[Opensim-dev] Thoughts....

Tue Mar 4 20:45:01 UTC 2008

Just felt I needed to point a few things out, as being one of the oldest devs on the project;

Although we all feel a 'Metaverse' would probably be a nice thing, it's in no way the goal of OpenSim. The goal is and has always been to provide a modular platform for 3D application development. Nodes complying with a 'Metaverse Protocol' could be one of those applications. But far from the only ones. Secondly, my personal conviction, which is shared with some of the other core devs, is that any 'standard' will have to be proven by actual use. Use, as in 'application'. The current and wildly succesful 'web standard' grew out of, and in itself contains, a plethora of other standards; it was preceeded by years of experimentation and refinement. Some protocols lived, because people found they were well suited; others died away, disproven by disuse.First we need to find and prove the applications for this 'Metaverse', who actually uses it for what and why, then we can discuss standards for how that should be done. And that's not going to happen for years. What we believe is that by making a platform as easy to mold into whatever your application might need, we can help you create your application faster. And making experimentation cheaper. Thus bring the 'Metaverse' faster, whatever it looks like.Or, putting it another way; if you think you have a good way of doing something, implement it on OpenSim and let the world decide.Most of the core devs have been repeating "OpenSim is not an SL wannabe. A social world like SL is one application on OpenSim. It is not a goal of OpenSim to implement the SL feature set." but we're growing tired of hearing ourselves saying it.
On a side note, I believe we'd all rather have an as disorganized but well-used 3D web as our current 2D web, than an as organized but long forgotten 2D web as for example Xanadu. Need I say 'VRML'?

Best regards,/Stefan (lbsa71)

Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 14:47:20 -0500From: theburnman at gmail.comTo: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.deSubject: Re: [Opensim-dev] Thoughts....
On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 1:17 PM, Michael Wright <michaelwri22 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
In no way am I saying ..."you should give your hard work to society...  uh... because we want it."
I should have been more clear... I wasn't addressing you with that, there was one comment from another poster which followed pretty close to that mentality, and others have come close. 
What I'm saying is opensim has a limited scope. To be honest, its very unlikely that out of the box opensim will be the foundation of any metaverse, its not meant to be in the way you are think of it. Its meant to be a expandable base platform. 
I am curious to see how the metaverse will come about if there is no specific standard with which to develop it.  It seems the general idea is to advance towards the metaverse... but people keep suggesting branches and modular development that would defeat the concept. 
For instance in opensim we aren't dealing with currency and most of us see that as outside the scope of the project. And that third party modules will be written for such things. 
This will be an interesting thing to see...  without some sort of internal mechanism to handle an economy, each grid having their own system in place, also seems to move away from the concept of a standard.  I am very interested to see how this gets worked out... almost more than the IP Rights controversy. 
I'm not sure what you mean by having the assets on the client. At the moment we aren't doing any changes to the client. But our goal is to be a flexible as possible. I'm totally against any one solution to things. I want us to be flexible as possible. If someone setting up a opensim application, wants the asset to be on the client then I want to be able to make it as easy to allow that, but its unlikely it will be a out of the box thing in opensim for at least some time. The same if someone wants all assets to be on a central server, I want them to be able to do that. Or if someone wants somewhere in between.
There have been many calls for local asset storage, both in IRC and here in the list.  This whole mess of a discussion was brought on by just such a request to which I replied with some of my concerns.  The conversation of why it is or is not a good idea should be taking place before it is dismissed or included, for if a compromise which can make both sides of the spectrum relatively happy can be found before work is done, then nothing has to be redone/undone. 
And exactly the same in regard to DRM/IP solutions. Not all applications of opensim are going to public social things like SL, so some things won't want any type of IP protection, because it might be a private installation and who has access to that is tightly controled. We can't possible do every single thing required by all applications.
This was one of the reasons I was fond of the compromise Charles and I discussed...  a toggle setting in the OpenSim.ini which would allow the option of local or server based asset storage. 
That is why we take a view of creating a base server/platform that others expand to meet their requirements. Having said that, if someone came to us who was interested in implemeting a module IP protection system as part of opensim, then I don't think we would turn them away. It would just need to be completely modular so it wasn't a requirement of using opensim, if the person running that Grid didn't want it to be. We are not here to say one way or the other of anything is the right way. We want to have a platform that each side of any viewpoint can use to implement things there way. 

Opensim itself will not be a complete solution for a metaverse. Think of it like a web server. You have the server (which also could include a number of third party modules) and then you have different code for the web pages. Opensim will hopefully be that base server/platform, then their will be modules on top, then the code for that region (if you wanted something special for that region. 
So, where does the standard come into play?  If there is to be as much variation and branching as some of the participants of this conversation seem to be implying...  what will tie these varied grids together in a metaverse environment?  Perhaps someone should take some time and lay out a roadmap detailing where the project is headed, and what the desired outcome is.  Between conversations in IRC, this list, and all of the articles I've read which discuss OpenSim and the metaverse...  I am not convinced anyone really knows what comes next.  So far, it seems the focus is getting OpenSim to the same functionality as Second Life with some improvements here and there coupled with a few "I would love to do this" statements thrown in for good measure. 
So my viewport is, if a content creator only wants to have their creations on a "secure" (we all know it will never be 100% secure, but whatever level they are happy with) installation then I think they should be allowed to do it.
I agree, and to be perfectly honest, I think most of the content creators who "grew up" with Second Life are going to expect it.  Let's face it, the whole SL concept has been fueled by resident created content and the prospect of owning one's own creations and methods to assist in IP Rights protection. 
If other people only want to be involved with a installation with free sharing of items, then I support them being able to do (with the content creators on that system having agreed to that).
Nothing wrong with freebies...  but people who create content for profit are just as important.  Hardcore creators use the revenue they make from their creations to support their work.  Alienating them, or making things difficult for them, won't do anything for OpenSim in the longrun.  I know that isn't your stance, but it is that of others as clearly stated in other responses. 
I believe in IP rights, if you create something then you should be able to decide what is done with it. But in practice DRM will never win, but thats not me saying that the people who want to try are wrong to try. 
Nothing will ever be 100% secure, because for every honest person who creates something, there is a dishonest person who would rather steal it than do the work themselves.  Personally, I believe every effort to ensure people's content will be reasonable secure should be made.  Linden Labs had that much insight in the development of Second Life, and look how well that worked out for them.  There has always been some level of theft, but with protections in place, there has also been a level of security for content creators.  Without it, the concept never would have made it as far as it did. 
I do think for content creation as a business model, that people should maybe think of doing services. Where say people subscribe to a service then get access to that users creations. Okay maybe other people will end up copying them, but if its a service rather than just individual items the people are buying. I think its much more resilient. And again I would like people to be able to use opensim to do this if they wanted.
I am not sure you will convince the content creators in Second Life that this is the best option for them.  I know I would much rather sell individual items rather than charge a subscription fee for access to them.  I am curious to see whether or not larger companies who may wish to sell virtual wares in a metaverse environment would feel if assets are stored locally and subject to duplication without license.  I suppose the whole concept of IP rights and the metaverse hasn't really been publicly considered much yet.  Perhaps that is the problem, there is no real indicator as to where content creators want this aspect of metaverse development to go.  For all intents and purposes, those that create the content a platform is designed to hold should have an impact on the development of that platform.  Most products are designed based on what the consumers want...  afterall.
OpenSim is not about forcing any one solution on anyone. Even if we wanted to implement all these things, we just don't have the man power to do it. There is only so much we can do. So we want to provide what we can do and let others take it and run with it and add their bits. Hopefully in the end something interesting will emerge.
Hopefully indeed.  :) 
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