Coming Soon to OpenSim: Grid-to-Grid Messaging & Permission Sharing!

Cool news for OpenSim users: The next build of the OpenSimulator codebase will include the ability to send Instant Messages to friends on other OpenSim grids, and even other virtual worlds. Not only that, but you'll be able to share object editing permissions with each other in multiple worlds. As OpenSim lead developer Crista Lopes (pictured) explains it:

In other words, if we are friends and I build things in your world, I can give you the right to change my objects in your world; but I may very well not give you the right to change my objects in my world. (or vice-versa).

As the screenshot above suggests, it's already working:

"It's currently being tested by the brave souls who venture into the bleeding edge of OpenSimulator," Crista tells me, "and I'm squooshing the bugs that pop up here and there as they test. It will be in release 0.7.2, which will be the next release of OpenSimulator."

But how many grids will be able to use this IM/sharing system?

"All of them, as long as they use the existing HyperGrid-IM protocol, which, not surprisingly, has a lot in common with the IM protocol in SL. The mechanism is fully system-to-system ('system-to-system' is a term that roughly means peer-to-peer when the 'peers' are complicated infrastructures).. There will be a layer of policy on top of this generic mechanism that will allow grid operators to regulate what the allowed interactions are. That's future work."

Pretty ninja. So look for that soon. Skeptical? Don't be. Because Professor Lopes is the one who created world-to-world OpenSim teleportation two years ago.

Comments

[Graham Mills]

Much kudos. She and the rest of the OpenSim and viewer devs are doing an awesome job. Being able to IM with SL residents would be the icing on the cake. Lindens please note.

[Pathfinder]

NICE!

[Tuna Oddfellow]

I have been spending a lot of time bouncing between grids, setting up my stand alone, building a presence in multiple grids, and embracing being virtual world agnostic. (I tip my hat to that term of art. thank you, Pathfinder)

Tools that allow us the ability share, communicate and create across worlds become more intuitive with each new innovation.

Hopefully, the gated communities will tear down their walls. What will it take for Second Life and other stand alone worlds to adapt ways to play nice with the rest of the metaverse?

[SarVana Cherry/SarVana Haalan]

Woot Woot!!!

[Nexii Malthus]

Awesome to see more work on interoperation, because that will be the ultimate prize to make OpenSim significantly more attractive than SL.

[cube republic]

Great, lol 3 people will be able to talk to 2 other people on a grid while experiencing an inferior product. What are they going to do, give permissions to edit all the copybotted material across multiple grids lol

[rjs]

I do like opensim. I do, but this is what irritates me. After three years of working with the software, we can do all that Mrs. Lopes wants it to do in terms of hypergrid, etc.. while we cannot even setup the simplest telehub.

One day opensim will get someplace, but it won't be with head developers who won't fix the fundamentals of how the software should work first. A good example of "how" it should be done prior to all the tech toys being added as we've seen for years would be Aurora Sim.

You need to fix what the client and server want first. You still cannot setup a simple telehub in opensim to date. With Aurora sim, you can. Who has the ideas right?

We have all the technical geek toys. We have oars, iar's. We have everything we need to run a sim. What we don't have is the all of the fundamentals of what the client/server should be doing in it's basic form. It would be great to see this as a priority. Never has been to date however.

Always grateful to see new idea, progress etc.. when concerning opensim. However, the whole road map and ideas concerning them need a serious revamp. Until then, I could care less what grids connect to each other, how it's done, or being able to communicate across grids. I would rather have people land where I configure them to on a single sim without having to use hacks or other scripts.

We can care less if avatars land under a prim, under a sim, or just fall to infinite 0,0,0. But by gosh let's make sure they can communicate across any grid from there.

That's my lol.

[Graham Mills]

If it wasn't telehubs it would be physics or security, right? Maybe for Prof Lopes it's the low concurrency and dispersed nature of the grids? Anyway, good luck to Aurora -- choice is good.

[Halloween Scavenger Hunt]

Children have to try a few times before they can whistle after stuffing their mouths with dry crackers! Kids love the challenge...