Second Life Residents Vote to Ban None-Mesh Viewers

New World Notes Survey on Improving Second Life produces shock result in which 30.6% of the 245 respondents voted to Declare that all viewers must be Mesh capable within 3 months, or wont be able to log into Second Life any more. 18.4% also voted to Suspend/delist any market place listings of merchants that have not logged in for a month.

Far from improving Second Life this survey has given vent to those who would ban any one that refuses to conform to the dictates of a vocal minority which begs the question; How is this meant to improve Second Life if a whole bunch paying residents who don't readily share the enthusiasm for mesh are going to be thrown out?

Seems to me the people who want to impose Mesh viewers on the rest are putting profit before common sense. Fact is Mesh has kind of landed in SL like a damp squid and it has not exactly caught the imagination of the vast majority. Even content creators who would like to make mesh clothing have had to crowd fund a deformer so clothes move with the body. Mesh is incomplete but there are those in SL that want to impose it on the rest on pain of banning. Well, I know how I feel about that. If I am forced into something I don't want to do then be sure I will close my sims and take my money elsewhere. You see, I am not in SL for profit. For me it is just a role play hobby and the 3D world adds a little realism to the game but it's no substitute for a vivid imagination and well worded RP scene. Most people are not in SL for profit either. Most just want to escape, some to pursue their gaming ideas and dreams, and the rest just having a bit of fun. So okay, if I am forced out because I wont conform to this dictatorship then I can at least take over a $1000 a month out of SL with the click of a button. In addition there is the lost business from content sales that I generate from my market, out of which other merchants have been benefiting too. And that is not to mention the value of a popular role play game I run for free that will close.

I would, of course, regret pulling the plug on a game I know people enjoy and I would miss it too. Many long hours of work and thousands of dollars gone into it is not something to part will lightly, and this is it really. Linden Labs has got people over a barrel because we can't take what we own out of it unless we made it and have full perms. This is how we get held to ransom but, I for one, would not yield to it. Second Life is not essential. It's a past time and a luxury.

SL wont miss me but if a vocal bunch of dictators drive others out too then SL will decline even faster than it is already. Remember, the metrics show growth is flat and people are leaving as fast as they are joining. The NWN Survey is supposed to be about improving SL but is worded in such a way that it asks people to vote on blocking entry for a whole section of the community for one reason or another. If that's the way they want it then so be it. Opensim grids will benefit for sure.

NWN article here

Open Metaverse: Looking Back to the Future!

So this is 2012 and, before I launch into looking back at what I got right and wrong with my 2011 predictions last January, I have to mention some good news for Mesh fanatics desperate to see their beautiful mesh clothing move with the same grace as their pixelated bodies. I wrote about a crowd funded project back in October which was my last post for several months due to heavy commitments elsewhere. Anyway, the project was organized by Second Life residents who where frustrated by Linden Labs tunnel vision and lack of action. They raised money to pay a bounty to Karl Stiefvater, better known as Qarl Linden from his days at the Lab, to develop a parametric deformer, which will cause mesh clothing to fit the avatar shape and move with it more realistically.

Well, Karl has finished some preliminary work and put up a video to demonstrate things. Karl emphasis this is a first look and far from complete. The "heavy lifting" part is done he says but "I’m giving it to you in this form now, so that you can give me feedback. There are decisions to be made which we should make together."

Here is the demo vid and the source code is here. Feedback can be given here.

THE PREDICTIONS OF 2011...

First blowout to mention was that Opensim would come out of alpha in the last quarter of 2011. Well, no one has said it is beta so there you go. Still Alpha but, to be fair. I did say "maybe" when I predicted it would. On the other hand, the developers finally made up their mind to do something about the six month rule for submitting patches which everyone agrees was holding the project back and stopping people working on the viewer to. They set up the Overte foundation to handle the legalities the developers were so worried about. The advantages of the foundation are many since they can now raise funds and impose rules to make it difficult for Patent trolls hijacking parts of the project and stifling development and innovation

My 2nd prediction fell way short of my wishful thoughts but the latest release of Hypergrid dose have the Outward bounds permission and more work is being directed at security. Nothing yet has got Avination HG enabled despite the owners well-meaning statement early on in 2011 which said AVN would enable HG as soon as possible.

My 3rd prediction was a rather bald statement that more developers would pull out of TPV development. Well, actually, a few have, notably Kirstens and Jacek of Imprudence. But, on the whole I would say more rather than less are working on TPVs since Opensim devs relaxed their rules for submissions but getting stuff like Mesh to work in V1 viewers has got coders busy again especially finding upload solutions for Opensim where Mesh can be handled free while Linden Lab decided to penny-pinch (or nickel n dime as American's say) as usual.

