[Opensim-dev] Direction of Opensim and its relationship with viewers

[Robert Martin]

personally i would like to see some work on Avatar Advanced Scripting
(avatar as a "bot" aka RLV) if it can be done cleanly.

also a viewer that has a builtin Single Region Test Sim would ROCK.

On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 3:38 PM, Taoki <Mircea_the_Kitsune at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Although I've used Second Life and Opensim for more than 6 years, I'm still
> uncertain where the "open virtual worlds" system based on them is going, and
> the direction Opensim might take in relation to SL. Especially since during
> the last years Linden made a lot of major changes, but Opensim doesn't seem
> to have gotten more popular or attractive to main grid users. This
> uncertainty kept me from spending as much time in SL and the free grids, and
> spending more time seeking answers and looking for alternatives. Although
> such matters were probably discussed a lot in the past, I'd like to get into
> the things I'm looking to clarify, and also mention what I believe in case
> it might be helpful for future development plans.
>
> SL and Opensim are two different projects developed by different teams, each
> going in its own direction more or less. The Second Life viewer is a client
> for Linden's virtual worlds system (capable of connecting to other grids if
> modified) while Opensim is a virtual worlds server not officially intended
> for a specific client. Yet for the purpose to be achieved, they both need
> each other. SL doesn't have another open-source server, Opensim doesn't have
> another reliable client. Realistically speaking, neither of the two matters
> will likely change: Linden might never open-source their SL server, and
> Opensim won't have an own client written from scratch that has all of SL's
> features and quality.
>
> Linden proved they don't care about Opensim, so things will likely not
> change on the viewer's end. What jumps to my attention is that apparently,
> Opensim is still waiting for something that will likely never come. Although
> custom SL viewers are the only usable clients, Opensim still goes for a
> "general purpose virtual worlds server" and avoids being labeled as "a
> server for Second Life", while hesitating to get its own official viewer
> based on SL. While at some point I believed an independent structure could
> work, I now think there are too many technical implications for such to be
> possible.
>
> Unlike simpler systems (like http, where Apache doesn't care if it's being
> accessed by Firefox or Chrome) something of this complexity needs a precise
> client - server design. If the server lacks features in the client, the
> client will have dead parts. If the server has more features than the
> client, it will eventually get slow bloated and confusing. Both the server
> and all viewers accessing it need to revolve around a fixed design and set
> of features, otherwise you'd have things only some avatars can see or use in
> your sim. A different virtual world for example might not even use our
> concept of primitives, could have voxel terrain instead of heightmaps, and
> its own scripting language (like Lua) over LSL. Opensim wouldn't be able to
> take it under its wing while staying compatible with SL, since the
> technologies couldn't intersect or be compatible across viewers. It's like
> intending a dedicated server for first person shooters to run Unreal
> Tournament, Quake, DayZ and others at once.
>
> More technically, this is why I believe a non-SL viewer will never exist:
> First of all, everything would have to look almost the same, since we
> wouldn't want those using the SL viewer to see something different than us.
> Terrain, primitive shapes, texture effects (transparency, shiny, bump,
> glow), avatar meshes (customized body, clothing, skins, attachments), the
> sky (day / night cycle and windlight settings), LSL functions with
> client-side effects (llSetText, llTargetOmega, etc) would all need to match.
> Once the world looks fine, you'd need to implement tons of other unique and
> complex features... such as media and web pages on prims, main map and
> minimap, the text and voice chat systems, and so much more. The details and
> eye candy would need attention too, such as a GUI and shaders (for HDR,
> shadows, depth of field) that can rival SL's. Even if someone had the time
> and energy to do all this as a FOSS application, they'd end up with a
> reverse-engineered version of the SL viewer that has little differences...
> meaning they wasted months doing something that's already there. In the end,
> any client for Opensim could only be Second Life, even if rewritten from
> zero and under a different name.
>
> Considering this, I'm curious why it's better for Opensim to aim at being a
> general platform, rather than simply a server for the SL technology. And why
> the dev team doesn't create an official Opensim Viewer based on the latest
> version of SL, while of course allowing custom viewers like Firestorm to
> work too. Is OS still intended to work with other designs, and why / how?
> Does it risk distancing from SL viewers at some point, in hopes of a viewer
> written from scratch? Or does it intend to support a collection of different
> virtual world programs somehow? Also, what would happen if third party
> viewer developers ever got bored of supporting Opensim?
>
> This is not to say what must or mustn't be done, since I'm far from having
> the knowledge and position to decide such things. But sticking to just SL
> and being closer the development of its viewers is something I thought would
> be a good initiative. I still feel that a change is needed, and that Opensim
> isn't reaching its full potential for some reason... which made me wonder if
> among other problems, some might have similar concerns about Opensim's
> colder relationship with viewers, and the lack of something specific
> officially intended to work with it.
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-- 
Robert L Martin