[Opensim-dev] OpenSim - What's Taking so long
Mark Malewski
mark.malewski at gmail.com
Fri Jul 9 07:35:39 UTC 2010
*> is the use of the name Open Simulator.*
Don't use the name "Open Simulator". We have no clue what direction you are
trying to head, or even what you are raising this money for, or even what
your intentions to do with this money are.
Have you considered tax liabilities? Who's going to pay the taxes on the
income that you bring in? The best thing to do would be to take the money
you stumble across, and possibly funnel it through an established
organization like OSGrid, realXtend, or SciSim. (Possibly use their names
for fundraising, if it's ok with them).
Those are all "legal entities" which OpenSim is not.
If you want to start your own private "fork" then feel free to do so (but
please come up with your own name). There are several forks out there, you
can look at realXtend, or SciSim and look at various groups that are using
the core and building upon it.
I think you're a bit confused as to what Open Simulator is (and what it
isn't).
Before you start trying to 'fund raise', you might want to figure out
exactly what it is that you're trying to accomplish first.
Throwing money at a problem (like those 4 kids in NY) seemed like a really
foolish thing to do (especially for the people that gave their money). A
simple google search on "Facebook Clone" should give you a pretty good list
of existing projects that have already copied Facebook (and it would have
saved people $10,000 on starting yet another project to "copy" Facebook).
Seems pretty foolish. Stupid people do stupid things.
Probably the best thing you could do is start working on contributing good
content (textures, clothes, houses, realistic looking models, boats, cars,
trains, aircraft). If you want to conjur up some money to help with
improving the Physics system, that's probably not a bad idea. realXtend
supports PAL, maybe we could get that integrated into core here?
http://www.adrianboeing.com/pal/index.html
PAL would at least give OpenSim Bullet, Newton, PhysX and Newton support.
If you're a user of OSGrid, then maybe you might want an advanced Combat
system created, or maybe more realistic/better looking water?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G9anRoYGko
Even if you do raise money, there are no guarantees that whatever you're
raising money for (which I don't believe you even know or understand what it
is that you're trying to raise money for) and there are no guarantees that
anything that you pay people to do will even get accepted into core.
It might be best to find yourself a group that already has developers, and
possibly ask if you can help fund their work. Or go find a group that uses
OpenSim core for their own distribution (i.e. realXtend, SciSim, OSGrid,
Diva Distribution, etc.)
If you want something cool added, then talk to one of the Dev's, and see if
you can get the features that you want added (just make sure that you make
the source readily available, but it would probably be best to find a group
that puts out a distribution of OpenSim that you want to use, and then just
ask that they add the features that you're looking for).
I believe Melanie, Adam Frisby and a few other dev's do "work for hire", so
you could always talk to them about what areas you'd like to see improved,
and offer your cash to them.
If you're looking to "fund raise" then maybe consider giving money to
organizations like OSGrid, or realXtend or SciSim, or possibly just help
fund a research project over at UCB and see if they'd be willing to take
your money and put it to good use.
There are plenty of active projects based on the OpenSim core (all of which
are fully open source projects that often contribute their work back to
core, or at least make their own work/distributions publicly available to
use and release them as open source and make them freely available to anyone
that wants it.
Take a look at realXtend, SciSim, or OSGrid (among others).
If you're unhappy with the physics, then that's certainly one area that
could use some help. You can always hire a private developer or offer
Melanie, or Adam Frisby (or any of the others that do core work) and see if
they would be interested in helping you improve a few aspects of the core.
If you're looking to raise funds, it would probably be better to ask others
to donate to or support "OSGrid" or support "realXtend" or support "SciSim"
(or support a UCB Research Project). As most of those groups are already
organizations (legal entities) and it wouldn't be good to just start
throwing words like "OpenSimulator" around. realXtend does a lot of work
based on OpenSim. They've added support for Ogre3d, and various other
things. Talk to them about what you'd like to see added to their
distribution (or maybe you want something added to the Diva distribution)
but figure out what it is that you're trying to accomplish first.
If you are trying to have a feature or something added, then just discuss it
here. If you can manage to raise some major financial support, then you
could always fund a private developer (or two or three) to do some work
(Dev's such as Adam Frisby, Melanie, etc. have all done "work for hire" in
the past)
What is it that you're exactly looking to do? Do you want a live vegetation
system? Do you want better Physics? Do you want a combat system? Do you
want objects that can be blown up and destroyed? Do you want a better
viewer? Do you want tessellation support?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G9anRoYGko
What exactly is it that you're trying to accomplish by asking others for
money?
Keep in mind that some of the things you may want, may not even be possible.
What is it that you want OpenSim to do, that it doesn't do already?
It would probably be smart to sit down and figure out a long list of
features that you'd like to see added first, and then talk to several Dev's
about how many man hours, and what it would cost to have those features
developed, and then once you have some numbers then begin to talk to
prospective donors about helping towards the effort.
Just bantering about raising money (for something that you have no clue what
the objective even is) or who you're even trying to give the money to, seems
to make no sense at all.
I'm not trying to discourage you, but think before you jump.
Those people that actually paid money for a Facebook Clone are probably some
of the dumbest people I've ever seen.
Just a simple google search would turn about about 7,000+ hits on various
"Facebook Clones" that are readily available for download.
http://drupal.org/node/339148
Paying $10,000+ to build another one probably wasn't the smartest thing to
do. Stupid people do stupid things.
*> that should make using the name okay *
I wouldn't represent yourself as "OpenSim" or "OpenSimulator" or as
belonging to OpenSim, but instead I would say that you are "Billy Bob's
Virtual Development Company" or "Billy Bob's Virtual Research, Inc." and you
are just looking to improve the OpenSim core, and you're looking to hire a
few developers to improve the OpenSim core and possibly come out with your
own distribution, or possibly help fund someone else's distribution
(realXtend, SciSim, Diva, etc.)
*> Or if anyone has other ideas on how non-programmers *
*> can help the code move along*
Start working on content.
Build nice highly detailed working boats, cars, aircraft, "live vegetation"
and make everything as highly detailed and as highly realistic as possible.
Then make the content freely available to the public.
That's how Open Source communities work. We all contribute, we all share,
and we all eventually take advantage and reap what we sow. If you're a
non-programmer, why don't you think about helping with writing tutorials?
Step-by-step tutorials are extremely helpful, documentation is always a big
help as well.
Maybe look for a few good programmers and see if you can get them to
help/volunteer to work on bug fixes/patches, or whatever it is in the mantis
that needs to be done (or possibly work under one of the core dev's and help
one of the core dev's with planned work that needs to be done).
There's plenty of work that needs to be done, but "crowd sourcing" is
usually much more effective then trying to throw money at a problem.
Probably the best thing you could do is conjur up some extremely talented
individuals that could help and work alongside some of the core dev's, and
the more developers you can bring into the project, the quicker it will move
along.
There are several groups that are already dedicated to "full-time"
development work on a new viewer (such as Naali) and on server improvements
(i.e. Taiga).
realXtend adds Ogre3D functionality to OpenSim. They have added quite a few
new features, and improvements but maybe you just need to figure out what it
is that you're trying to do first.
I do agree that plenty of things in core need to be improved, but what
exactly is your "game plan"?
On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 4:20 PM, Drew Hart <drewehart at gmail.com> wrote:
> I will contact you offlist Wordfromthe Wise. And what was said makes
> sense. I guess my only concern, and I am serious about doing some serious
> fundraising, is the use of the name Open Simulator. I guess if I raised
> money and laid out my position, that I am an independent third party
> interested in hiring coders to contribute to OpenSim, that should make using
> the name okay (people would know I am not officially conected)? Also, we
> would need some independent "observer/accountant" to make sure everything is
> cool and the money spent wisely, but I know several that would volunteer
> their time to do that (attorneys/accountants). So if anyone else wants to
> work on fundraising, etc., contact me at drewehart at gmail.com. Or if
> anyone has other ideas on how non-programmers can help the code move along,
> I am open to anything. Even if some of the experts want to hold some
> training sessions so we can learn coding - though I am not sure if that is
> practicable. Thanks,
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 1:02 PM, Michael Cerquoni <nebadon2025 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> 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
>>
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>>
>>
>
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