My 5th prediction was that LL would lose more market share but, though they lost over 500 sims the traffic is still holding around 60k peek and 30k off-peek but, when you consider LL gets in excess of 10,000 new signup's a day, then they really are running on the spot and going nowhere. And, in my view, its not going to improve in the coming year since LL continues the same old policy of cashing in on everything they do rather than looking at new developments as part of the service people are already paying a high price for through tiers and setup fees. In deed, it seems to me they are not content to let the residents make any profit on top of what they pay to the Lab. What I see is LL heading off in the Farmville direction with Linden Realms when surly the residents should be building these games? I mean, the Lindens cleared the malls, markets and stores in-world so they could profit from their web-based market place and introduced Linden homes that compete with the land owners paying tier so they could bring in more premium signup's. Second Life is/should be a platform on which "Your World, Your Imagination" can bare fruits for the hobbyist, game maker and content seller. Linden Labs just can’t stand seeing anyone else doing well out of what they made unless they get a huge slice of the cake. Thankfully, Opensim is getting better all the time and the recent survey on Hypergrid Business clearly shows the open Metaverse has grown a lot since the last survey while SL continues it’s slow decline.

That’s the beauty of Opensim, it can truly claim to be Our World, Our Imagination from the ground up.

My 6th prediction was an odd one really since I said we would see a breakthrough in browser based portals into virtual worlds. Well, there was actually a lot of progress and no one solution that really grabbed a new market yet other than, perhaps, Unity 3D. But we did have a serious patent scare courtesy of SPOTON3D. Their browser solution actually worked quite well but it was almost the same as work done previously by others. What hit the news was that the owners of SPOTON3D had the cheek to file a patent on it which effectively stops anyone else from using the code - which was open source and in the public domain!

My 7th prediction about Blue Mars having a bright future if the money holds out? OUCH!!!! the money ran out!

My 8th prediction was more than bang on target! Kinect did come to virtual worlds successfully but, as far as I know, it got mostly used to build animations for avatars and not a lot else so far.

MY PREDICTIONS FOR 2012...

Well, I am not going to get carried away this time but I will stick my neck out and predict Linden Labs will pull out all the stops to get Second Life growing again. Really, they must, yeah? Or will this be the year they call the beginning of the end!

Enough of that. I want to make a considered prediction about OSgrid which currently is the leading grid of the open Metaverse. Based on the Opensim platform OSgrid is, in my view, the HUB of the Hypergrid with many small standalones connecting to it via hypergates. I predict OSgrid will grow substantially in the coming year because refugees from SL will continue to cross the divide in ever greater numbers. LL will pull the plug on V1 viewers soon and, since they will remain usable in Opensim with MOAP and Mesh this will have an impact too and might even herald the beginnings of a break with some of the SL protocols leading to a more Opensim-focused viewer.

Here Lbsa Plaza on OSgrid is busy most days. On this day 24 people were sharing information and getting help from mentors

I would also predict we will finally see a viewer for Opensim that includes Grid Search in one form or another as an option on the menu bar of the opening splash screen. This has been on my wish list for several years and the one thing I think that would really set the Open Metaverse apart from Second Life. I know there is a lot in common especially in the area of content but LL is never going to allow content to be transferred to Opensim grids even while so much that is sold in SL is actually made in Opensim!

It's true, people with large SL inventories are held back from going to Opensim - not that they have to lose that inventory anyway. There is nothing stopping people from using both Linden Lab's grid and the Open Metaverse grids since the viewer is presently compatible with both. Call it dipping a toe in the water and finding the Crocodiles no long bite. In fact, stability is better than it ever was and for sims run on good hardware run easily as well as Second Life and, in many cases, better. Personally, I experience more lag and crashes in SL these days than I do in OSgrid, especially on my own sims which I know are well resource. Yes, the beauty is I control the virtual server and it costs me a fraction of what LL would charge.

Now for a bit of a downer. Sadly, I do actually think the walled garden grids like InWorldz and Avination will not fair that well. We have already seen a sharp decline in Avination who's renters have probably gone to Kitely and OSgrid, both of which have seen the biggest increase of sims. InWorldz declined sharply at the time Avination was growing back at the start of 2011 but, even though they have recovered a lot they still have not grown beyond what they had before Avination took off. On the other hand even though Avination lost many sims and users they may yet pull up a bit but my money is on grids like OSgrid simply because more people want low cost virtual land and some community more than they worry over content. And anyway, OSgrid is bristling with free and low cost quality content anyway. Not just that but the physics in OSgrid, though far from ideal, are actually reasonably good. InWorldz physics are presently none-existant by contrast and Avination still has only ODE the same as OSgrid although there has been talk of them getting Havoc while InWorldz developers have been talking about PhysX for over a year now. In fact, I think the residents of InWorldz were promised it as early as March last year and it still hasn't happened. Perhaps I should predict that for 2012!

