[Opensim-dev] OpenSim - What's Taking so long

Thu Jul 8 17:02:09 UTC 2010

One of the problems with OpenSimulator project doing this, is it is not an
established company.  There is no central office or managers for this
project.  That aside if you wanted to try to raise funds to hire programmers
who will submit their code you could certainly do that, you do not need
OpenSimulator project to do this for you.  You could also ask some of the
OpenSim developers directly if they are interested in working for bounty if
you can raise the funds.  Another problem right now is most of the
developers are way to busy to organize fund raising events, and from my
experience Money doesnt always solve problems, and can tend to complicate
things to the point they never actually get done, because once the funds run
out work just flat out stops and is very difficult to get going again.   One
thing you do not mention is what you would like to see finished or what you
feel is missing or incomplete.  OpenSimulator is a very open ended project
and will likely always be morphing and changing, there will likely never be
an end to its development, unlike a facebook website which has very limited
purpose to its goals.  I am going to assume you mean Second Life
compatibility, this is really just a small piece of opensimulator and I will
think that you will find that most of the people directly involved in
OpenSimulator are not that interested in recreating second life, there are
many avenues being pursued right now that look nothing like Second Life, one
of the major factors really holding this project back is the lack of a
Open-Source viewer that the OpenSimulator developers can work on that is in
a usable state, the Second Life viewer source code is off limits to
OpenSimulator developers and because of this making OpenSimulator be second
life compatible is not always easy or even possible at all in some cases.  I
think once we see viewers like Realxtend Naali and others become more usable
you will see OpenSimulator move even further from trying to be a second life
clone.  But these are just some of the reasons that I see OpenSimulator is
taking as long as it has, and it will likely continue to take just as long
no matter how much money you throw at it, but like i said, anyone who has
the desire can raise funds and hire developers to get involved and
contribute the code to this project, so please do not wait for the
OpenSimulator developers to do this for you, as some of the developers that
work for Intel Corp and IBM Corp, and others like Melanie and Justin have
been paid to develop and create patches as well as for profit grids like
Reaction Grid, so its not like this is really something that is not
currently happening.  Hope this helps to explain atleast a little of why
things are the way they are.

On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 7:38 AM, Drew Hart <drewehart at gmail.com> wrote:

> Okay, that was my catchy title that in no way means any disrespect.  I love
> OpenSim, have used it for years, tell everyone I meet about it and am a huge
> fan and supporter.  Recently a question was asked about a roadmap and
> progress.  I would like to expand on that.  OpenSim has now been around for
> a while - like years.  Yet I can't really use it for clients.  So here is my
> question.  As a non-coder, how can others help.  For example, I would gladly
> donate some decent money if there were a coordinated fundraising event and a
> plan to hire a couple of full-time, very qualified developers to really move
> this along.
>
> Please, please, please don't take this the wrong way.  This is NOT a
> criticism.  I know this is done by volunteers and I know that this is more
> ambitious than Second Life, but have we looked at other solutions to move
> the process along.  I think there are a lot of people like me who would
> contribute.  But, and I stress this.  Me donating say $1,000 by myself isn't
> going to do anything.  We would need a serious fundraising drive, and
> specific and talented people that we could hire full-time as
> consultants/coders to really move this along.
>
> I would imagine I am not the first to suggest this.  But every day I see
> this awesome product I want to use, yet it seems months or years away from
> stable wide-spread use.
>
> There are now several web sites that help in fundraising.  I am sure many
> of you read about the NYU students that raised several hundred thousand
> dollars in a short time so they could spend their summer coding a Facebook
> clone (sort of).  Now if 4 undergrads can get that kind of money for a
> Facebook clone, why hasn't OpenSim tried something similar.  These
> fundraising sites are hot right now - let's take advantage of them!
>
> Please read:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12about.html
>
> The article was written before they raised much more money.
> <http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12about.html?scp=3&sq=nyu%20programmers&st=cse>
>
>
> Drew
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Opensim-dev mailing list
> Opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
> https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
>
>

-- 
Michael Emory Cerquoni - Nebadon Izumi @ http://osgrid.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://opensimulator.org/pipermail/opensim-dev/attachments/20100708/1a1e4336/attachment-0001.html>