[vos-d] Flux Worlds Server Announcement

[Len Bullard]

>First of all I should mention that I don't speak for VOS/Interreality 3D --

>which you seem to be assuming I do. I'm just an enthusiast following their
>progress and hoping to contribute a bit. 

I've lurked on the list for a few years now.  There are lots of projects but
this one has staying power based on the core of people building it.  That I
support.  I am a VRML content builder among other things, but I support
real-time 3D in general.

>I know what *I* want the metaverse
>to be, and I'm especially annoyed at the Lindens for attempting to
>appropriate the term and therefore am a bit sensitive to new press releases
>making hype about the "metaverse." And that's basically it.

That will only frustrate.  The press, the Lindens, their investors, all will
work hard to create a patina of invention and legitimacy up to and including
rewriting history.  That is how the web was won.  Can you imagine how
irritating it was for the SGML hypertext community to read that Tim
Berners-Lee had *invented* hypertext and THE hypertext markup language?  The
history wasn't that well known so it worked at scale.  Hype works.
Investors expect it.  The way to fight that is to correct the press, but
don't fight over terms like *metaverse*.  It is already a hype term that has
very little meaning.  

What is a 'metaverse'?

We have the same problems with 'virtual reality'.  It is just a genre of
real-time 3D.   VOS has yet to find a genre that is easily summarized.  That
might be good because it continues to fly under the radar.  About the worst
thing that can happen is to have the press locusts descend on it before it
is ready.  I can't count the number of web projects gone South that I've
seen because the fringes decided it needed a big press boost or more cred
than it had earned.  Of such is a bubble made.

The VRMLers are careful to acknowledge VRML's roots in practical commercial
products, eg, SGI Open Inventor.  As a result, when a blogger or press
release talks about how VRML was created on the web, but is not a practical
product, it is easy to point to the evolution from the SGI product line and
correct that.  One thing the press really hates is to have their credibility
ripped from them with factual reporting.  

>I do think -- if they do it right -- Flux Worlds will be a useful product
>and an important step in open-standard virtual-worlds. But I maintain that
>it's an evolutionary step, not a revolutionary one -- 

There are revolutions of technology and revolutions of scale and market.
HTML was not a revolution.  It was a design that was decades old.  The
markup design was essentially the work of Truly Donovan, not Tim or Dan.
The US Army had a DTD-less stylesheet driven markup hypertext browser years
before XML.  HTTP is even less of a revolution.  In combination, they caused
a scaling effect that was a market revolution.   A generation of
not-very-adept programmers picked it up and did cool things with it, but the
generation that took it to the next level was already very adept and mostly
40-somethings.  The press didn't find that very good reading.  Fifteen years
later, none of it matters, but don't underrate the power of the press to
fuel a revolution in market where there was no revolution in technology.

> and it's no reason >not to aim farther ahead, or to abandon all alternate
> paths. 

I agree and those paths are also no reason to slag the sincere and working
efforts of the VRMLers to get the next piece of their puzzle in place
because of the term 'metaverse'.  The press made the term popular, not the
technologists.  You don't own it.  The Lindens don't.  Parisi doesn't.
Everyone will use it as they see fit.  It may even die fast because it is a
hype term subject to dissolution because it has no insolvent core meaning.

>Also, as far >as I've seen, VOS isn't making lots of "publicity" or
>"preannouncements" -- 
>Peter, Reed et al have been quietly working away for a few years trying to
>get a good base technology working from the ground up. And they *do* have
>running code. 

I know.  I keep track.  I am waiting to see what this emerges as because so
far, it is *geekSpeakBound* and while that is good for the programmers, it
won't mean a thing to the content developers or the market.  I'm waiting for
that synergy when hot content and new technology merge.   I warn you though,
technology is largely invisible.  If VOS creates yetAnotherSocialSpace, it
is an also ran.  Customers are never wowed by how neat your classes are.

>So I'm really not sure where a lot of your comments are coming from.

25+ years of experience.   Don't get hung up on the terms or claims to
primacy as if this project were THE Metaverse.  That will just earn these
guys enemies where they don't earn them themselves and critics where it
isn't in need of critique.  So far, VOS is a small personal project with a
mail list and some running code, but nothing yet to show that will impress
the market.  

I am impressed by the staying power of the core contributors.  I've learned
that is the single most important quality to look for when tracking
different projects competing in an emerging market.  The Lindens have it and
that is why they are ahead of everyone in mindshare.  The VRMLers have it
and that is why they are still standing post-dot.bomb blowout.   They
eviscerated themselves internally with fights over "the vision" with exactly
the kinds of posts people make when they get jealous or feel left out.   A
vision is good, but core community focus on the work at hand is what will
get you to the goal.  Don't lose it over *words*.  Don't bother to care.

In entertainment, if someone else releases a new movie, album, whatever and
it gets a lot of attention, the best thing is to send congratulations, best
wishes, hope to see you on the road, then get back to the next session.  The
worst thing to do is to be on record making cutting remarks unless you are
correcting factual errors.   I root for the Lindens because their success
makes a real-time 3D market bigger and more credible. I build with VRML
because ten years later, my content still runs on tools built last week.  It
will not run at SL and ten years from now, SL content may not run at all
anywhere.  That is their next job and they are probably savvy enough to know
that.

len