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I once loved Second Life. So many science demonstrations (NASA, NOAA, and many museums setup virtual campuses there that are still amazing), gatherings, museums

I once loved Second Life. So many science demonstrations (NASA, NOAA, and many museums setup virtual campuses there that are still amazing), gatherings, museums, and educational experiences that only a virtual world can provide. Then it became a ghost town (with some mostly-NSFW exceptions). The problem is that SL is closed source. I once tried to run a virtual field trip with 10 kids to show them around, but Linden Labs blocked us for having too many users access SL from the same IP address. You have to lease property on Linden Labs servers for a presence there. Why am I going to invest the time and energy into building something amazing on rented space that will vanish the moment I stop paying for it? If SL were to be released as a open-protocol, like WWW, where anyone can pop a server onto the Internet and host a community, I think SL would thrive again. I would love to see that. I found a nine-year-old blogpost I wrote on the science attractions in SL. It really was an amazing place. I would really like to see something like it again, but open. I think there's a huge opportunity there for someone with the right technical capabilities. http://ideonexus.com/2007/03/03/science-in-second-life/ http://ideonexus.com/2007/03/03/science-in-second-life/

jff 10y ago
High Fidelity is supposed to be that open replacement: https://highfidelity.io/ https://highfidelity.io/ The problem I've run into is that it runs worse on my brand-new computer than Second Life ever did, and that's even on the mostly-empty demo areas they have.
- aphextron 10y ago
  Glad it's not just me
return0 10y ago
There is opensim[1], which is used to run thousands of similar 3d worlds (shameless plug[2]), and the upcoming open source highfidelity platform [3]. 1. http://opensimulator.org http://opensimulator.org 2. http://opensimworld.com http://opensimworld.com 3. http://highfidelity.io http://highfidelity.io
- laksjd 10y ago
  Did OS/Hypergrid ever solve the avatar/inventory issues? I haven't followed SL/OS for the last few years so my information is probably out-of-date but when I last used it, it was still a hit-and-miss experience.
  - return0 10y ago
    still is.
brian-armstrong 10y ago
I'm skeptical that closed source is what's actually holding SL back. I think splintering it into lots of shards would actually hurt something like this, which is closer to a social network. Once you shard it out, you get even further from critical mass, lots of desolate servers with nothing going on and inconsistent rules/user experiences
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  Rather than sharding, consider federation. Anyone should be able to run a server and allow "doorways" or other access points to other servers, hyperlinks. I recall, circa 2000, a project that I can't name at the moment that I toyed with in college that had this concept. You could host your own area and connect it to other areas hosted by other people. The name "Metaverse" is in my head, but googling it (quick search, probably missed something) was dominated by Stephenson's concept from Snow Crash and not a software project by that name.
  - jff 10y ago
    Active Worlds?
    - Jtsummers 10y ago
      Possible. Saw that on Wikipedia just now. 16 years, apparently my memory isn't strong enough to recall back far enough.
  - chriswarbo 10y ago
    > Rather than sharding, consider federation. Anyone should be able to run a server and allow "doorways" or other access points to other servers, hyperlinks. > You could host your own area and connect it to other areas hosted by other people. Sounds like Croquet/OpenCobalt/Qwaq/Teleplace/Terf (hooray for forks!). Different spaces can be hosted by anyone, like Web pages, and the hyperlink equivalent is a 'portal' which you can step through to go from one "world" to another. As far as I understand it, the client processes the world via a stream of events, which a p2p protocol tries to keep consistent between all of the clients (e.g. user avatars) inhabiting a world. Going through a 'portal' switches your client to the another "world", and hence another event stream, so there's no central authority. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Cobalt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Cobalt for example. Edit: It seems to be p2p, rather than server-based, according to: > The Open Cobalt application leverages peer-based messaging to eliminate the need for virtual world servers/commercial services and makes it very simple for end-users to create and securely share deeply collaborative virtual worlds that run on all major software operating systems.
logfromblammo 10y ago
I played with SL for about a week in 2005 before deciding that paying Linden Labs for the privilege of producing content for them was a fool's game.
- Karunamon 10y ago
  You realize the content is more produced for the other users, right? You maintain your copyright, and literally fortunes have been made in SL by selling virtual goods.
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    ...inside the captive environment maintained exclusively by Linden Labs. They may make noise about copyright, but the creator of the data does not have the same level of control over it as I might have over a book or music recording that I produce myself. Linden Labs could, at any time, change the terms of service such that you must license all "your" assets in a particular way to keep them live on the servers. The fortunes are few and far between, and largely the result of a negative-sum game with other users. You cannot take more out than other users pay in, minus the Linden tax. The house always wins, yet only about 5000 users have even profited as much as $10.
    - Karunamon 10y ago
      The creator of the data does not have the same level of control over it as I might have over a book or music recording that I produce myself. How do you figure? If you take a music recording and want to put it out there on iTunes or Spotify, you have to license it to the company so they can do the thing you're asking them to do! If you want to sell 3d models, textures, and code, you can do that on your own website right now. If you want to put that content up on Second Life (or literally any other third party), you're going to have to give them the rights to do so. I'm also curious about the source on that 5K/$10 number. I'm a mediocre scripter, and made about $100 there on a small gadget that translates text based on a popular webcomic series.

