:15 PM
Ya, is there some secret high five you gotta give a linden or what?
September 19th, 2007 at 8:10 PM
open source SL, that is the biggest lie of all!!!!
you lied to us about the “dia de la liberacion”, and no more “mandatory updates” and now, you send the open source community scrambling to rebuild on what you locked them out of. i was 3 days away from releasing a redone UI for SL, and now i gotta replug in all yoru new code!!!! stop lieing to us, and jsut DRM your client, lock it up tight, take out the open source stuff you’ve got in there, and then release it totally closed, i’m sure that’s the next step now. your “vision” is jsut a bait and switch, some of us see it now.
you promised no more “mandatory updates” and we get one every like 2 weeks right now. stop yanking my chain LL and either put up, or shut up
September 19th, 2007 at 8:10 PM
I see a new world my eyes are open i hold my arms out wide.
But wate whats that its the huge company called LL there chargeing me more money for my own sim on my own server oh god now there telling my i have to pay more money in fees…. I pass out the world is black i wake up an theres this black guy asking me to fight him in Kung-Fu what the hell is this why is LL trying to kill me im just trying to help build a better SL but now im in a cave an theres Osoma Ben Linden telling my that its all i lie there is no new world cuz we have blown it all to hell…..WWWWHHHHYYY……
Why in the hell did i take the red pill an open a damn account in the first place.
Bow down to the new world order that is LL in there new world Called first life were i can sue you just like the real thing some one needs to call the feds an jail all the people that wed same sex people cuz thats a real law.
gooooddd help us alll god help us ….
Dies in a pool of her own blood from a gun shot to the head.
My fa,ily will be fileing wrongful death suit in san fran in a week or so.
wooot.
peace an all that.
September 19th, 2007 at 8:23 PM
How much is Linden Lab estimating the cost connecting both single sims and continents of 10 or more sims to the main grid?
It would help to know this expenses up front.
Thanks
September 19th, 2007 at 8:24 PM
*these (sorry)
September 19th, 2007 at 8:27 PM
My question is……..
Does this mean the Second Life we know today will be abandoned and another grid be built in it’s place, eventually the old grid being useless?
September 19th, 2007 at 8:46 PM
Some clarifications:
1) None of this anywhere near ready to deploy. It is all still in the design phase. So, please don’t anticipate having your personal server running as a region anytime soon.
2) We didn’t feel that we could make the first meeting totally open invitation, as we worried that at this stage having too many people involved would make discussion impossible. Everyone who we invited had already been actively participating on their own in the technical evolution of Second Life. We realize there are many more we couldn’t fit this first time. Moving forward, we are looking forward to engaging many more people.
3) We would never abandon Second Life as we know it today. We always engineer at Linden Lab to migrate the world along. I look forward to a vast meta-verse where people can still teleport to Da Boom and say “OMG! This is where it all began!”
September 19th, 2007 at 8:56 PM
Its very encouraging to hear of the possible future developments for Second Life, and some of the ideas mentioned on the wiki are very exciting, especially since they may involve the participation of residents amongst others. However, it would be a great shame if those of us who are not very technically minded or have a working knowledge of coding are left behind.
By chance earlier today I read an article on another approach to online worlds where users can apparently build their own virtual world within minutes without any knowledge of coding etc: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7002479.stm
See also: http://www.metaplace.com/
If Second Life could incorporate this kind of thinking into its future developments, this would be very exciting step for all of us, not just the coding and techie wallas, and could open up Second Life in all sorts of ways.
September 19th, 2007 at 9:12 PM
Zero Linden: “OMG! This is where it all began!”
Hah, seriously who does that?
Maybe it needs to be a memorial or something. With only builds and stuff from the first year.
September 19th, 2007 at 10:11 PM
Thanks for answering Zero.
September 19th, 2007 at 10:27 PM
Sounds good to me hey but wait does this mean everyone that gets pick runs a sim or Largest parcel or what???
September 19th, 2007 at 10:36 PM
Stop tossing any more stuff at us this week and clarify this age verification disaster
September 19th, 2007 at 10:46 PM
Well when the server code and *IF* its released you remember its not going to excatly the same as SL code base i see a more commerical version and a very cut down version.
lets see how lindens are going to rewrite some of the commerical code
IE Havok ™ Winlight using technogly from Windward Mark ™
and there many changes going to happen over time but myself i personally think open source side needs a push and a boost front page coverage , also jira kinda needs alot of improvements so i stopped posting in there due to no responce from linden labs.
i was fixing your bugs in your viewer i would still if jira would be looked out and even assigned, closed or imported i dont see anyone taking notice of fixes
well thats my L$2
Revolution Perenti
September 19th, 2007 at 11:22 PM
But then… land could be worthless in the future, when the new grid opens would users be able to move our land holdings to a new grid, do you realize that those who have been investing in Second Life for years will find themselves stuck with land they are unable to sell as no one would be around the old grid…
Ok! I know I am thinking to far ahead! Just worried for those who have put so much effort into Second Life over these past few years.
-
September 19th, 2007 at 11:28 PM
One could do a system where LL gives you the basic framework, and you can license and plug in the necessary engines as you go. For example, using the LL codebase, you get the sim up and running, you can build things, etc, but no physics. Once you license and install havok, your sim is then phys enabled. Maybe other engines will work too?
