Over the last year the features for OpenSim have gotten better and SL's feature set--er, well about the same. Unless you have been hiding out in your Wow-pod strokin' your kitty, you have probably heard about the jump in interest in OpenSim ever since the OpenSpace fiasco back in Nov 08. So let's take a look at OpenSIm now that it is a few more versions down that line and compare it to Second LIfe features (I did a simillar comparision back when we started looking at OpenSim on our private grid in Jan 2009--check that here.)
In fact as I type about this, I don't recall the last really interesting SL feature that benefited content creators. Was it sculpties? Mono? Dunno, I must say that I don't expect much and still find reason to be disappointed (but I am more than a bit fed-up with LL so there that it is). SL's software feature set that isn't growing over time. It is also not getting more scalable over time either and therefore LL cannot/does not want to pass any efficiencies down the line to its paying region customers.
LL mainly talks about "making the grid more stable" which is developer short-hand for "making it work the way it was meant to in the first place, if the architecture had been done properly, but not we can only do some much without a major rewrite." Stability = try to get more enterprise customers or something?
But both OpenSim Grids and SL allow you to do cool enough stuff. You can do all the Top10 cool things on SL on OpenSim in one way or another. So the issue for me is more about where are these things headed for the future?
Anyway, we are investing a lot of our effort into OpenSim grids now and following are some notes--
Main Points:
- OpenSim is software that you run, SL is a service that you use. So it is same sorta difference between Wordpress and Blogger. With OpenSim on one hand you can install and run the software as you want. You get to control the database. You can tweak, tune it, add stuff to it etc. You also get to deal with the problems you will encounter. With SL you get access to a service platform that does what it does like Blogger. Ultimately the difference is between customization + management with OpenSim and use it now on the SL grid.
- Both OpenSim and SL are dependent on the people investing effort in advancing their codebase. Actually neither have a roadmap, so it is hard to know what might come down the line at any time soon. At least with OpenSim you see work in progress and follow the chatter on the forums. OpenSim seems to have more potential as at least we can get into the code and make our own improvements or try to work with dev community.
- Neither SL or OpenSim have any formal development roadmap shared with the public. SL is about Linden Lab trying to stay "comfortably profitably" (whatever that is about). But in general this means features that they are continuing down the "virtual world" path, making it easier to buy/sell land and maintain the persistent islands. It is like a health club that has a locker for every member, even if they all never show-up. They run something like 5,000 servers for 600,000 active users??? Now they are investing in censorship infrastructure. Their big R&D work is making a map to show off their land mass. Many of the OpenSim proponents have their own SL-copycat grids where they in effect offer fewer features, stability for a lower price. The OpenSim community is not that active lately and we have seen many gaps, so of which we have fixed and have/will contribute back. There is no one in charge of OpenSim, so there is really no one to send an email to get some action. But there is no LL either, so in many ways there is more hope.
- While you conceptually could go about and do something to the OpenSim code--you would need to know c# and you would not get a lot of technical support or find much useful documentation. The database also has some predictably random/obscure/mysterious parts to it.
- We hear random bits about activities on some of the OpenSim grids, but really I have not been on any of them meaningfully. I would be careful to make stuff on any grid where the operators are not real businesses (= people that have some office, some incorporation etc). Why? Well, the grid operator is the god of their grid and can do whatever they want or make all kinds of a mess out of stuff by accident. So if you are making stuff on their grid you have some risk about what could happen to it. While LL is not that reliable in most ways, they have been consistently solid (enough, as it goes) with not losing stuff or copying it and selling it.
Some Comparisons:
Our main interest in content creation, region management and user events, so consider these notes from our selfish, distorted perspective.
