Letting out the viewer is something of a SOP. I think the server-side is possibly more important given that there are any number of open source viewers out there for 3D platforms that are just as good or better. It is the management of the server farm that makes the difference, that and a big budget for marketing.
Yes, I think they are looking at migrating the building market, but the only thing that brings in the bigCos is the site traffic. Otherwise, to Sears, there is no advantage to being there. IBM can talk a lot about boardroom VR but they are a services company in this market and without other companies willing to host on private farms, there is no market. There is a lot of puff in the online worlds market. Of what value is it to own content that you can't move because it only works on that platform? So like a Macintosh or a Mall, without a big membership that is actually going there often, having a presence there is largely a decorative bauble, a loss leader for being 'in the know'. This market is relying on the naivete of the IT groups of the companies hosting there. The in-world economy is a fascinating experiment in waiting to see when the Feds will begin to look at it the same way they look at church bingo. They tend to wait until the value is high enough that they can safely take their cut without killing the game. len -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Or Botton Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 10:06 AM To: VOS Discussion Subject: Re: [vos-d] SecondLife client goes Open Source Granted, it was expected, but there is one major issue thats a big bad omen: And thats content copy protection. SecondLife has been largely tauted as a place where you can make a "quick buck" by creating and selling copies of content. This is mostly an artificial market created by placing DRM on objects - being able to flag a texture, model, script or an entire package as non copyable, modifyable or transferable. Personally, I am all for an opensource platform with no DRM involved. I believe that a VR platform can only become mainstream and widespread if it is open and free. But SecondLife's act is more self destructive because by nature they are not open and free. With the source out, it would be a rather easy task to duplicate models and textures of objects, pretty much "breaking the DRM" with a very casual effort from the programmer. This could be very damaging to their internal economy. Again, I do not support the concept of having virtual economies, but doing what they just did is more like shooting their own foot. Perhaps this signs that LindenLab now views the big gamers - companies and such as the real customers now? These people will have much less of an issue to "enforce their copyrights" then the regular person. _______________________________________________ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