September 19th, 2007 at 11:28 PM
Does this mean I should stop buying Sims in favour of using my own web servers sometime in the foreseeable future?
This latest announcement, coupled with a recent post about changes to claims for momentary damages and/or compensation (which in itself addresses a problem I never knew existed) has made me feel very uneasy about having invested thousands of “Real Life” U.S. dollars into “Second Life”.
I’m certainly not about to jump ship. However, too many changes of late and a visible shift in the economic prosperity of Second Life is making me very nervous. So much seems to be happening very quickly.
September 19th, 2007 at 11:30 PM
Second Life News for September 20, 2007
Case study: Atos Origin Alison Booth is leader of Techwatch at the consulting division of IT services company Atos Origin. She recently asked one of the new graduates entering the company to study the online virtual world Second Life to see if there wa…
September 19th, 2007 at 11:36 PM
Instead of worrying about adding third party servers which I imagine are going to be years to come and hell to support, why cannot Linden just put in a European server farm now where all us Europeans can go and obey European laws without us being hassled with US laws such as the gambling act that should not be being applied to us.
And if you do it no voice please but do add integrated automatic translation on every sim.
September 19th, 2007 at 11:50 PM
Just a comment on those worried about old land becoming worthless. What you are really buying is of course a hardware server but more importantly high speed data links to the rest of the grid. Perhaps you might like to talk to your telecomms provider about the cost of these links for connecting your own server to the grid - LL land might not seem such a bad deal then.
September 19th, 2007 at 11:59 PM
Open Source; a single sim can be run on a single computer. So let’s base the question on a single server/sim
The concern/question is; would it be more or less than the current $295.00 per month fee. I would tend to think it would be far less as I would not using LL server I am using mine.
So how much is it to connect to the grid so that others can connect to my sim/computer? I find it hard to believe that cost has not yet been discussed at LL.
Just think that needed some clarification.
September 20th, 2007 at 12:00 AM
Hear, hear, Alisha! That’s the way to go. SL is a worldwide community, and we should not be fettered with puritanical laws passed by a foreign government that we didn’t vote for and have no power to change. Let’s have a server farm based in the UK, running under the jurisdiction of the new UK gambling laws.
September 20th, 2007 at 12:42 AM
im so negitive so listen to this ……RIPPPPPP… guess where that came from
the same place linden is going
September 20th, 2007 at 1:12 AM
Regarding Open Source: I think the main concept here for now is not open source but an open protocol. One idea behind the open discussion is to also get developers involved to write some of these components and see how these will work together.
Whether the Linden Lab server will be developed open source or will be made afterwards needs to be seen, I think.
But it might not matter that much because projects like OpenSim are improving dramatically and I think when this architecture is ready to deploy there will be a quite ok toolset in the open.
As for participation: Nothing really has been decided yet and set in stone. I tried to document as much as possible from what I understood in the meeting in the wiki. What we need now is IMHO some brainstorming of what this protocol might need to support. This does not mean to decide what gets implemented but more to be open for all what might come. Priority is apparently to be able to port the existing SL infrastructure to it.
So if you have use cases or possible requirements for such a protocol, feel free to add it to the Brainstorming section on the wiki for now. In the next step this might be sorted into more detail.
There is also a list of work items on the wiki. There also has started some discussion on the sl-dev mailing list (http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/SLDev).
As for the land discussion: In the long run it might go the same way as web servers today.. For basic use you get webspace for quite a low amount. But it might be limited in what you can do with it. Regarding virtual worlds I would guess that at some point it will be similar but the timeframe here is really some years. For good quality connection you will still need to pay a fairly high price though, it will be the same as for web servers. And of course it depends whether LL will raise a connection fee or not and what will happen in terms of alternative grids. Then again if other grids will get cheaper, Linden Lab might need to get cheaper as well. It’s all about competition.
But all this will happen anyway, the question might be just if with or without Linden Lab. And as LL has quite some knowledge and is (believe it or not) quite good in community work (compared to other sites) I’d rather have it with Linden Lab.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:19 AM
“All of them set aside a full day to spend with us in S.F. or in-world. ”
- A FULL Day? Pffft..I’ve Spent Longer Just Trying To Log In…
“Many flew to S.F. just for the event.”
- LOL…Paid For By Linden Lab..Again…
How About Letting Us “NON-FIC” People Into The Clique?
LMAO…
P.S. You Should Know That While Milo Bellow Is Focusing Most Of His Energy On Sense Of Humour And Patience, He Is Also Taking The Time To Begin The Lawsuit For What Is To Come….
September 20th, 2007 at 1:26 AM
I’d like to update my original post after reading more material on open source server code, especially the OpenSIM project. Perhaps I can understand why Linden are now venturing towards a time when regions can be privately run and managed, with perhaps the introduction of a levy to connect to the main Grid as noted by Reuters.
For my “Second Life fix” I rely solely on Linden Lab’s ability to maintain the integrity of their grid. It can’t be easy trying to manage something that has grown exponentially after the past few years. However, providing software for standalone “Second Life servers” I would totally welcome, and I’d even go so far as to welcome the money I’ve invested into Linden be used for making that a reality.
What it means for me is that I could run my own micro-Grid on my own hardware for my own projects without necessarily having to rely on Linden Lab. It also provides more options for us players to play a bigger part in developing the virtual platform, and intimately Linden Lab will benefit from the talent of open source contributors.
I’ll answer my own question on whether I should stop or curtail my investment in Linden Lab through the purchase of Simulators or participation in the Linden economy. If it means Linden uses my money wisely in expanding their platform for use outside the main Grid as well as the possibility of linking external regions back in, then hell yeah. I’m 100% for that.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:36 AM
angela seale Says:
September 19th, 2007 at 8:10 PM PDT
open source SL, that is the biggest lie of all!!!!
you lied to us about the “dia de la liberacion”, and no more “mandatory updates” and now, you send the open source community scrambling to rebuild on what you locked them out of. i was 3 days away from releasing a redone UI for SL, and now i gotta replug in all yoru new code!!!! stop lieing to us, and jsut DRM your client, lock it up tight, take out the open source stuff you’ve got in there, and then release it totally closed, i’m sure that’s the next step now. your “vision” is jsut a bait and switch, some of us see it now.
you promised no more “mandatory updates” and we get one every like 2 weeks right now. stop yanking my chain LL and either put up, or shut up
Yep, next time major trojans etc are found, please don’t even bother to tell the “want to run V1.0″ brigade, let them be hacked till their hearts content, just give them their own grid so they don’t infect us with it.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:48 AM
One thing that will open up a big can of worms, after reading through the information provided so far. What is to prevent someone making an open sim, hosted on his or her own computer, and then setting the permissions on all objects to anything he or she wants? In essence, wouldn’t this be worse than the copybot problems for anyone selling anything?
September 20th, 2007 at 1:51 AM
Tegg B. Nipcholaz Breesford already made an adaptation to the prevoice client to allow it to still run against the main grid. Ask him about it.
Mandatory updates are a necessary thign for security issues. An issue which allows your acocunt to be hacked is a bad thing. OYu’re massively overreacting here.
As to lindens, I’m worried about what non LL servers would mean. How would L$ transactions be handled? and content theft too, would be come much easier. Private sim owners would have acess to the code of ytour scripts, which could be decompiled.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:06 AM
Region/Agent domains smell familiar..
Oh, yeah - GMMP channel domains - the things I invented and mentioned to various people on IRC. And I would also like to know where this meeting was announced if anywhere - being kicked off opensim for that silly UUID issue a while ago is even more a slap in the face when my contribution to the early days of the project is totally forgotten like it never happened.
Guess who sat and rewrote all the original OGS (Open Grid Services) specifications and wrote the first 2 real implementations?
And guess who got all the credit?
September 20th, 2007 at 2:14 AM
OMG, this is where it all begins!
September 20th, 2007 at 2:50 AM
[...] The First Architecture Working Group Meeting [...]
September 20th, 2007 at 2:59 AM
Why bother? I mean SL will be so tightly controlled, regulated, monitored, policed and scrutinised that people won’t *want* to be here.
Now that you’ll be able to tie our accounts to our RL data and monitor our every move - that’s just not what this was supposed to be. Look at where it all began, and look now. Not a very nice place. It’s only going to get worse.
This was supposed to be the next gen internet, but it has no freedom on it at all. Maybe I should just hand over all my personal details to LL and their 3rd party cowboys. BTW, my waist measurement is 32 inches and my inside leg 30 if you didn’t know. I’m sure you already did. If you look inside my pants you’ll see that my…. oh, wait - you probably already know that too!
I am totally apathetic towards it all now, it’s just one disaster after another, one more freedom taken, one more right curtailed.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:49 AM
I think it enables more freedom actually. If people are unhappy the way LL handles things they can then simply make their own grid. But they might also face legal problems at some point. After all these issues are nothing Linden Lab makes up and only affects SL, it affects the whole internet.
As for L$ transations, object permissions etc. it’s all quite in the open still. These are actually the things which need a lot more thoughts. As for L$ I would like some solution where I can have multiple methods of paying, like via L$, credit card, PayPal or stamps
As for theft there will never be a 100% reliable way of preventing it. Look at the music industry and their attempts to stop it. All it adds is more inconvenience for the customer, who cannot play music on any device she wants etc. That is not to say that every object should be full perm by default, it still should have the existing permission scheme and maybe even should enable different schemes or licenses to be attached. But in the the end every piece of data needs to go to the client to show it to the user and this data can always be copied there in the latest. Unfortunately it’s technically impossible to prevent this. This was always possible (think the tools to retrieve textures from your gfx card) and will always be although on a very low level.
As for sims to connect to the main grid there is also still Linden Lab who decides which sims are allowed to connect. I doubt that just anybody can connect and if changing permissions, owners etc. of objects will definitely against the TOS set out for connecting regions (my guess ;-).
For different grids it might look different but there’s always the question of whom you trust when connecting to a foreign grid, giving out your CC number to unkown entities, etc.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:04 AM
What the.. f.. again with grid????? Every update ther same,, what you ever fix there??? color of inteface buttons….???
September 20th, 2007 at 4:10 AM
Yawn, sounds like Vaporware. Mono and newer Havok ring a bell?
“We imagine a future where Second Life is able grow beyond the borders of Linden Lab”
Yes, minus the Linden Lab from the equation and I can see such a future.
Sorry, but your record and metrics are exactly supporting this proposed future.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:21 AM
We have been talking about private sims for a long long time, when SL first said OPEN SOURCE. IF you could host your own server you could have Second Life playing over a land, those who love the build tools could just stick to there own little world away from the online one building for the rest of their days?
-I think this may have some relevance to this topic so I am recreating a log from a chat with user Lazric Lane of which he talks about community management and Second Life to a small group of people during a break at the DrDobbs Life 2.0 Summit-
I began to play this game many years ago when there was no community but a family. I have seen the game over these years change and I have seen the lindens make some sad and tough decisions in the Process- the worst was the removal of the live help. Although it is understandable why. However finding lindens is now a mission, and there are some things which do need a lindens comment on.
Recently abuse reports of parcels containing Virtual Child Pornography have gone ignored. Which has left a lot of people in the community questioning Linden Labs and their true commitments to promises and policies.
Another issue being questioned by the community is safety, not just are lindens not around, there own island can be attacked with them acting for over 40 minutes. Although I understand that Lindens need sleep to! The community is questioning safety- with griefer attacks rising and objects circulating that steal lindens. Can linden labs keep the users safe? This safety question has bought up a lot of concern with Identity Verification.
Concern is also very apparent in the community because of the vast number of minors in Second Life. Not so much that they are there, but when known and reported the time it takes for the Lindens to act can still take hours.
As for the business side of Second Life, there are problems which need to be looked at urgently.
The lindex in recent months has become unstable, there may be many reasons for this but with a lot of lindens out of circulation from the general user, it’s difficult for new businesses to move into Second Life. The casual Second Life residents who are often the high spenders who use to camp for lindens, have found without the casinos they are out of lindens to shop with. This is not just causing concern for real life businesses but also for small shop owners who suffer to make anything out of owning their shop. Making owning land and making a shop a waste of time.
As I am a community manager for a Video Game developer and someone who has been working around the interactive games industry for some time. I can make some brief recommendations… that should not be taken to heart but at least thought about.
1) Begin to manage the community in a more effective manner. Get someone people to actually engage with the community, talk, set up events… and help the community be active. Its not being done. A long time ago kona use to take residents out and have some fun, those days have begun to pass and Second Life for many residents have become stressed out with Second Life- The environment needs to be maintained.
2) Get some people, even volunteers to manage and look after the sandboxes more effectively. They have become to clogged and hard to use. Griefers are constantly attacking users, to the point they are no longer sandboxes, they are rubbish tips.
3) Expand communications channels from just the blog as being the main form of communication, I am unaware of all other methods of communications. However the blog should be so heavily relied on. Perhaps streaming a media/radio show for just a few hours going over the week of updates, or upcoming events in Second Life. This would not be to hard to do and I believe the ability to access primary information would clear up a lot of uncertainty in the community when coming to such things as new policies etc.
4) Help the businesses in Second Life- The lindex is so high as mentioned earlier causing concern, I suggest you either assure business owners the end is far away and work on helping them get back off their feet. The casinos being abolished dried up the economy, casual residents no longer indulge in money buying and shopping, the casinos cut the economy in half and took out a lot of camping chairs. Either a type of regulation or even hosting competitions which aide in commercial development in Second Life.
5) It also doesn’t help with rumors of private servers circulating that Second Life may one day be hosted from home. How is this suppose to push development in Second Life? People would rather wait 2 or 3 years with money for a bank for the day they can home host Second Life than actually investing in the World itself now. And with fears the Second Life may be a waste of money cause at the end of the day all the land you own will be worthless? Even a recent post about Land Development for the future? Of an entire new grid better than the one you have now with better power in graphics and what not? This puts fear in innovators and developers, even casual builders. Will all those owning, buying sims and land suddenly find themselves in the future worthless. The lindens may say do not get to far ahead of yourself however you may ‘really’ want to take a step back and think about what your saying for the future of Second Life, this is thousands of dollars residents are spending, not to mention the tiers each month. And suddenly theres a rumor than in 4 maybe 5 years all money invested in Second Life as we know it now may be worthless because the grid will be out of date? You need to quickly get this under control, remove the fear from the innovators and developers. for those paying over a 100 in tier, and those spending thousands on getting the land in the first place…. you are creating disaster. I understand the need for Second Life development. However there is to much fear in the way you are doing it.
These are just a just a few ideas… really there are many more and I could go on all day, My experience and a large majority of communities experience of those who have been in Second Life for a long time is in a decline, I hope Linden Labs takes on board some of my suggestions or at least thinks about some of the issues raised.
SL Name - Lazric Lane
(Hope you don’t mind Laz)
September 20th, 2007 at 4:29 AM
7 Janie Matahari Says:
September 19th, 2007 at 6:54 PM PDT
see i think all the future thinking is the best thing since sliced bread. all my stripping and partying was just to buy me some time for the big world about to come. kudos to lindens for putting up with so many challenges and still managing to envision this future. yes IMs suck, yes friend onlines suck, yes griefing sucks, yes jira is hard to navigate, but telephones used to have cords and dials and we used to have to walk up to change the tv station. you lindens keep going!