| Area/Feature | An OpenSim Grid | Second Life |
| Graphics | Identical. You use the same viewer on both. All the SL graphics-related features work fine including windlight. We have seen some weird things with alpha'd textures on OpenSim. You can also try to hack the SL viewer and bend that your way (get out the c++ book). | |
| Performance | OpenSim tries to work like SL, but under the hood is different. The overall grid would never be a busy as SL and not have all the complex asset, user issues, so performance in general should be faster. Having said that, the software is not as clever on the texture streaming, downloading | For 30-40 avatars on a region, performance is good, especially since Mono upgrade and H4 implementation. You could try to open it up to 75 or 100 avatars, but then you need to actively restrict behaviours to limit crushing lag. But is 30-40 avatars really enough? |
| Physics | OpenSim offers several choices on with Physics engine you can plug-in. None that we have seen so far are that great. But they work and if you are careful with prims and scripting you can get 20 or so people on a region. We see that the bounding boxes are not as tight and that avatar feet sink into prims a bit. | Uses Havoc4, which presumably could be implemented on an OpenSim grid if that were meaningful. Or at least some other commercial physics engine that met requirements at difference price point. |
| Scripting | Most scripts seem to work, but not always. I think the physics-related scripts are the most problematic. We also have noticed that the alpha controls don't work that well. In general we try not to stress it too much as we are thinking more about making real applications than investing in scripting. | |
| Building | We made a big change to the permissions system to allow people to share builds. That is a big gap on the core release of OpenSim. We also know that you should be wary to deal with linksets over about 500 prims. Building is more frustrating though in general as prims sometimes are not set and sometimes get damaged. But it was like that back in the early days of SL, so it is more like a ground-hog day thing. | Prims are still prims and there is a workable DRM model that allows for sharing, selling stuff. Working in SL/OpenSim is still quite tedious, especially for making photo-releastic content. |
| Avatar | Avatar is more or less the same, but there are some issues with wearing attachments. They often cause crashes, get lost. | No major improvements in the Avatar since, er...uhm...er...there must have been one? |
| Region Management | This is very basic/incomplete. We are using our website to manage as much of this as possible. There is no Group concept and no ability to carve-up parcels, but actually you don't need this unless you are copy the SL land business. | Lot of tools, features to support selling parts of regions and then allowing for sharing. But the performance management of users on shared regions is not implemented. So users can lag out parts/all of a region impacting all users on it. Which is more or less the same as the OpenSpace issue as there is region-level resource contention and no way to control who gets what resources at a less than region level. In fact I would guess there is even Server-level contention, but this is less critical as most of LL's servers are not that heavily used. |
| Integration with Web | Big potential here. We have implemented some services between our website and our grid for example. Main thing is your a able to share data between your systems as you would do on any type of web applications | Reg API? Scripting? SL is really a closed system with some simple messaging capabilities, but no serious commitment to extending. |
Community | SL has the major advantage here as an avatar can move between public, membership region locations while maintaining identity, inventory and friends messaging. LL spouts a lot about increased concurrency and only some of this is meaningful as they ghetto-ize the porno/narco/ultra-violence content as well as have more and more closed access regions. But having said that--there is nothing worse than a dead empty grid and that is the main challenge of OpenSim grid operators--get something going on. | |
| Audio, Video | Audio streams ok. Video also but seems to make sessions less stable. | Works, video makes sessions unstable. |
| Voice | Not using voice, don't really know. We use Skype in parallel. | Vivox offering is good, lip-synch is kinda cool when I remember to use it. |
| Interactive Activities | Walking, touching prims is ok. There are no vehicles (physics is too weak anyway). You can do more with web data to integrate user experience from your website (if you have one) | Is about same as last 2-years. No real improvement in number of avatars on a region at one time, which in our experience is about 35-40 max before a club type region gets laggy (ya, there are a lot of reasons why). |
| Costs | Our Benchmark is a grid with 2 Quad servers and 10mps unmetered bandwidth. Which is about $600/month. We can run 6-8 regions on this and have inventory services. We can also store an unlimited number of archived regions and turn them on/off. Windows 2008 server will allow for greater than 4 Gig ram so we expect this to be more like 10 regions on a server at a time. 8 active regions in SL is about $2,400. Total costs for OpenSim would also need to include server maintenance and support which is about 3-5 manhours/week or so. If you are running your own website this is the same type of process. | |
Net Net: OpenSim can be your grid, your way, but you are on a journey that has no clear destination or trajectory even. I find this actually hopeful as OpenSim allows you to craft your own future more than you ever will be able while at the mercy of Linden Lab. Short-term the existing SL capabilities are greater and there are more active users by a long way. But so what? Is that all relevant? Imagine a metaverse where people can move between grids with their identity and inventories still in tack. Why pay a lot to fund the old architecture and inefficiencies of SL? Where do you want to invest your time and effort as a content creator? In making SL less worse or making OpenSim better?
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Comments
OpenSim
Tue, 05/12/2009 - 10:00 — Per Eriksson (not verified)We are content Creators as well, that is our main game we thoroughly love what we do, SL was our starting point in 3D.The Openspace fiasco made us change to OpenSim. Most of the time we can do the same in OpenSim as we could in SL. The big difference, now we have control over what our Grid is doing. Even if we have no more development from OpemSim (highly unlikely) what we have today will be the same tomorrow. We can give our customers some stability.
