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<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2012/08/linden-lab-cuts-viewer-link-to-opensim/">http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2012/08/linden-lab-cuts-viewer-link-to-opensim/</a><br>
is a pretty good answer.<br>
<br>
On 12/10/12 4:06 PM, R.Gunther wrote:<br>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Not sure, but maby good to have this
topic on osgrid forum to ?<br>
The biggest problem with makeing own viewer. There are not
enough devs with the right skills.<br>
Thats the biggest problem. the amount of people that want and
can spend time for a special opensim viewer.<br>
<br>
On 2012-12-11 00:08, Mircea Kitsune wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr"> 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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
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