[Opensim-users] ReactionGrid offers behind the firewall solution before LL

[Ralf Haifisch]

Heho,

while being "one of those maxping´s" I am still part of the community and
try to answer, see below..  :-)
Btw - not a native english speaker myself, throw tomatoes for bad wording.

------------------------------
Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 15:48:32 +0000
From: Opensource Obscure <open at autistici.org>
Subject: Re: [Opensim-users] ReactionGrid offers behind the firewall
	solution before LL
To: <opensim-users at lists.berlios.de>
Cc: realxtend <realXtend at googlegroups.com>
Message-ID: <29150850385862d31d831c2d976f4cb3 at localhost>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"


On Tue, 26 May 2009 10:58:26 +0300, Jani Pirkola <jpirkola at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Good news for Opensim, and congratulations to ReactionGrid!
>
http://www.maxping.org/business/news/reactiongrid-offers-behind-the-firewall
-virtual-world-server.aspx

I'd like to hear comments about this. Comments by Opensim developers
who are not directly involved with ReactionGrid, if possible, would be
even better. That would greatly help me in a better understanding of 
the whole situation, as actually I'm a bit concerned by this kind 
of news. Please, note that I don't mean to offend anyone at 
ReactionGrid (or Maxping) with this message - also note I'm not a
native english speaker.


1. software:
Opensim (as a software) is not complete yet.
It doesn't offer all features that Second Life (as a software) offers.

--> and hopefully that is still not a target..  Opensim is not a Second Life
clone.  But if you look at the "SL-compatible" market it seems to have the
best position, esp. because it has advanced features SL does not have.
That is basically why Jani did compare to SL. Compatible, each side with
some advantages.

2. community:
Opensim-based grids have a limited number of users.
The Second Life grid has <put SL stats here> a relevant number of users.

--> we are talking about a solution for a ISOLATED grid.  A grid companys
run behind there firewall, keeping governance.  By that they could e.g. run
courses containing company secrets. So the absolute user number is
irrelevant. 
Even better:  The "behind the Firewall" beta from Linden I have seen has no
connection to other grids. With Opensim you can still open one "peering
region" to welcome hypergrid visitors. Huge advantages for Opensim here.

3. service:
Opensim-based solution providers are obviously still young and small.
Linden Lab [even if you hated them] has many years of managing a 
full-featured, huge grid and providing related services (support,
money exchange, inventory management, online trading..)

--> most serious people don´t hate Linden Labs and fully respect what they
did. But again, we are talking about running a grid on a company´s campus.
So they would be there own service provider. However - some companies
related to opensim are on the market for quite a while and since it´s open
source all knowledge is freely available - you will always get someone to
help you.


That's why I fear that stating "Opensim is competing with Second Life", 
or "this Opensim-based solution is better than / was launched before
than the Linden Lab one", or something like that, could have negative
effects on how Opensim is perceived.

Isn't this "First!" attitude potentially dangerous when we communicate 
and explain Opensim's development?

What do you think about that?

--> wether one like it or not , there will be a commercial competition. The
first question would be: is competition a bad thing ?  I (personally)
believe it isn´t. Mankind is driven by competing, by curiosity and
invention.
In this very special case, Opensim has more advantages on the usecase
wishlist  than SL has today.  If you want to have a community that has
inworld battles, likes boating and carraces SL is doing much better today -
no doubt.


Cheers,
Ralf