The Developers of OpenSim has to be given plenty of cudos, after all this is most probably one of the most important developments on the internet today.
The web will sooner or later have a large 3D aspect to it.
I agree with just about all your comments above. I also synpatice with developers at OpenSim they have inherited a bunch of not so happy customers from another world, that are now vocal, non paying and very demanding. We are impressed with OpenSim their dedication and wiliness to make OpenSim the platform it should be. Face it The 3D web is here so lets build on what we have and make it work.
Per--absolutley agree and I
Tue, 05/12/2009 - 11:00 — RightAsRain RimbaudPer--absolutley agree and I should really have made a stronger comment about really how far the OpenSim dev community has come so far. They have created software which works fine and has massive potential. I hope it will become something like the apache for 3d online simulators. So big congratulations to all the coders and we hope to be working with you to enhance the codebase.
There are a few false statements about Second Life here.
Tue, 05/12/2009 - 12:35 — daniel twist (not verified)1) "SL's software feature set isn't growing over time"
2) "SL is not getting more scalable over time"
3) "SL Stability = try to get more enterprise customers or something"
4) "SL doesn't have any formal development roadmap shared with the public"
These statements are false, or almost false.
would love to see the roadmap
Tue, 05/12/2009 - 12:57 — RightAsRain RimbaudOpenSim
Tue, 05/12/2009 - 13:49 — Per Eriksson (not verified)I was not trying to suck up to the OpenSim developers. OpenSim is a big task run by a only few people. The development in the last few weeks has had an impressive lineup Voice, New Asset server, Groups and we have been playing with shadows and light. I do not want OpenSim to duplicate SL but to build on SL and take it further way further, like HyperGrid and onwards ....
I Hope As long as We as Content Providers can produce good looking objects we can help the development of the future 3 D world, OpenSim ,HyperGrid. It all comes down to a combined effort and we will all have heaps of fun :-)
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wi
Tue, 05/12/2009 - 17:36 — daniel twist (not verified)http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Category:Linden_Lab_Projects
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewer_Roadmap
Also (ok - not so "formal" and official websites, but still):
- "Toward 6 Million Active Users"
- "Enterprise/Consumer Balancing"
- "New Viewer by Year End"
http://dusanwriter.com/index.php/2009/04/02/accenting-the-positive-mark-...
- "Shadows Will Change the Way We Make Machinima"
http://www.metaversejournal.com/2009/05/06/how-shadows-will-change-the-w...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4S2gqZaxA0
A major problem is that you appear to be very biased against Linden Lab, RightAsRain, and I notice this everytime I read you. I'm fine with it, you're free to do as you like, however this is the reason why I usually don't read your virtual worlds analysis.
daniel--biased against, eh,
Tue, 05/12/2009 - 18:56 — RightAsRain Rimbauddaniel--biased against, eh, well, I think we have most insight into the machinations at SL (or did) as oppossed to other software. I am critical but actually I doubt anyone carea. I think it is more interesting to look at OpenSim and other stuff like Unity and even Blue Mars. Btw, the SL wiki stuff is out of date as always with LL stuff. Roadmaps are about making some general commitments to when stuff will be released not techy info. Usually it is a page or two to show where development effort is being aimed. My sense is that LL is focused on packaging their server-side stuff for enterprise deployment, land sales systems, content censorship systems/age-play, viewer tweaks. there won't be anything on web integration/APIs, increasing avatars on a region, add meshes, improving sales tools for merchants. There won't be any mass marketing efforts. 6 million active users--we would have a lot to gain if that were to happen--but I don't see it happening. But maybe things will change for them when all these things M talks about actually show up. Maybe they will even start to publish the land sales data again. It is just hard to wait around and live on vague promises.
Foolish did a review of Unity
Tue, 05/12/2009 - 20:07 — RightAsRain RimbaudFoolish did a review of Unity here http://rezzable.com/blog/foolish-frost/fools-unity-3d-review-creatives-u...
Thanks for the nice, clear comparison
Wed, 05/13/2009 - 22:37 — Justin Clark-Casey (not verified)Thanks for the post, RightAsRain, I always enjoy clear, unsentimental and hype-free comparisons. I would like to hear more about your OpenSim permissions changes, particularly if the patch can be made public available.
You're right that there's no formal OpenSim roadmap or trajectory. I think this is because, as you say, there's little formal project structure. There are a number of interesting ideas around (MRM, Grider, IARs) but I think they only really become visible if they survive and thrive.