Can I predict anything for Aurora sim?

Actually, No, not really since I have been left largely in the dark about what is happening in that team even though I was invited to report news for them. All I can say is that Revolution Smythe continues along with other team members to patch the code but most of the work done is bug fixing and nothing new and exciting to report. Work also continues on Astra viewer and I was told my ideas about the grid search are in the works. I feel sure something is going to happen soon though. Just a feeling.

Anyway, I think I will leave it to the grid builders to predict for themselves where they are going.

Let me just wish everyone a prosperous New Year.

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Second Life: Residents Vote For Realistic Mesh!

Mesh has been a long time coming to Second Life and now it has finally arrived it has proved to be incomplete and it has not exactly grabbed the interest of the majority of residents as the "must have" new feature. For reasons perhaps to do with upload price, entry requirements and higher than expected prim cost, not to mention incompleteness, it has kind of fallen as flat as a pancake in the laps of the residents. On the flip side of the mesh coin is yet another oddity that brings into question the motives and thinking at Linden Labs yet again. The more vocal residents of SL are often accused of resisting progress and yet we now read of an example where residents are actually clubbing together to pay a bounty to Karl Stiefvater, better known as Qarl Linden from his days at the Lab, to develop a parametric deformer, which will cause mesh clothing to fit the avatar shape and move with it more realistically.

Typically, Linden Lab's response to the question of producing a parametric deformer has been one of muted interest. They would like to implement one but it's a maybe, one day, if ever kind of response. In frustration residents have taken the matter in hand and turned to Stiefvater to give them something they actually want while the Lab coldly continues on it's merry way. Rod Hubbles promised the rest of 2011 would see the Lab tackle the serious problem of lag which has reached the point of rendering Second Life sims virtually unusable for many but rather than coming out in support of the resident's initiative he has shown he is just as blinkered as his bosses, preferring to make big noises about introducing server-side bot technology and throwing out a little spin about SL growth.

Why hasn't Rob given encouragement to the residents by making a statement in support of the their initiative?

Well, Linden Labs doesn't exactly have a reputation for listening to its residents and it comes to something when some 1800 users have declared their wish to see a parametric deformer developed and even put their money on it when it would have cost very little for the Lab to do it. It's not like they aren't in good profit given the high cost of Second Life services - profitability that was partly achieved by sacking one third of their staff last year I might add.

Stiefvater was, of course, a victim of the Lab's cost cutting when he got sacked so its ironic that the residents are now turning to him to develop this feature for them  and, given that he was instrumental in bringing many new tools and ideas to Second Life, including sculpties (he also had a hand in creating digital effects for the Matrix movies and 300), it strikes me as foolhardy in the extreme to let this brilliant talent go. We know there is politics involved - there always is with LL - but Qarl did take the view while at the Lab that he should work on things the residents were asking for, and voting for. With this initiative they will surly vote with their money too and Qarl is right there with them to take on the task. But, whatever, it is clear Linden Labs will never really bow to resident pressure no matter how much they say they listen. They have got their own plans and that's the bottom line.

Thankfully, Open sim is not governed by corporate greed and this feature will undoubtedly benefit the open Metaverse as well and could even lead to more content creators abandoning Second Life in order to work in a less restricted environment at a fraction of the cost. Residents organizing fund raising to get features they want strikes me as a form of true democracy where people vote with money. So, while Linden Labs may look down on this kind of initiative as threatening their business there are many others that see it as a positive step towards greater freedom in virtual worlds. Linden Labs bosses are not ignorant but they do have tunnel vision and the money to go where they want to go. The only question is how many will be left travelling with them?

 Link to Maxwell Graf for more on Resident's initiative here

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Second Life Lag: Let's Do The Time Warp!

Since the start of the year many sims in Second Life, mine included, have suffered what has been dubbed, Time warp lag. Typically, it comes on like a storm which lasts for five minutes or more. During that time movement is impossible and even chat freezes. It is not the normal kind of lag like running on the spot, slow movement and delayed chat. This is total freeze up and it clears just as suddenly as if nothing had happened. It can happen at any time of day but it's happening more often and is a daily occurrence. Not all sims are affected yet but I noticed that more are reporting the problem where, a few weeks before, they had not experienced this problem at all.

There is a JIRA report on the issue here, and another here but, typical of Linden Labs, unless enough people view the JIRA, vote and comment on it, it gets low priority. So, while this problem affected less sims a few months ago, the numbers have been increasing. What makes this particularly difficult is that support tends to buck pass and simply quote the JIRA issue and Linden Labs is working on it.


