[Opensim-dev] OpenSim's direction after Linden cutting support, and the possibility of an official OpenSim viewer

Tue Dec 11 00:58:33 UTC 2012

http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2012/08/linden-lab-cuts-viewer-link-to-opensim/
is a pretty good answer.

On 12/10/12 4:06 PM, R.Gunther wrote:
> Not sure, but maby good to have this topic on osgrid forum to ?
> The biggest problem with makeing own viewer. There are not enough devs 
> with the right skills.
> Thats the biggest problem. the amount of people that want and can 
> spend time for a special opensim viewer.
>
> On 2012-12-11 00:08, Mircea Kitsune wrote:
>> Hey everyone. I've been away from OpenSim for a while but got back. 
>> Since last time I've been around, I read about Linden's decision to 
>> cut OpenSim support from their viewer due to some crazy licenses with 
>> their physics engine. The rights and wrongs have been discussed and 
>> are not the point of this email. But this decision means that in some 
>> senses, OpenSim will become completely separate from Linden's SL, and 
>> some fundamental things might change. I wanted both to ask what 
>> exactly is going to happen, but also post my own suggestion. 
>> Obviously I'm not someone who can say what's good and bad, but 
>> personally this is what I strongly believe OpenSim should do and go for.
>>
>> The way I see things, OpenSim has primarily been a server-side for 
>> Second Life during its existence. Even if its purpose is a general 
>> virtual worlds platform, SL was the only usable viewer in practice. 
>> Now that LL cut its support, it's in the situation of having no exact 
>> client to be used with. There are many third-party viewers that will 
>> continue supporting OpenSim, but IMHO they can't be considered a 
>> reliable source in the long term. I assume most of them have their 
>> own developers which take decisions independently from the OpenSim 
>> team. If one of those viewers dies for instance, it's up to the user 
>> to go looking for another one that's still under development. Apart 
>> from the fact that people have to hunt for a viewer, this situation 
>> also kept OpenSim from being able to make changes that would require 
>> viewer modifications as well.
>>
>> My opinion is that OpenSim won't get far if it relies on random 
>> viewer forks to be used with at this point. We are not a clear 
>> standard technology, unlike web browsers for instance where you can 
>> use Apache to host and FireFox to browse, both unrelated and a 
>> variety of choices available for each. This is not to say OpenSim 
>> should be unusable with viewers unrelated to SL, since that would go 
>> against its purpose. But the SL viewer is a very large and complex 
>> thing, and there will surely never be anyone making a client from 
>> scratch which will implement all of its features, look as good, be as 
>> fast, as bug free, etc. The building and prim editing tools, the 
>> terrain editor, the avatar and mesh system, the rendering features, 
>> the GUI... it's unlikely anyone will properly re-write all that from 
>> zero when the SL viewer exists and works fine.
>>
>> This is why I believe we need our own official viewer, developed by 
>> and with the OpenSim server, and based on one of the Second Life 
>> viewers. Apart from the fact that people will know they don't depend 
>> on someone else to make them a viewer, it would allow client + server 
>> changes to be done for the first time, rather than having to stay 
>> within the SL viewer's limits. If that doesn't happen, I don't 
>> believe we'll ever become a better virtual worlds platform outside of 
>> SL's shadow. I remember the days of RealXtend (I heard it's dead now) 
>> which took the SL viewer in one hand, OpenSim in another, and created 
>> its very own project which was completely amazing for those days (SL 
>> now has mesh support and better graphics so it makes RealXtend less 
>> special at this day). My personal opinion is that it's time OpenSim 
>> does something similar.
>>
>> If it was me, I'd say grab the latest SL viewer without the 
>> restrictive Havoc library and make OpenSim viewer from that. If 
>> Linden adds a nice feature to theirs which we can copy over, sure 
>> thing, but otherwise it can go its own separate way. On the other 
>> hand, it would be a good aim to allow previous SL viewers to still 
>> connect to OpenSim, though they wouldn't recognize some of its 
>> specific features then. I know OS and SL and under two different 
>> licenses, but that doesn't make it wrong to distribute both on the 
>> same website and as part of the same project.
>>
>> What does the core team of OpenSim think about this? Are there any 
>> plans or will to go in this direction? Or does anyone believe that 
>> instead we should continue providing support for SL's features and 
>> have OpenSim users find their own clients like until now? I believe 
>> this is an important question, and would like to know what to expect 
>> in the future. Personally I really hope something in this direction 
>> will be decided, but I'm not one to know best.
>>
>>
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