Some of my phones still have cords! And hey! Look at that, I’ve lost the remote, awwwwww shucks. :-p
September 20th, 2007 at 5:12 AM
25 taotakashi Says:
September 20th, 2007 at 1:12 AM PDT
Regarding Open Source: I think the main concept here for now is not open source but an open protocol.
…right on. All the way down your post. Good thoughts.
I like the looks of this talk…wish I was invited.
I’ve got some ideas that I find to be over looked. Mostly about the cost in resource (CPU, bandwidth, render) for assets. Still seems unaccounted for.
I will try to make my notes clean and add to the discusion. Not sure for who’s consumption, but someone is watching and learning
/have my pants rezzed yet?
September 20th, 2007 at 5:24 AM
So does this come before or after Havok2 is released?
September 20th, 2007 at 5:34 AM
Ooh, I just looked at the wiki. This is a great idea! Adding a whole bunch of new components and quintupling the communication pathways and protocols can’t but make for a more reliable system. Awesome, dudes!
I just think you accidentally left out the SMS client from the picture. Think of how much that would expand the potential userbase!
September 20th, 2007 at 5:52 AM
I’m buckled in, strapped-tied down, wont be shaken off, and won’t fall off….. ready for the ride of my life… thx
September 20th, 2007 at 6:33 AM
I think we have forgotten that this will taketime lot’s of it.. and i welcome the new veiws of open source. Open source and all it’s developer’s will help add to the grid , and the envorimnet making it more enjoyable for all. I have sim’s running and coding for it as well we have been here months, working tweaking the code testing it is moving forward , but it will take time and with linden labs support that may shortenbut it is still maybe a year and a half away don;t start freaking out yet…SL wasn’t built in a day so please be patiance..
September 20th, 2007 at 6:52 AM
I don’t agree with LiMatty’s comments about the economy. The loss of gambling doesn’t seem to have hurt it all that much. My friends and I are certainly still shopping!
But opening SL into a protocol, a web-wide paradigm, would allow the return of gambling…or whatever…in places where it’s legal. Much more than that, it would make for a wider world, or worlds. I can imagine visiting places where the rules…physical, social, and economic…are much different than LL’s Second Life grid.
We already know that almost anything can happen in SL. By making an open architecture, ANYTHING can happen. Some of those things will be good, and some perhaps not good at all. But variety just got a whole new dimension here.
I’m looking forward to it.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:57 AM
@Melachi feel free to propose a better architecture, that’s the whole purpose of this project. Engage in the discussion on the mailing list and put something up on the wiki. That would be very helpful. And it will probably come after Havok 4 is released. Timeframe should be 1 year minimum I guess.
@34: not sure about the equation without Linden Lab. Where do you actually see other promising attempts in creating something like that?
@36 yes, please contribute your thoughts. the mailing list should be a good starting point or just add to the Brainstorming page on the wiki and maybe link to it from the list.
There will actually be more meetings with different people. According to Zero it mainly depends on how much you participate. Participation here does not only mean coding but also engaging in the discussion, maybe raising concerns or trying to explain things where concerns are based on false assumptions. After all it’s unfortunately not an easy to understand topic for many people. There is also Zero’s office hour to discuss these things. I hope more will follow.
Brainstorming here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Brainstorming
Mailing list here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/SLDev
Zero’s office hour in 30 mins on Grasmere (IIRC).
September 20th, 2007 at 7:07 AM
Ive looked at the architecture as was displayed, and this is extremely neat
- looks a great deal more stable, and indeed should scale well and allow for many useful appliances.
my only future concern right now is the verification thing though, as many others on the grid probably share. to toss in a suggestion: why not (ab)use the public opinion poll system you abused and collect a community opinion about the verification thing? this would give you a nice idea about how the community in its entirety feels about the system of ID verification.
maybe two questions:
1: do you think the new verification will prevent minors from accessing the adult grid?
2: would you register yourself with the required data in order to access restricted parcels?
then add in the comment box, and youre set. this should give you some nice idea of A) the possible effectiveness and B) the trust put into this system by the community. and here I mean community, not just the usual enraged blog-commenters (which I dont count myself in with, but Im also rather opposed to the verification stuff. giving your personal data to a datamining company is NOT something Id like to do if I can avoid it)
September 20th, 2007 at 7:53 AM
Hi and Waves to all.
A concern and sincere point of attention to my opinion would be that buying an estate from Linden Lab or acquiring a sim on the mainland via the auctions system need fair competition with any possibility to hook up an own server for dramatically less costs.
Many have invested huge amounts into SL motivated by LL.
It would be quiet a scandal if the value would drop dramatically.
Yes, the choice was free at all times to invest into in SL or not.
Fact however is that many have done heavily, stimulated by the existence of LL and SL and it’s communications at that time.
I do trust that those entrepreneurs are not going to be left into the cold.