Well, be that as it may, it's no consolation to the sim owners trying to get on with their business when the buck gets passed and nothing is resolved and, what's more, the problems are not just limited to lag spikes. In the pursuit of Mesh and the development of Viewer x2/x3 Second Life has been virtually in a state of beta for the past year with weekly server updates causing no end of problems for paying customers from failed scripts to loss of content from the sims. It is hard enough to run a role play game as I do in Second Life and meet the expense (Second Life is expensive!) and then, on top of that, coupe with the problems being forced on us for the sake of the kind of progress Linden Labs believe we or, should I say, they need.

Imagine your a pirate sailing along happily blowing other ships out of the water and suddenly, without warning you boat is stuck like you hit a sand bank. The only reason you know you didn't run aground is because your avatar is frozen too and you can't even post a few words in chat. You are frozen and the mini map may even turn red. If you are lucky you wont actually crash and maybe 5 minutes later you find all is well again and the ship moves off like nothing had happened. Imagine similar happening in a variety of situations. Well, this is what it is like for many in Second Life presently and it didn't just start yesterday. It's becoming a long standing problem along with plenty others for the sake of so-called progress.

Using Open Sim or Aurora we accept it is alpha software and many problems can arise but Second Life is 8 years old and, given the high cost, customers might be forgiven for expecting the foundation of the software to be stable enough to withstand further development. Clearly it is not and rolling out new code every week is taking it's toll. Moreover, it is trying the patience of customers to breaking point which I am sure is contributing to the decline of Second Life.


The Linden Grid has lost over 500 sims in the past year including some well loved old timers. I personally closed two sims several months ago and scaled back because of the lag and other issues I felt are damaging my role play game, loosing me business from my content sales and loosing me players too. I now run just two sims because I want to keep my game afloat or I would close them too. The money saved I now invest in two servers to run both Open sim and a separate Aurora grid for evaluation purposes with a view to moving the game to the open Metaverse eventually or, at least, running it in parallel with Second Life. But I have to say, while the physics in Open Sim is still not on par with Second Life, I do have control over my grids and can be sure they are well resourced for what I pay, and, fact is, I pay a lot less for a lot more.


Linden Labs just don't get it. In my experience few people are excited about Mesh, or Display names, or Viewer x2/x3 but perhaps some techy geeks are and, no doubt, some content sellers looking to make money out of it are. I think there is more excitement about bouncing boobs and wobbly butts in fact but, seriously, the vast majority in my view would settle for less if it means an unimpaired user experience. More is less when it don't work properly and spoils what is tried and tested. And that is a simple fact because less is more if the user is content. Second Life growth has been static for several years and I rather suspect people are voting with their feet and going elsewhere which is not good news for those of us who struggle on.


I, in common with many others in Second Life, run a role play game because that is what I enjoy doing. I engage in scripting, building and content creation but making money is not what I am there for. If I can offset costs then great. It helps a lot. I am able to contribute to the Second Life community at partly my own expense but when I find I am meeting more of my $1000 a month budget due to circumstances beyond my control then I have to question it. I cut back, as I said, several months ago to reduce my SL budget to $600 a month so already LL has lost $400 and, of course, it means less money being spent on content too. I am sure I am not alone in this because I know a lot of people in Second Life including other sim owners and we share pretty much the same experiences and similar views about Linden Labs. Just another fine example of Linden Lab's blind dictatorship can be read here on Soror Nishi's blog.


Linden Labs are profitable at the moment. They made in the order of 100 million dollars profit last year. For my money they could have set up a separate grid "Second Life II" to roll out viewer x2/x3 and Mesh, etc, in their own time. "Second Life I" could have been left on viewer 1x and kept a whole lot of people much happier. People would have then had the choice to move to SL2 when they felt comfortable with it. In time SL1 would close if SL2 gained the bulk of the residents. We all know the horror stories of going on vacation only to find the hotel is still under construction, well, this is how it feels in Second Life these days - a grid still under construction!

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Aurora Sim, The Astra Viewer and Mesh

News recently blogged by Inara Pey here revealed that a new sister project to  Aurora Sim has been initiated to develop a viewer that is being designed to specifically support the platform's features. The developers had not intended for this to become public knowledge presently due to it's highly experimental nature but Inara appears to have noticed it on the Aurora github and the fact it supported Mesh prompted her to try it out in Second Life and report her findings and offer some pictures on her blog.