I am not a merchant
Tue, 05/19/2009 - 21:10 — Insight HomewoodHaving been in SL over two years, I read the comparison critically. I can see open sim would appeal to some folks. I do, however, have the strong opinion that for a simple user, SL is much more rich, complete and workable.
I do not think the avi limit is a major issue. As a user, once a crowd gets above a certain size, it becomes meaningless to me. I am inworld for the social aspect, not to make money, not to create things. For this and many reasons my point of view it totally different.
Freedom is great, but if it doesn't draw people, and physics is weak, content is weak, etc, it comes across to me as a want to be, but not quite there endeavor. Open Sim does not draw me away because it doesn't have anything that grabs me to want to try it.
In the end, I'll stick with SL and will remain so until some other virtual world I learn about is more compelling. It hasn't happened yet.
simple users--well...
Tue, 05/19/2009 - 22:31 — RightAsRain RimbaudInsight...I think the simple users as you say, should like both really depending on what there is to do. So for the visitor it is more about the content and experience than how it is all made. SL has the current advantage of variety and scale of randomness. But UGC is often UGG (=user generated garbage). So my net perspective is content is the key and follow the content creators not the platform makers. In fact if you want something simple Xbox, Home, WoW is also simple and social. Seems like you actuallly might want something more than simple IMHO.
I would add that, for me, it
Tue, 05/19/2009 - 23:04 — Insight HomewoodI would add that, for me, it is not content so much. It is the social world that it is. For me, social contact with like-minded individuals in a virtual world that is free enough that almost anything someone can imagine can be created. I think it is not key that the world is very rich in content.
I remember back in the day when I used to dial up on local numbers to BBS systems. Even then, for me, it was the social contact with like-minded individuals that drew me. In the early days of the internet it was social contact more than content, I think. Instant messaging became popular. Email, another medium of contact, is now ubiquitous.
In society, a minority of people are creators. The majority of the world are what I would call, users. So, still for me, the world of Sl is not simple, and that draws me, but it is the fact that world is full of people that keeps me there.
hmmm, I think it is more than
Wed, 05/20/2009 - 00:20 — RightAsRain Rimbaudhmmm, I think it is more than BBS stuff. The metaverse is about real-time, immersive, online contact with people from all over the world. So it is much more complex than sending email/IMs and therefore it needs a richer context. What I see is the future of multi-threaded communications where the digital online environment adds value and helps deal with the noise to do something useful. Avatars are currently dumb, imagine when they are smart, actually participating rather than being moved around by us. I miss the days of the green-screen BBS stuff, but this is more exciting now to have the chance to make something visually interesting, rich and dynamic that can deliver a lot of information in an informative way. I think the social aspects gain when there is even more shared experience. Our Tut area is a baby step in this direction.
I believe we agree
Wed, 05/20/2009 - 01:11 — Insight HomewoodRightAsRain, I think we do agree on most of the bullet points. I think where we may diverge is in the sense of a loss of freedom that is in SL due to the governance of the Lindens.
I think of the current metaverse as a wild west like it was for a short time in the building of the USA. People had freedom but there was danger in that freedom as well. As more and more people moved out west, law followed and individual freedoms shrank and personal and societal safety increased.I recall when the internet first mushroomed in popularity that there was a resurgence as there were in other times in history, of a sense that, done right, this brave new world could be a utopia. The world though, is filled with flawed human beings, so all the grand experiments in forming a utopian society throughout history failed for one reason or another. Also present was the sense that the internet was free, and like the wild west, there was no law.
In every society that man has known, there was government formed to keep order and provide justice. From hunter gatherer to continental powers we have today, government's fundamental purpose is to maintain order so that dense populations of people hvae the greatest possible freedom balanced against the restrictions that maintain safety. Open Sim may be, if can carry the analogy along, more like the early days of the wild west. Linden's Second Life is like the west after government and common folk moved in. The freedoms are more in Open Sim, but that will change in time to be more like SL is today. It will follow that people will shape a similar society to what exists in most of the developed world today. In my opinion, of course, and that goes without saying.
My point of view is mine; some may agree, some may not. To each their own, we all have valuable things to add.
