[vos-d] Lindens opening up the Second Life server

[Len Bullard]

Something possibly more interesting to look at is the client announced in
Perugia this week at the Web2007 conference.  Johannes Behr and Yvonne Jung
from Fraunhoeffer demoed a mixed reality client for which they are seeking
beta testers.  The announcement is up at the www.web3d.org page.  The list
of node (a mix of X3D and Avalon) is impressive.  Apparently they
implemented physics with ODE.

len


From: vos-d-bounces at interreality.org [mailto:vos-d-bounces at interreality.org]
On Behalf Of Peter Amstutz
 
Linden Labs has made another statement that they will soon opening up 
the server.  Not a suprise, but has touched off another wave of 
speculation about where they're going with it:

http://www.3pointd.com/20070328/platforms-and-technologies-panel-at-vw07/

People have pointed out that a number of technologies SL depends on are 
themselves proprietary (such as the Havoc physics engine) so whatever 
they release is probably not going to be 100% free software.

I think that the strength of VOS going forward (particularly embodied in 
the new design) will be the ability for the object model to interoperate 
with other systems on their own terms, so we can still play to the 
strengths of VOS on either the frontend or backend (depending on the 
application).

The big players in virtual worlds are starting to emerge, but it is 
still early in the race, and we're in it for the long haul...