September 20th, 2007 at 8:20 AM
Someday, in the not-too-distant future, there will be millions of sims, and millions online simultanedously, and we’ll all look back with fond memories of the good old days when on a busy day only 30,000 people were online, and there was an SLCC convention and only 800 people were there, and we will all lament how the world has grown, and isn’t the friendly, cozy little fun-loving place it once was. But that will be okay because embedded in the architecture of the grid is the capability of making areas separate communities, and so in that wider world there will always be smaller communities formed within the millions of sims, and we’ll each have a place we can call home, and we’ll each love that little region of the giant grid as much as we love the SL world today
September 20th, 2007 at 8:20 AM
@9: you promised no more “mandatory updates”
Feel free to link to an article where they ever promised no more mandatory updates. There are too many legitimate issues to gripe about without lying.
September 20th, 2007 at 8:30 AM
The Gorean sims have long since been talking of uniteing the lands together in a accurate map of Gor for proper experience of the fantasy land.
I am wondering if this could further that thought….there was talk (dreams) of a single static grid for the lands…leave the “main” grid alone.
I reckon people whom are participants in the gor roleplay sims and those not participants would both welcome that.
September 20th, 2007 at 9:10 AM
Why open the meetings up at all?
September 20th, 2007 at 9:12 AM
I can’t believe that I was in SF last week and missed this.
September 20th, 2007 at 9:19 AM
you say you don’t want to abandon us…wake up…you already have…you have long ago abandoned the community of people who were here the first year. Look around…how many are left…how many still show up on a regular basis…have you done the numbers on that? The islands and then the separate mainlands…all a process of fragmentation…an abandonment of the original sense of a community. As a therapist I can only see this raising fundamental questions about a certain lack of bonding that seems to go hand in hand with the technological world view.
September 20th, 2007 at 9:31 AM
” You should know that while Linden Lab is focusing most of its development energy on stability and performance…”
LOL LOL LOOOOOL LOL LOOOOLL LOL LOL LOL LOOOLLL LOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL…..
September 20th, 2007 at 9:34 AM
I doubt that Zero and his guys are able to pull this off simply because we don’t have working group IMs more than half a year after they broke.
Simple as that.
September 20th, 2007 at 9:44 AM
What pops into mind is: how to ensure with open source servers and open source clients that money goes where it is intended to? I just had a quick look to the Wiki pages and didn’t find anything about security of transaction. Did I miss something or is there nothing yet? And links for me?
September 20th, 2007 at 10:00 AM
the idea that the L$ will still exist when secondlife is no longer under the helm of Linden research is interesting at best. The only merchants that will be in business will be those that accept credit cards. This will remove all those who participate because they are able to get along without having class A credit scores. It will be about as fun as surfing the 2D internet today.
I would really love to see the future vision of secondlife laid out clearly and unambiguously. This way we can prepare and those who know they will no longer enjoy a place where they have fantasy wealth can go ahead and tie off all the remaining loose strings and prepare to deal with a life without the second one.
September 20th, 2007 at 10:18 AM
Lilmatty. I think your arguments about land becoming worthless are seriously flawed.
Land, is nothing more than space on a server.
Have a look how much servers cost: http://www.pair.com/services/dedicated/
Perhaps the initial putrchase fees will become fairly obsolete, but whether you’re paying tier to LL, or running your own server, there will always be high ongoing coszts.
September 20th, 2007 at 10:27 AM
I haven’t looked at thw Wiki yet (I’ll do that now) , but I have a feeling that while SIMS will be open-sourced, the asset servers and login servers will still remain under LL control. It makes sense, as there’ll still need to be a central place to handle assets and logins for the entire grid.
My prediction is that LL’s business model will change from virtual ‘real estate’ to virtual ‘public storage.’ I.e., you’ll pay LL for the space to store your inventory, and private SIM owners will probably pay a monthly fee to be able to connect.
And before anyone says anything about saving their inventories on their personal computers, I doubt that will ever happen. It would make it far too easy for people to make bootleg copies of items, scripts, and textures.
In all, this is really cool-looking stuff, but I imagine this will be at least a year or two away– perhaps Second Life 2.0.
September 20th, 2007 at 11:29 AM
When considering open-source movements within the SL community, one must acknowledge the overwhelming necessity for unification. We all know that, given the right circumstances, open-source can move away from its parent rather quickly and become something completely different. Because of this, I think it’s important that we stick together and work towards perfecting the already-existing game. In my spare-time, I have created my own personal sim that runs independently from SL servers using the source. I was wondering, since we already have the capability to connect, if it would be possible to attach sims (like mine) to the primary grid? Is this what LL is planning? We both know that there are some minor issues requiring attention. However, if you are interested in experimenting with this idea, I’m all game! I cannot speak for everyone else but I hope that this is the direction that LL has in-mind for the future of SL. It would be less demanding and certainly cost-effective if users had the capability to host their own sims and still remained attached to the primary grid.
September 20th, 2007 at 12:03 PM
After reading all this talk about people running their own sims on their own servers, interestingly this is not a new concept. Anyone familiar with Worlds.com will know users build their own worlds, save them to a file then stream them into Worlds. Alternatively, users can share the file with just those they want access to the world, and only those with that file can use the world.
In reality Second Life is regurgitating an old concept, but I would like to reiterate, I hope they eventually do this in a way that will be accessible to any resident that wants to add their own sim to SL.
I am also curious wether coders will be able to develop their own sim how they choose or will have to keep to the SL standard. For instance, I have read here how some have modified the SL UI, so it would be interesting to know what level of modifications (if any) users could make to their own sim.
September 20th, 2007 at 12:06 PM
One thing I can’t seem to stand is people that will sit around and do nothing but bash others for things that don’t work. People, seriously, if you can do a better job than LL, by all means, this is (in most cases) a free world for you to do as you need. Develop your own meta-verse and compete with LL.
Philip had a vision and he took it to the books and he started with little, and grew! YEAH - GOOD FOR HIM! Yes, there are things that can be improved on, and there are things that can be changed. BUT, why not work WITH what we have now and make it better and be a part of the change instead of a speed bump that is just going to get left behind.
LL is focusing on the correct road at this point, IMHO. There vision has always been (as I know it), to create a worled (virtual or not) where everyone can be, take part and make it better.
It almost sounds like they are bringing the technology of online shopping/ebay type stuff into SL. That would be great. I would love nothing more than to have a person be able to log onto SL, go to my store, decide they want to buy, oh, say a stereo and then that avie could zoom, pan, tild and fly around it to see if it is what they want, then, instead of buying a SL object, they would either be flipped over to a web site to purchase the object in RL or, even better, complete the total transaction within SL and have the RL object shipped.
That is where this type of MetaVers is going.
I am all for it!
September 20th, 2007 at 12:14 PM
I think something needs to be said here, since I’m constantly hearing comments from people that indicate a widespread lack of understanding regarding hosting your own sims, but still having them connected to the Second Life Grid. I won’t even deal with the technical aspects of maintaining your own server farm and the infrastructure necessary to connect it to the Internet. You aren’t going to do it from your laptop and cable internet connection, folks — not if you want performance that even comes close to what you’re experiencing on the Grid right now, and we all know how abyssmal that can be.
In a nutshell, here’s what it boils down to: “Oh cool! I’m in where is legal, so I’ll just host my own private sim, connect it to SL and everything with be just peachy keen.”
Not! It doesn’t work like that, and I have no idea where people get this notion. Here are the facts that you have to deal with:
1) If your sim connects to the Second Life Grid it will come under the same TOS and rules of Community Standards and “broadly offensive” content/behavior, as that part of the Grid hosted on Linden Lab’s own servers. They aren’t going to let you circumvent their in-world laws.
2) Laws regarding acceptable content/behavior of any country in which Linden Lab has its own servers will be imposed on the *entire* grid. If in is illegal then it will be illegal in the whole of Second Life. This is official word from Linden Lab. I don’t remember the blog post, but it shouldn’t be that difficult to search for.
The only way you will be free to pursue your fantasies unfettered is if you do not associate your private sim(s) in any way with Second Life. The flip side of that coin is that you won’t have access to any Second World assets, like your favorite SexGen bed … or L$.
September 20th, 2007 at 12:33 PM
The future of the internet is a 3D web. When i first discovered SL, I thought this is the company that will lead us there. After being here since Feb, Sadly, I’m now convinced this company is not capable of it. Not because they couldn’t achieve the technological barriers, it’s because they lack a complete understanding of how to run a corporation, how to communicate, how to treat people, and how to deliver a stable product. Imagine a day where instead of http://www. you will type w3d. and your Avatar will enter a universe of millions of 3d websites. The 3D web will come to fruition in a very short time, perhaps even as little as 3-5 years, but it will not be Linden Lab as the leader. Instead, they are likely to go down in history as a footnote… “Linden Lab: Early internet 3D game builders who helped propagate the idea of the 3D web we all enjoy today!”
September 20th, 2007 at 12:46 PM
Why would my group want to connect our private grid to Second Life?
I think we’d sooner connect it to a few other private grids.
It’d be silly to squander the expense of a private grid by opening it up to the childish griefer community we’re suffering now.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:03 PM
Prediction: Look for LL to be the Red Hat of virtual reality in five years time, providing core services and configuration management for code, being a central repository for assets and finances, and providing you with a “Sim on a DVD” (or download) for like US$75. You load it on your PC, it connects to the Grid via your new fiber optics line, and away you ago–instant private sim. Oh, and you pay LL something like US$30-40 a month for the service, sort of like cable TV.
Okay, that’s the business plan. Now all we need to do is the architecture.
Will the culture change? Yes. Cultures always change. Do you want to be part of that change? That’s up to you.
I’m in.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:12 PM
Translation: “In the future we fully intend to continue to allow children , teenagers and griefers access to one of the few places on the web where adults can be free from their destruction”
Odd, having said that a quote from a well known cartoon comes to mind, “why what are we going to do tomorrow night, Brain?” “Same thing as always; Try to take over the world”
Try to shoot MORE for stability and drop your silly fantasy of world wide web domination. Your BOZOS cost me over 4000 items last month!!!
September 20th, 2007 at 1:19 PM
I’m very interested in how governance mechanisms can scale and work in a decentralised architecture, and I shall look forward to participating in the meetings, if I can make them.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:19 PM
“What’s this mean for most Residents now? You should know that while Linden Lab is focusing most of its development energy on stability and performance, we are also taking the time lay the foundation for what is to come.”