Interestin points and yeah we
Wed, 05/20/2009 - 10:47 — RightAsRain RimbaudInterestin points and yeah we are on different understandings of the value of the Lindens to manager, er...anything. I actually had tons more respect for their eccentric machinations when they were on a path of chaos theory. Maximum disorder seems to lead to brave and wonderful new communities and clusters of common interests. I think this was by far the best influence from Phil and Mitch. The Lindens are unable/unwilling to manage anything inworld more than their own land holdings. Today they are some type of soul-less corporation trying to expand itself only for money. Hey, that isn't unusual, it is just different from the ambitions that they started with--making a new world of some digital dimension. OpenSim is very liberating because you can make your own grid your own way. You can now frame your own community and not have some corporate weenies spew about their own objectives that don't add enough to a meaningful vision of the metaverse.
You are totally right that about freedom--it has risks. But you can always switch off your computer and pull out the internet line. I prefer to consider the rewards of the metaverse and so we plow on. (check my blah blah blah about our almost 3 years in SL)
making your own grid
Wed, 05/20/2009 - 10:56 — Insight HomewoodWe differ, Mr. Rimbaud,
I doubt I would be interested in "making my own grid." I pay others who are creative and dabble in building. Just as in RL, the government is not in my every day life as I have complete freedom with my little sphere of life; it is so with the metaverse. I could care less what the Lindens vision is or what their money greed is, as long as my limited sphere in SL is satisfying to me. I do not feel ground under the heel of the evil corporate world. I don't know how much profit Linden Labs makes vs how much money they plow into improving the hardware and software on which the metavers runs.
You yourself have told of the limitations of the open grid, in things like the physics and other things that are more advanced in SL. The whole review comparison as I read it was a biased one, but honest, at least, in that bias. Still, the honesty pointed out the weakness of the open grid vs Second Life. For now I'll stick with what seems to be the mature system and will wait until law and order come to the open grid.
dunno about law and order
Fri, 05/22/2009 - 14:31 — RightAsRain Rimbauddunno about law and order coming to any grid too soon--but most grids will let you carry your own weapons (some even scripted). cu on a grid!
Law and Order
Fri, 05/22/2009 - 19:25 — Insight HomewoodIn any Metaverse has nothing to do with guns or emitters or cages. It has all to do with a mechanism of justice and freedom for all. When a sim owner can ban someone for any reason it is rather arbitrary, and at times, unfair. In the wild chaotic world no one has any way to adress injustice; there is no appeal to a, "higher order."
Wherever human beings congregate there will be conflict. The mechanisms in place to resolve conflict are, defined, as government.
Let us see what the base issue is here. The open grid is chaotic and free. Second Life is free, up to a point, but Lindens are in charge and make rules we may chafe at. The conclusion of the comparison between open grid and Second Life is open grid is more free. Am I seeing this correctly now?
@Insight, you skate across
Sat, 05/23/2009 - 15:33 — RightAsRain Rimbaud@Insight, you skate across some very interesting points. Your opinions seems to be founded around the concept that a community needs structure regulation/formal govenrment in order to maintain freedom and dish out justice. In general this is a popular enuff belief. I would urge you to challenge that though in respect to online communities.
An online, virtual or web, community is an opt-in community. Members don't really have to join in the same way you have to join a community in a physical place--ie a city or a club or some sort. Online is really something unique as you can manage your persona, be who you want to be and find a place to participate within. What is amazing about online is that as we all have many facets of our rl personalities we can have the chance to build personas that focus on aspects, some that maybe that in rl cannot happen. Their is a fundamental issue about trust within the community to know for example that the er, "escorts" are acting with some level of their own determination and not being forced or unfairly manipulated. But in general this is the same in rl. Openness is therefore more useful that regulation and transparency more critical than law and order.
So with respect to the need for structured government in an online community--I would hope you are not right. I thinks we will see more self-regulating communities/groups where the owners, admins, contributors, visitors actually can grasp what is acceptable and then opt-in to whatever role they choose--for as long as they choose to participate. Individual people are always gonna be smarter and more sensible than any government.
Griefers and those who have
Sat, 05/23/2009 - 22:28 — Insight HomewoodGriefers and those who have anger that want to destroy things exist in online cultures, too. There are those who become emotionally involved and stalk folks. Immature players that like to grandstand and irritate people..
How do you deal with these?
I agree, a small community has less problems. It is all a matter of scale, though.
In reall life there have been many experiements in self-regulation and it is seen in many forms in extended families, remote communities and such. The online community is made of of the same folks. granted, a subset of humanity that is connected online and part of the industrialized world and having enough wealth to afford a computer and have the lesiure time to persue online activities is a sub sub set. When it gets down to is, the early adopters and independant types are a self-regulating type of group. While a group is small, there is little need for social management. When it gets bigger the dynamics will change.
Just damn bored
Wed, 05/27/2009 - 22:46 — Anonymous (not verified)When I initially came onto SL things were so cool before I got emotionally involved. The world was my oyster but now it stinks of fish. Griefers have made my second life hell. Building has lost its sparkle. What is the average longevity of a second life user?
I wish I could find intelligent life on SL, something really meaningful, it just seems everyone I have met just wants to rape the wallet and emotions of another without consideration that there is a real person they interact with.
I know you have spoken plenty on Open Sims but what else is there besides SL and Open Sims that you have to be expert in.
Open Sim just a free source of code fos SL?
Thu, 05/28/2009 - 05:43 — Iggy (not verified)Seems to me that Open sim is just a free source of new code for SL. When LL made the code for SL open source it was pure genious. So basically there are a bunch of programmers all over the world contributing their man hours to come up with solutions to problems and new innovations in OpenSim and LL can just pick and choose what they like. Its like a kid in a candy store that doesn't charge a dime. Brilliant.
That is the wonderful thing about OpenSim. It will be a pool of new stuff for SL and probably many other Internet "life forms" to come. If you have ideas about it ever being better than SL or have the same draw you are deluding yourself a little. It may end up having its own uses and even lead to offshoots of entirely new forms and applications of internet metaverse but it will always be more like the primordial ooze or unassigned stem cell. Kudos to OpenSim for what it has brought us and will bring us. To those with dreams of OpenSim being the SL alternative--keep dreaming, you are the spark of life in the ooze which will drive the technology forward. Without your dreams it would all amount to nothing. Kudos to you as well!
@iggy--Lindens only opened
Thu, 05/28/2009 - 10:41 — RightAsRain Rimbaud@iggy--Lindens only opened sourced the viewer code--the server is still proprietery, er, closed. In fact OpenSim is much more and much less than the SL server side IMHO. Linden has invested a huge amount in managing and selling land--'cause that is there business really. OpenSim seems to have some of that but mainly there is a core focus on getting the simulators to run better, faster, cheaper. It has ambitions to be the Apache (web server application) of the 3D Web. We think it is a great thing to spend time on because it is cheaper than SL, allows more under the hood work, has an open database so you can add stuff and integrate with web applications and you can also build your own client-side applications using the code from the SL viewer or other viewers. Sure it is a bumpy road, but better to serve your own prims than be ruied by Lindens.
OpenSim for small business
Thu, 06/04/2009 - 21:05 — Maria Korolov (not verified)As a small business owner, I currently have to pick OpenSim over Second Life. First, the Second Life server platform -- Nebraska -- hasn't been released, and, when it is, will probably be out of my price range. I currently have three regions, one hosted on a shared server, two running on a spare PC with a broadband connection, for a total of $40 a month -- not a bad investment.
Using this, I've been able to hold meetings with new staffers from around the world, in a much more immersive, personal way. Still not as a good as in-person travel, but I definitely do feel more connected to them than just over IM or email. I believe as a result I will be able to reduce international travel by a third this year -- paying for this platform several times over.
In addition, I am able to run networking events with other business owners and venture capitalists on this platform , bringing in new business relationships. That value of that is incalculable.
Would I be able to do this in Second Life? First, I have student interns. Some of them are under age and would not be allowed to access the main Second Life grid. Second, Second Life is not hyperlinked -- I can't connect an office in Second Life with a region running on an office PC or with other OpenSim grids owned by business colleagues, partners, or business communities. Being on Second Life today is a little like being on AOL and not being able to access the Internet (in the old "walled garden" days).
Finally, I have full control of my OpenSim-based grid. I can set access controls, what people are allowed to do on it, even run server-side applications activated by in-world scripts. And, if I wanted to, I could run OpenSim on an Amazon cloud for only as long as I needed to have a region up and scale up and down as needed. Starting price? According to one OpenSim Amazon cloud vendor, $7 for ten hours, or about $100 for an entire month of use of a region. This isn't bad. If I wanted to run a big conference, I could load up as many regions as I needed, then hibernate them when I was done.
All of these things make OpenSim very attractive to a small businessperson like myself. It doesn't hurt that Ilike to try out new technology before anyone else has it, and that I have a high tolerance for software that crashes occasionally (I'm a long-time Windows user!).
-- Maria
P.S. I hear that Microsoft is building its own OpenSim grid, and that the American Cancer Society is setting up on OpenSim as well. IBM, Intel, and the University of California at Irvine are already here. And there's the PleasurePlanet grid -- and where porn goes, the rest of the universe can't be too bar behind.
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