As an educator and researcher interested in simulation and training
and researching and using distributed collaboration, I am interested
in using virtual worlds to support teaching, training, a range of
research projects and for meeting and gathering spaces for meetings
and events. Mixed reality setups linked to events in real life but
involving a distributed international audience in particular interest
me. I also see the value of virtual worlds as a basis for work and
social interactions.
Like others have mentioned the core compatibility with Second Life
has been a big plus feature for my interests and let us share assets
between our University Second Life areas and OpenSim based
alternative. We have been able to preserve earlier Second Life
builds for educational simulations and exhibits on low cost self
hosted regions, sometimes mounted on demand, when the cost of the
space for a permanently available Second Life a facility could not be
justified after projects finished, for example.
OpenSimulator has been and is a very useful basis for this, and there
is currently really good compatibility to core Second life
features. But due to wonderful open source orientated developers and
contributors to OenSimulator we also have some capabilities that
exceed those available in Second Life...; such as the far superior
NPC capabilities which open up all sorts of opportunities.
The capability to self host and decide on what version is used or
when updates are done (or not) is a really important feature for
those running stable and productive applications of
OpenSim. Doug/MOSES I know once saw Second Life Enterprise (the self
hosted packaged server version of SL) as a route to provide the kind
of facility to the US government and Army training uses. OpenSim
provides a basis for this if it can keep moving forward.
Like Cinder, I am encouraged by the close and helpful collaboration
now between some of the third party viewer developers and the
facility to add in OpenSim specific enhancements or variations to
Second Life. That is useful. The LGPL nature of the core viewer
code encourages any use and is also positive. There is no longer any
need to remain constrained by what is in Second Life , though like
Dahlia, I believe most of our community, myself included, really
values the close compatibility between SL and OpenSim.
Like MisterBlue I hope the core plus modules approach that OpenSim
tries to adopt can be used to advantage to allow all sorts of
capabilities, alternatives physics engines, experimental features,
plugins and addins without bloating the core. And especially not
making the base requirements and necessary underlying modules be more
complicated than necessary.
In terms of a community driven road map, a core plus modules approach
could help. It would be nice to have discussions where needed on
changes to the core that are necessarily to support features that
groups and developers feel are necessary to add on their
offerings. And we should definitely encourage any such group to try
to addin or addon their developments and contribute them back to the
community (as many valuable contributors do) rather than to have to
branch off on their own. One problem we have is that modules are
scattered about on separate web sites or GIT areas, so we don't have
a single place to go to select and get what is needed. Its not a
problem for those with an existing system they are just adding parts
to, as they know where to go to get updates to all parts. But its a
real bug headache for someone creating a new fully features grid
where some core elements do not have an initial core implemented default.
As others have said though, this is a mixed community of those who
give their code developments and testing feedback when they can and
those with more invented in terms of effort and dependency on the
facilities. Its not going away even if developments slow down or
speed up every now and then as key people move on. We don't want to
scare anyone, but we also want a community that feels everyone has a
voice. The mailing lists opensim-dev and opensim-users really are
useful and have some experience and very helpful people on them who
try their best to help all - whether new to OenSim or experienced.
Owards and upwards, Ai
_______________________________________________
Opensim-dev mailing list
[email protected]
http://opensimulator.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