jff 10y ago

High Fidelity is supposed to be that open replacement: https://highfidelity.io/ https://highfidelity.io/ The problem I've run into is that it runs worse on my brand-new computer than Second Life ever did, and that's even on the mostly-empty demo areas they have.

aphextron 10y ago
Glad it's not just me

return0 10y ago

There is opensim[1], which is used to run thousands of similar 3d worlds (shameless plug[2]), and the upcoming open source highfidelity platform [3]. 1. http://opensimulator.org http://opensimulator.org 2. http://opensimworld.com http://opensimworld.com 3. http://highfidelity.io http://highfidelity.io

laksjd 10y ago
Did OS/Hypergrid ever solve the avatar/inventory issues? I haven't followed SL/OS for the last few years so my information is probably out-of-date but when I last used it, it was still a hit-and-miss experience.
- return0 10y ago
  still is.

brian-armstrong 10y ago

I'm skeptical that closed source is what's actually holding SL back. I think splintering it into lots of shards would actually hurt something like this, which is closer to a social network. Once you shard it out, you get even further from critical mass, lots of desolate servers with nothing going on and inconsistent rules/user experiences

Jtsummers 10y ago
Rather than sharding, consider federation. Anyone should be able to run a server and allow "doorways" or other access points to other servers, hyperlinks. I recall, circa 2000, a project that I can't name at the moment that I toyed with in college that had this concept. You could host your own area and connect it to other areas hosted by other people. The name "Metaverse" is in my head, but googling it (quick search, probably missed something) was dominated by Stephenson's concept from Snow Crash and not a software project by that name.
- jff 10y ago
  Active Worlds?
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    Possible. Saw that on Wikipedia just now. 16 years, apparently my memory isn't strong enough to recall back far enough.
- chriswarbo 10y ago
  > Rather than sharding, consider federation. Anyone should be able to run a server and allow "doorways" or other access points to other servers, hyperlinks. > You could host your own area and connect it to other areas hosted by other people. Sounds like Croquet/OpenCobalt/Qwaq/Teleplace/Terf (hooray for forks!). Different spaces can be hosted by anyone, like Web pages, and the hyperlink equivalent is a 'portal' which you can step through to go from one "world" to another. As far as I understand it, the client processes the world via a stream of events, which a p2p protocol tries to keep consistent between all of the clients (e.g. user avatars) inhabiting a world. Going through a 'portal' switches your client to the another "world", and hence another event stream, so there's no central authority. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Cobalt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Cobalt for example. Edit: It seems to be p2p, rather than server-based, according to: > The Open Cobalt application leverages peer-based messaging to eliminate the need for virtual world servers/commercial services and makes it very simple for end-users to create and securely share deeply collaborative virtual worlds that run on all major software operating systems.

logfromblammo 10y ago

I played with SL for about a week in 2005 before deciding that paying Linden Labs for the privilege of producing content for them was a fool's game.

Karunamon 10y ago
You realize the content is more produced for the other users, right? You maintain your copyright, and literally fortunes have been made in SL by selling virtual goods.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  ...inside the captive environment maintained exclusively by Linden Labs. They may make noise about copyright, but the creator of the data does not have the same level of control over it as I might have over a book or music recording that I produce myself. Linden Labs could, at any time, change the terms of service such that you must license all "your" assets in a particular way to keep them live on the servers. The fortunes are few and far between, and largely the result of a negative-sum game with other users. You cannot take more out than other users pay in, minus the Linden tax. The house always wins, yet only about 5000 users have even profited as much as $10.
  - Karunamon 10y ago
    The creator of the data does not have the same level of control over it as I might have over a book or music recording that I produce myself. How do you figure? If you take a music recording and want to put it out there on iTunes or Spotify, you have to license it to the company so they can do the thing you're asking them to do! If you want to sell 3d models, textures, and code, you can do that on your own website right now. If you want to put that content up on Second Life (or literally any other third party), you're going to have to give them the rights to do so. I'm also curious about the source on that 5K/$10 number. I'm a mediocre scripter, and made about $100 there on a small gadget that translates text based on a popular webcomic series.