On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 9:28 PM, Soft Linden <s...@lindenlab.com> wrote:
> We'd need to provide a way to move off of Havok while still remaining stable > with > insane physics content, No you wouldn't, if you wanted to release the server code with the aim of increasing compatibility at the protocol level, the simplest solution is to just dump all the code you can without including havok. Then let the community do the work of porting to ODE or some other engine. On SL itself, ODE may not be 100% compatible with existing content, but on other grids it should be fine. > deal with a lot of licensing issues I have a simple solution to this one: if you don't 100% own the copyright in (or have a suitable FLOSS license for) any one piece of code, don't release it - just leave a big hole marked "code replacement here" > rework the server protocol to deal with untrusted peers and survive wider > version differences, find a way to preserve the economy and creator > rights, on and on. releasing the code and opening the grid for external connections are 2 different things, though I suspect that for connecting untrusted servers there are solutions such as OGP or opensim's hypergrid - i'd even plug the litesim supergrid here if it still existed (one thing to note about VW hosting startups: don't underestimate the resources needed on your backend - got plenty of profit margin on individual regions, but was slaughtered by backend resource usage) > Even open sourcing the viewer was a huge time and > resource investment, done with the calculation that the time invested > would eventually pay off. and it did - I suspect that the real reason you don't want to release the server code is to maintain competitive advantage. That's fine, but I just wish LL would be more honest and not claim it's about licensing or other irrelevant matters. One thing to note is that opensim is rapidly becoming a real alternative to SL at least in terms of features and so the competitive advantage of having the server code secret may not last long. The danger to LL is that opensim et al will move more and more away from SL compatibility while offering more and more seductive features that draw away end users. I don't know if anyone has done it yet, but a P2P opensim (real P2P - where every client is also a server and they all sync the physics with each other) will absolutely crush LL for a lot of "social" uses. -- “Lanie, I’m going to print more printers. Lots more printers. One for everyone. That’s worth going to jail for. That’s worth anything.” - Printcrime by Cory Doctrow Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html _______________________________________________ Policies and (un)subscribe information available here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges
