[Opensim-dev] Leaving Project

[Michael Cerquoni]

Colin, i have not seen you on this project in like a year or more, this
seems like nothing more than an attempt by you to market Blue Mars to this
group..  You have done nothing but talk about blue mars for as long as I can
remember now.. as far as I am concerned you left this project about a year
ago.. You have not contributed anything to this project in at least that
long..

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 5:23 AM, Colin B. Withers <
Colin.Withers at eumetsat.int> wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
> I have decided to leave the Opensim project. You will probably not even
> notice if I leave, as not being a programmer my only inputs were the writing
> of the step-by-step tutorials ( http://chapter-and-metaverse.blogspot.com/), the drafts of the OpenSim User Manual on the Forge, and helping out in
> the IRC channels, for newcomers.
>
> You may find my reasons for leaving Opensim interesting though (and please
> do not construe any of my reasons as an attack on anyone).
>
> 1. The Platform
> I raised this several times in the past in IRC, and made posts on my blog
> about the product lifecycle of the platform (
> http://rock-vacirca.blogspot.com/2009/02/direction-of-virtual-worlds.html). I believe that the platforms underpinning both Second Life and Opensim
> are quite long in the tooth now, and I questioned how much product lifecycle
> there was left, particularly given that Opensim is now nearing 3 years of
> development, is still in Alpha, and if the current release of 0.6.7 is any
> indicator, then still only around two thirds into the development cycle.
> With the (inevitable) coming of much superior platforms, such as Blue Mars
> and (as a virtual world); Unity, for browser-based Virtual Wolrds; and now
> UDK (for creating sandboxes, standalones, and open grids), then I fear that
> Opensim has missed the boat as far as the remaining lifecycle of the
> platform is concerned. When you show people what is possible with these
> engines (for example this avatar editor for the forthcom
>  ing APB (using the Unreal Engine):
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icR3LtEMvZI or this city:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmLzNbPXMDg (using the CryEngine), then
> neither SL not Opensim stands comparison.
>
> 2. Lack of Support for Currency in Opensim
> I felt the impact of this when I first made the switch from SL to Opensim.
> I had a thriving RP sim in SL (over 50 people, mainly female) and they all
> agreed to follow me over to my Opensim and the OSGrid. However, within a
> month they had all left, citing the same reason, the lack of places to shop,
> to buy the quality stuff they wanted (skins, hair, clothes etc), as a
> quality appearance, and the fun of shopping is what all the females placed
> high on their requirements from a Virtual World. They drifted back to Second
> Life, and the guys followed them. I have always believed that the lack of
> support for currency in the core was a mistake, but that is just my opinion.
>
> 3. Marketing
> I have also raised this issue several times, and blogged about it. It is
> far from clear just who an eventually released Opensim is actually aimed at.
> I think that any company that is interested in a firewalled corporate
> solution to collaboration and prototyping will already be looking at the
> Enterprise solution that is currently available from Second Life; that any
> indie group that is thinking of running a themed grid will need an economy
> to stay viable; and any individual who is looking for a private sandbox
> solution for their SL work will need full compatibility (which is not the
> case with the OS version of LSL diverging from the SL LSL). So, just who is
> the platform aimed at? I was also very disappointed in the view of one of
> the core devs who said that 'marketing is a null concept for us'.
>
> I am currently designing and creating cities for Blue Mars, and involved in
> a team for proving the UDK as a platform for the design and creation of
> Virtual Worlds (as opposed to purely games), and with so much documentation
> available for these mature engines (particularly for the UDK, Blue Mars lags
> behind somewhat in that department, but have hired extra staff to put that
> right), I am achieving the productivity I want, building the worlds that I
> want, with stable crash-free platforms.
>
> However, I do wish the Opensim team the very best in their endeavours, and
> I sincerely hope their goals are eventually achieved.
>
> If anyone would like to take over the Opensim Tutorials pages at
> http://chapter-and-metaverse.blogspot.com/ and
> http://chapter-and-metaverse2.blogspot.com/ (they will need some updating
> following several changes) then I am more than willing to pass the posts
> over, and of course the Opensim User Manual is there in the Forge for anyone
> to develop further.
>
> Best Regards and Good Luck
>
> Rock
>
>
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>



-- 
Michael Emory Cerquoni - Nebadon Izumi @ http://osgrid.org
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