As I am now involved with Aurora Sim and responsible for the weekly news reports I have posted an official notice to Aurora Sim  News which makes it clear that the viewer is not intended for general use, is not a stable release and is available mainly to team developers and testers working with it. Of course, the fact it supports Mesh caused something of a stir on Twitter after Inara Pey blogged about it but all that really happened was Latif Khalif, who develops the Radegast text viewer and recently joined the viewer team, decided to make a quick Windows installer so people could check out Mesh and the Astra viewer dose handle it pretty well. However, this rather over shadows the real purpose of the viewer.

Aurora Sim team were already working with Imprudence/Kokua devs as sister projects in order to get support for Aurora Sim features in the viewer but Aurora has been developing rapidly and there has been some delay in being able to carry out tests. Moreover, given the present uncertainty since the announcement by the Imprudence/Kokua lead, Jacek that she is to retire from the project in September, a group of viewer developers who support the Aurora Sim project decided to launch their own version based on Astra.

There is not a lot I can say at this time about the new viewer but it is based off of the Singularity viewer from Siana Gearz with many features & functions brought in from Imprudence & other viewers. It supports Mesh but not MOAP (Media on a Prim) presently and the developers are working on adding download functions and other features. Revolution Smythe told me a while back that when they finish the generic properties module this will allow new properties to be added to objects very easily. The module will send the information about all new properties it has to the viewer and the viewer will have a new panel in the Build tools window, which will show all of the properties, so that they can be edited easily. "Its annoying to go add each and every property manually into the viewer." he told me, "This would allow an easy way to add things to the viewer." So here we get some idea what the viewer should eventually handle.

There is also some change to the grid manager in the present experimental version of Astra which is the beginning of support for an idea I proposed to Revolution Smythe that would make it easy for users to find grids and allow grid owners to add their grid to a central database which the viewer can call data from. However, there is a great deal of work to be done and things change quickly so I can do no more than speculate on the official launch release. The viewer may even have a new name by then but, in any event, the current viewer releases remain experimental and are not intended to be in general use.

SpotON3D: Patent Challange to Open Sim?

Since I published my last bog entry about SpotON3D's application for a patent on Open Sim in a browser a furious row has been continuing which accuses SpotON3D of effectively trying to hijack the open Metaverse by attempting to patent key features in blatant disregard for the open source community and the hundreds of programmers who have dedicated a huge amount of their time and skill for little or no reward. In a recent meeting on the SpotON3D grid called with just three hours notice, co-founders, Tessa Kinney-Johnson and Stevan Lieberman, a patents attorney, gave limited answers to questions put to them by the few who turned up. However. far from settling the concerns of the community, Leiberman revealed the company is seeking more patents totaling five presently but has not ruled out filing for more. All of the patents relate to the emerging 3D Web.

In a recent article on Hypergrid Business, however, Lawrence Pierce questions the motives of those most vocal in condemning SpotON3D and asks why 3D Web related patents filed by IBM has not drawn the same reaction. In December 2010, said Lawrence, HB ran an article indicating that IBM had filed a patent on sim design methodologies here. He noted it drew little reaction from the Open Sim community and certainly none of the outrage characterized by the controversy focused on SpotON3D but he failed to mention that last year Deva Canto ( a core developer and inventor of Hypergrid) had already warned Here that patents could pose a serious threat to the open source development of Open Sim.

Ilan Tochner of Kitely Virtual responded, "While many big corporations hold patents relating to virtual worlds, those companies very rarely try to enforce them against small businesses because the money they could get from licensing would be far less than the potential PR damage that going after small businesses can cause them." He went on to say, "Small companies, however, do frequently try to extract patent licensing fees from small businesses that can't afford the legal costs of protecting themselves. SpotOn3D is a small company that has explicitly stated they intend to do go after other small businesses once their patents are granted."

OSgrid, which is Hypergrid enabled, has served the Open Sim
communty from the beginning and allows anyone to attach
their standalone sim.

Vanish, who runs Opensim Creations, also commented "Personally, the thing that's pushed this over the edge is SpotOn's history of using every chance they get to advertise their own products, combined with taking the platform (OpenSim) their whole enterprise is built on for free and for granted, while calling their own improvements and innovations too valuable to contribute any of them back to the project, and finally filing for patents that could effectively prevent others to contribute a similar technology of their own to the OpenSim project, which would effectively stifle OpenSim itself."

