Introducing Xenki, An Open Source App That Runs Second Life (And Open Sim) In A Web Browser

The picture above tells a proverbial thousand words, or perhaps much more. It's a screenshot from Second Life, but check the top left corner-- it's SL running within a Mozilla Firefox page.  Darren Guard is the avatar name of the developer who created this hack, a founding member of Open Sim.  It's a spinoff of "Xenki", an XBAP program designed to run Open Sim and Second Life within a browser-- developed, of course, by fellow Open Sim colleague Adam Zaius, who just released the source code.  There's at least one other full-fledged web-based Second Life viewer in development, along with AjaxLife and a number of other limited use web/cellphone apps for using SL.  I've heard some concerns over Xenki's XBAP origins that are technically way above my paygrade; but considering its origins in the Open Sim community, and its open source code, Xenki may be the app that becomes the metaverse standard.  This news, of course, comes from Tara5 Oh of UgoTrade, who exhaustively covers its origins and its place in the virtual world industry in far more than 1000 words here.  Image credit: lbsa71.net

Comments

[Tinsel Silvera]

This is wonderful news! I can't wait until its available for the masses. I successfully teleported from the Linden Lab Open Grid to a participating External grid earlier tonight. And now this? Truly this is a day to mark on the calendars. There is no limit to where we can go and what we can do. Puts a whole new spin on "Our World Our Imagination."

[Hal]

Who are these people? The ones that want to do EVERYTHING from inside a web browser - are they retarded in some way? Do they buy a computer only to use a web browser, oblivious to everything else it can do?

What is this headlong rush into web browsers supposed to achieve - other than lousy performance? Talk about the Emperors new clothes...

[Dusan Writer]

This is a significant development. The technical protocols strike me as worrisome although like you way above my pay grade. This is important stuff not so much because we need to rush to a web browser, as Hal says, but because it opens up a new level of accessibility to parts of the world where bandwidth might be a bit more of an issue, and because it solves some technical challenges that are useful in other ways as well.

The idea of being to attend an in-world event, for example, if you've never been in SL before and don't have time to download a client or whatever - think schools or entertainment. I understand they're also looking at "ghosting" attendance much as Lively does when a room is full - to cut back on render costs and to increase concurrency, allow people to view events but not be seen....although I find it extremely disconcerting to the idea of a 'world' when your avatar doesn't appear.

I take exception to the tone, however, Hamlet of "far more than 1000 words" it seems to imply things that there's a gap between those who are wordy but concise (like Tarah5) and those who are simply concise. :P

Oh - and of course as you know Darren Guard is presenting Xenki at Metanomics this coming Tuesday following announcement of the UI contest winners.

[Hal]

Don't have time to download a client? Do you think a browser plugin that runs a virtual world will be any less burdensome than a separate client? If the browser is displaying anything other than a video stream from SL, ie: actually rendering the VW, then the protocols and subsystems it will use are the same as a standalone client and therefore will have to be downloaded and installed into the browser and OS.

Philip Linden referred to this in that infamous recent interview - their idea is to use browsers as the Trojan horse to get the client installed, making it seems like no more than another web-plugin.

Actually running the client from inside the browser window is a silly kludge meant to make the whole thing seem less threatening. There currently is really NO promise of greater functionality or interoperability. It's a stealth manoeuvre to increase the installed user-base - and one primarily aimed at the clueless.

[Sean McDunnough]

Hamlet, from my reading, that screenshot is misleading, as it's not Adam Frisby's Xenki, as the title of your post implies. It's Darren Guard's project based on Xenki, which is a very different beast as it still requires the full client to be launched, whereas Adam Frisby is trying to get a browser-only viewer happening. This seems a much more challenging task, as the screenshot at the top of the UgoTrade post - which is of Xenki - shows.

[John Branch]

I have a reason for wanting to visit SL within a web browser: on my work computer I'm not allowed to install any apps, but there are slow times around the office when I might want to drop in to SL using a browser. Surely I'm not the only person in this position.