ROFLMAO!!!! Waitress!!! I will have 2 of what THEY are smoking/drinking!!
You’re idea of stability is not unlike standing on a plank on a ball at the edge of a CLIFF!!
Get bloody REAL
September 20th, 2007 at 1:31 PM
@33: trips were certainly not LL paid, rest assured.
just the amount of good by LL will towards non-LL efforts such as libsecondlife and OpenSim, IMO demonstrates quite forcefully that LL are very serious about this effort — and do want to make this an open effort.
i for one was very impressed by the openness of the meeting and the attitude of everyone involved — if you want to make a difference: join us on the mailing list and in-world at zero’s office hours!
September 20th, 2007 at 1:35 PM
Thanks so much for the optional, ooops, someone told an untruth, Mandatory client. The good news is its new, the bad news is its more buggy than my previous version. Thanks for much for making my experience less that I had hoped for! It’s the Linden way and something all paying customers can count on. Lets get Torley on this right away, this could be shinola in no time
September 20th, 2007 at 1:35 PM
Dirk Felix Says:
September 20th, 2007 at 1:35 PM PDT
Thanks so much for the optional, ooops, someone told an untruth, Mandatory client. The good news is its new, the bad news is its more buggy than my previous version. Thanks for much for making my experience less that I had hoped for! It’s the Linden way and something all paying customers can count on. Lets get Torley on this right away, this could be shinola in no time
what?
September 20th, 2007 at 1:54 PM
I was there and would be happy to help clarify anything in the meeting that occurred, and wherever I can in the posts to the wiki. I would also encourage participation by all interested, its completely open. For SL as a platform for Rich Internet Application development beyond what we see it as today, this is definitely a step in the right direction. Hats off to Zero and team for making this so transparent and open, I think with all the resident feedback it will pay off bigtime.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:12 PM
Hi
I’m having a problem with the game Second Life, i setup the game on my lapto=
p
and it work for a few days, today when i tried to get in, the screen of the
game appears balck and orange, and i can’t see nothing not even my avatar, that
appears to be seated, and i can’t seapk to anyone. Can you help me? Please help
me i love this game i just don’t understand what happen.
___________________________________________________________________
September 20th, 2007 at 2:28 PM
Why not court paypal? They have millions of verified accounts (real millions not X people and their alts) all the way down to a telephone call and bank check. They know how to move money and verify. It would be hot to have some kinda paypal option tied into the game for transactions.
It’s gonna be hard to stop printing L and find cleaner income, the alternative is a lingering death in obscurity as the world moves on.
Join up with other enterwebz that require verification of ID on the level of paypal. Offer the users of those services next to instant, verified, sign up in this digital environment. (and get a new name for SL while at it… SL implies a fake, pretend life, not the real one, a place to play house, second world or something would be far less goofy. I still cringe when I have to mention this name to friends and outsiders. I’d settle for The Grid or Powdered Toast World, or even Bling World over SL).
LL has to do something, You seem to be missing the boat, stagnant in your design, digging into this pattern of survival. Writing a million words for a Knowledge Base that SHOULD be obsolete before it’s complete. Milking the current config with “land” sales and “money” presses. Dump the Virtual from the econ if you wish to make a Real platform.
It seems beyond optimistic that LL will create the protocols and standards of the future. I mean, you all can’t get my pants to rez after 5 years and fail to deliver on any REAL improvements to this current grid beyond number games and “features”. You continue to let incompetent people lead the dev team and contribute to design. You fail greatly in simple things like a communication UI. Fail to deliver improvements to service and infrastructure month after month except for increasing the Big Number with a giant resource sponge, free noob funnel. You fail to talk to us like the clever buggers we are. You talk to us like you are politicians on a TV screen most of the time, spewing complete nonsense and happy talk. You don’t even have a use for your own product…
However, many eyes are watching us. Discussions like the one here are being noted by many. I don’t think talking about this here is a waste of time because Virtual (what a stupid word we use that also implies Fake, Not Real) communities and digital environments will not be going away. Like the telegraph, telephone, radio, TV and enterwebs it’s here to stay. We want to communicate and we will. I just wonder if LL will be in the loop.
Toss us a bone…how’s havok 2 (erm, 3, um, 4…is it 5 now?) going?
Get that mono working yet?
Get to work on “shadow/ghost” avs that are extremely light. No physics, minimal thru pass, inability to effect the environment, light hit to others viewers… so we can get past this godawful bottle neck of sim performance that limits the size of events or environments we might make. It’s the biggest oversight and hold back you have…resource distro within a sim. (notes to come. promise)
Get to work on allowing us to use our sims as we see fit. Why should I and my visitors use CPU and Video to rendor land, water and clouds if I don’t want them? Why can’t I limit the amount of resource use of visiting avs? Why can’t I pay more for Power Sims that are not capped, racked and stacked? Why can’t I pay less for light sims (even semi disconnect from the main grid). Why must my sim be 256 X 256m? Why not 32m or 1024m? Why must the sims be laid out in a 2d pattern much like real land? Why must the grid all be shown on the map? We don’t care if all the places are show as being on one big flat map as long as we can TP freely to them. Really.
I’d be happy with a viewer that didn’t crash my video card 20 times a day at this stage. Give us something s