Lawrence Pierce dwells on the wider issues surrounding patents and dose not explore the reasons why the Open Sim community is apprehensive. He appears to take the view that those opposed to SpotON3D's patent bid are just motivated by competitive interest while ignoring the fact that many other advocates of a free and open Metaverse have strong reservations about SpotON3D's aims too and have done since they first announced what their business plan, grid structure and objectives are in a notice to SLUniverse Forums Classifieds back in June 2010. In that announcement Tessa states "By design, SpotON3D is setup to interlink Virtual Environs and Grids in an organic fashion, linking them together via a common gateway, enabling avatars to travel seamlessly from one Metaverse to another." That is clearly a reference to Hypergrid. She goes on, "With context sensitive memberships (reference to Open centralized Avatar IDs), built in Web Window interface (reference to Browser plugin), the ability to purchase items that deliver to multiple grids (reference to multi-grid vendor system) and in essence replicate their inventory legally and responsibly, users can experience a rich network of grids that form the emerging 3D Web." She goes on to list various individuals and business interests that endorse SpotON3D, amongst which I noticed Mana Janus of the OpenSim Hippo Client (the browser plug-in uses a modified version of the light weight Hippo viewer) and Mana has also been posting comments in support of SpotON3D recently.

The references to key features of the emerging 3D web include Hypergrid, Open Avatar IDs, Browser plugin and multi-grid vendor system are all possible targets for patenting and Tessa has made it clear in comments to this blog they will be controlling what viewer can be used too. Moreover, in January of this year, SpotON3D, in a press release, announced, "SpotON3D is most happy to announce our partnership with the Phoenix Viewer team in creating a Phoenix-flavored viewer just for SpotON3D Web Worlds!" In the same statement they listed the following key features...

1. Our BoostCloud dedicated servers to let you entertain up to 125 users without impacting your neighbours, or they you.

2. Our Universal Registration, Avatar & Inventory System

3. SpotONSynergy and Double Dutch Delivery system backed by PayPal® using real USD to create a truly portable economy system

4. Integrated SpotOn3D EZPrezTools and much more coming at you this year.

Above, in the SpotON3D statement they say they are developing a "Phoenix-flavored viewer just for SpotON3D Web Worlds!" And it so happens that Phoenix, which is currently the most widely used TPV (third party viewer), only lists Second Life and SpotON3D in it's grid list when there are much bigger grids like InWorldz and Avination. Moreover, I read that SpotON3D are actually employing some members of the Phoenix development team to work on their viewer and, clearly, there appears to be a partnership or working relationship with Mana Janus too. The statement concludes with, "The teams look forward to the exciting changes that will undoubtedly take place as the Phoenix team helps to further develop SpotON3D’s network of Web Worlds and associated grids." Here again we see SpotON3D staking a claim to the 3d Web when they refer to "SpotON3D's network of Web Worlds and associated grids" SpotON3D's network of web worlds is at the centre, the hub if you like. The associated grids are on the outside paying licence fees for any amount of patented features that the Metaverse depends upon to exist at all. Those who don't want to pay for a licence to connect with each other run the risk of a law suit. So, it adds up to one thing; you can pay SpotON3D licence fees or use their grid services which puts you inside their network. If you chose otherwise then patents will ensure you will never experience anything that can be described as free Metaverse.

Here, the people behind SpotON3D clearly state their long term aims and ambitions...

"CEDA Holdings, the parent company for SpotON3D, began development of their SO3D Grid Systems in November of 2008. With the help of a team of dedicated programmers, web developers, modellers and grid experts they've succeeded in creating an exciting new experience that answers many of the complex problems seen in their contemporaries, with a ten year vision for the development of the 3D Web. SpotON3D's secure and business centric focus caters to an augmented reality experience that embraces existing 2D web assets, real world meeting functionality, attracting a diverse pool of users from the business, academic, technology, and artisan communities online. Short term goals are to provide a stable beta grid platform for early adopter businesses and organizations to use, either as a member of the SpotON3D grid, or on their own affordable private label grids. The long term goals are to create the infrastructure to enable these professional grade grids to interconnect via the SpotON3D's client, a blend of open source and proprietary software."

If there is any doubt the statement above is in their own words for the record. Their long term goals are to create the infrastructure to enable grids to interconnect via SpotON3D's client and, a wealth of ready made open source to utilize as they strive to bring it about. Their statement pays no acknowledgement to the countless hours of unpaid work put in by the developers of Open Simulator, without which they could not achieve any of their goals. It totally ignores the pioneers too who have worked to developed the grids and community, made the content, sent in the bug reports and publicised the whole idea of a free and open Metaverse these past four years. Like robber Barons it appears like, SpotON3D are simply doing the dirty deed and attempting to take over the open Metaverse, or control it, by utilizing a legal devise. The patent.

Novagrid is based on Aurora Sim and is also Hypergrid enabled allowing connections freely to OSgrid and other worlds. Nova sets a model for commercial grids in that they offer low cost hosting for as little as $10 a month and permits anyone to connect their own standalone without charge.

 Lawrence Pierce has written an interesting article but, in my view, he totally fails to understand what the community is worried about and prefers to rather dismiss the whole issue as competitive interest between competing virtual world companies. Well, that may be in part true but it is not the whole story. The whole story goes something like this...

Open Sim has been in development for four years. In the beginning it was just a haven of dreamers and code geeks then came the Open Spaces fiasco when Linden Labs used bate & switch tactics (as they were described) to force though a price rise with the introduction of Homesteads. This out-priced small users who built their labour of love virtual homes and small worlds on Open Space sims. Nineteen hundred servers got returned and land Barons and opportunists bought up the rest at knock-down prices. This resulted in the first wave of refugees seeking affordable sims in the few start-up grids based on Open Sim. Very little worked well at that time but a small community did come into being. These people persevered and overcame the problems of working with alpha software, and many contributed back one way or another. The free Metaverse had a very shaky beginning.

As time passed more things began to work and the platform became more stable. More people abandoned Second Life attracted by the lower costs and the sheer freedom to explore and express their creativity without corporate overlords breathing down their necks telling them what was good for them. Some of us did see that patents could snuff out the dream in it's infancy and we blogged about it warning what could happen. Even I did not notice SpotON3D until now which goes to show how much anyone was interested in their business model. SpotON3D had announced their intentions two years ago and, unfortunately, no one really took them seriously because there has been big talk before from start-ups who promise great things on the back of alpha software and it rarely meets with approval or acceptance.

In recent times Open Sim has become more stable and the level of innovation has grown which is a testament to the pioneers that have seen it through the bad times. Today, Open Sim, the platform and infrastructure of future virtual worlds, be they forked versions like Aurora Sim or as yet unknown developments, are on the threshold of providing the open source software on which to base a truly open, and connected, Metaverse. But, just as the dream is about to come true, the patent Jackals are gathering.

SpotON3D could have kept their source secret. Everyone would have understood that but seeking patents on key components of the free Metaverse to stop competition is clearly going to hurt innovation and impose higher costs through licensing on a community that has been there under Linden Labs. The unemployed, low income people, stay-at-home carers and the disabled are amongst the many that have found an affordable virtual haven to express their creativity and escape the stress of the real world for a few hours. Sure there are commercial grids which have software they keep secret but even Avination CEO and core developer, Melanie has stated her intention to open up to Hypergrid. And InWorldz lead developer, Tranquility has said if the community asks for Hypergrid then we will try to fulfill their wishes. Neither talks in terms of controlling the free Metaverse. There is room for both commercial and none-profit concerns but not for patent Jackals. There are some brilliant coders working to build this free and open Metaverse and they will find a way over those patents. Mark my words!

SpotON3d to Patent Open Sim in a Browser!

SpotON3d has released a browser plug-in that enables you to enter fully functional Open Sim virtual worlds including the ability to build and create content. This puts it ahead of the competition by a long margin. Up until now it looked like Unity was going to dominate the browser plug-in market for the 3d web but Mesh-enabled Unity3d requires content to be created in advance and downloaded. No one has yet been able to enable the Second Life building functions. I took a look at the SpotON3d browser plug-in after reading about it on Hypergrid Business and I was truly amazed how well it performed. I could even tab to other web pages and back while the viewer continued to function just fine.

Gaga arrives at the Welcome sim at SpotON3d grid

I went to the SpotOn3d web site here, signed up with my avatar name, Gaga Gracious and selected a starter avatar. After downloading the plug-in I was into to the Welcome sim, politely greeted and given some Landmarks. I took off to the freebie store and did some shopping which, I discovered all happens on a web page which comes up inside the viewer window where I could click to get what I wanted. I did a skin change and dressed in a new outfit then set off to explore. The source of the viewer is Hippo which is pretty light but tacked onto the side like SL viewer 2 are a bunch of buttons that open a side window for various purposes including managing account, Land Store, Help and Web Sales. It was not my preferred way because I dislike Viewer 2 but the important thing was this all worked seamlessly and in a browser.

Dancing at Club54

So, I took a trip (I did crash a few times on the SpotON3D grid) and eventually ended up dancing out of boredom at Club54. I never came across another avatar on my travels after leaving the Welcome sim. However, this plug-in could change all that because, for the casual web surfer, this was really quite easy and, unlike Kitely where you still have to download a full viewer separately, with this you don't. The plug-in download is pretty small but bigger than the Kitely plug-in and, once installed, opens up a browser page where you can register a name and chose your avatar. Once you have clicked the verification link sent to your email address then you can simply return to the login page at the browser and the fully functional viewer is activated. You just login and away you go.

Gaga is a hopeless flirt but she dose find time to sail,
build, script and make stuff. This is all
on OSgrid and Gaga demonstrates the browser
can handle building just fine.

I was pretty amazed by it and, though it did seem a little slow, it really was not that bad. I was able to rez a prim to edit, change clothes and appearance fine. Everything basically worked. Finally, I logged out rather than quit the screen and was presented with a SpotON3d splash screen and, at the bottom, all the buttons expected on a Hippo viewer including the grid list. Of course, I entered the addresses for a number of grids including OSgrid and both my Open Sim and Aurora grids. OSgrid was fine and so was my own Open Sim grid. I could login to them and everything functioned just the same as if I had opened a full viewer. I was able to log into my Aurora grid too but, Aurora having advanced features like variable sim sizes met with problems. On a standard region all went well though so, presently, the browser plug-in is good for SpotON3d obviously, and other Open Sim grids but there would need to be a new version for Aurora that handles it. But that is true for most current viewers too because only Imprudence and Astra are designed to enable the features of Aurora. Anyway, I logged into Nova grid which is Aurora-based and everything was just peachy. See some of the pictures. I could even use all the top menus and even change environment settings through all states from sunrise to sunset and night.

Arriving on Aurora-based Nova grid

Environment settings

Sunset

I am not sure but it might not be possible for anyone else to develop this for others grids since SpotON3d appear to be seeking a patent. The developers are using open source code in the form of the Hippo viewer which is actually downloaded to your PC as part of the plug-in package and then the viewer is launched inside a web page using a browser plug-in built on the FireBreath open source toolkit for creating cross-browser plug-ins. I actually know very little about SpotON3d other than they have something going with the Phoenix viewer developers which I noted don't offer any other grid addresses in their grid list besides Second Life and SpotOn3D. What I do know is that they run a large proprietary grid and host other grids too. They have their own vendor system and deliveries can be made to any grid on their servers but not outside their network. They also offer a cloud service for running events where a heavy load is expected for short periods. What I get from SpotON3D is that they appear to be separating their grid services from the rest of the open Metaverse and I don't just mean a single proprietary grid like Avination or InWorldz. I mean they are the provider of multiple grids and asset services within a single all-embracing network which they claim to be a 3d web.

Arriving at Second Life

A row has already broken out about the patenting of the plug-in where it has been pointed out that the technology is not new and was invented by a small start-up company called InDuality backed by IBM around four years ago. Since then others have used plug-ins for browsers to launch other versions including Unity3d-based worlds. The CEO of Kitely Virtual, Ilan Tochner has been particularly vocal on the blog network and has asked for the patent number under which it has been filed but so-far that has not been given. Patents and copyright issues have always been seen as threat to the open Metaverse where any one company could effectively shut off the open source development projects if they patent something that no one is able to find away around. The owners of any such patent could end up monopolizing the 3d web and impose their terms for licensing that would, of course, prevent other companies and none-profit concerns from offering competing alternatives.

Gaga in another avatar enjoys a touch of eastern promise and sailing with pirates on the Barbary Coast

With all that said however, a plug-in for launching a viewer in a web browser wont of itself prevent continued development of Open Sim or Aurora or, in deed, the third party viewers since all that is being shut off without seeking a licence from SpotON3D is one particular means to deliver the virtual experience, albeit potentially a powerful one. Kitely is probably SpotON3d's nearest rival in all this since Kitely has built it's business model on delivering cloud-based Open sim worlds to the public and it stands to reason they might be in the process of coding a similar solution. But, in any event, I have no doubt that the ability to seamlessly experience virtual worlds in a browser has the potential to vastly increase adoption and it would be a bitter blow to all those coders dedicating their time and effort for free to bring about an open Metaverse only to have one company that, in this particular case, has contributed nothing back monopolize an important part of it. Kitely do, at least, contribute code back to Open Sim and are not seeking patents that might do damage. They also actively respond to feedback where SpotON3D, as far as I can see, appear to be entrenched in there own plans rather like Linden Labs of Second Life.

With friends in a UFO, Gaga enjoys Sci-Fi too!

Kitely have shown how virtual worlds can be delivered easily and cheaply to the netizens who enjoy virtual worlds for escapist pursuets in role play, gaming and social interaction. Creativity is at the heart of much of what the open Metaverse is about. SpotON3D has developed yet another useful tool for delivering the virtual experience effectively and easily to this growing market. There is room for everyone to profit by developing technology and services but it would be a rum deal to take what the community has given freely and patent something that would turn it into a monopoly for one company. Deva Canto, inventor of Hypergrid, warned about this over a year ago here and I picked up on it in my article first published on Chapter & Metaverse blog, "Free Metaverse vs Patented Monopoly" then re-printed it here. In this case there is no real threat to Open Sim development in itself but the implications are abundantly clear. There is a clear and serious threat to the development of a free and open Metaverse if a patent like the one sought by SpotON3D succeeds. Others are likely to follow.