If Sansar is Like WordPress, Will It Be Open Source Too?

Interesting Variety story on Sansar from fellow GigaOM alum Janko Roettgers, with a compelling metaphor for what Linden Lab intends:

Altberg compared Sansar’s role to WordPress, the popular blogging and web publishing platform that now powers a quarter of the world’s websites. Linden Lab’s goal was to turn Sansar into a WordPress for VR, allowing enthusiasts and big brands alike to build VR experiences without spending tons of money and man hours on custom programming, he explained.

More experienced publishers will be able to use Sansar in connection with popular 3D software; initially, Linden Labs wants to make it work with Maya, and eventually add support for Blender, Sketchup and other apps as well. 

WordPress, of course, is open source, and owes much of its massive growth to being open source. No word yet if Sansar will be open source -- or like Second Life, have aspects of the platform open sourced. Then again, if Sansar is supposed to be a single, shared, contiguous world, then open sourcing it too early would be disastrous -- in the same way open sourcing SL's viewer too early hurt new user growth, with the existing hardcore users not even sharing the same virtual reality on a fundamental UI/UX level as newbies.

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Comments

[Ciaran Laval]

So far Ebbe has said that the viewer won't be open sourced initially but maybe later on in the lifecycle they will look at it.

Reading that article, I'm not sure Sansar will be a single contiguous world, although Linden Lab may create one, it looks as if there will be uses of Sansar whereby Sansar is the technology running it, rather than the place.

[DNA]

Seems to me they are trying to directly compete with high fidelity now as the Virtual World of Apache software..Not! ..at least Philip has had the balls to be true to what he has said with everything open source plus they opened alpha to everyone not just cherry picked early adapters/friends from second life like the lab is going to.

As for Sansar it will use some Frankenstein UI Viewer like second life has now while leaving out 3rd parties..'sigh!. but still great news now everyone will want to stay in second life for certain!

[Han Held]

I would be very, very surprised if they ever, ever open sourced Sansar. Surprised in the extreme. They had a devil of a time wrestling that genie back in the lamp with Phoenix back in 2012 and so ...only getting it back with the 2.k shared experience TPV clause.

LL is NOT going to be eager to share any sort of control again, ever. Forget it -those days are done.

Come to OpenSim or High Fidelity if you want an open source community -Sansar ain't gonna be it!

[Ciaran Laval]

@DNA to be fair to Linden Lab, High Fidelity did have a closed alpha stage. This was invite only. High Fidelity's Alpha is ahead of Project Sansar so LL really aren't doing much different there.

[Dna]

@ Ciaran Laval to be fair the high fidelity closed alpha stage you were chosen from your hardware of your PC and the explanation you wrote as why you would be helpful in alpha.

[Ciaran Laval]

@Dna actually I was chosen because I managed to build the client and then asked on Twitter how could I login. That got me an invite.

[Ugh]

Eww, I smell OpenSim 2.0.

[Wolkenreiter]

Sansar opensource? It's not gonna happen...
That would completely disqualify the platform for any sort of serious game applications, because it would open the doors wide for cheaters, and, with more functionality moved into the viewer, it will make it even easier to build a competing server than it has been with OpenSim. SL becoming opensourced has done more harm than good for SL as a whole (one-click copbybot-viewers, competition through OpenSim, endless drama about viewers, ...) .
They're trying to calm down OS evangelists by delaying the decision to "some time in the future", and offering an alternative model (plugins) for customizing the viewer to our needs...
They're just making a bet, that when "some time in the future" has come, there will be not even demand in OS, anymore, because of we will all be happy campers... Of course, that will require them to deliver, let's see!

[Dna]

Is high fidelity closing?

Might this be a sign something has gone wrong with the alpha program at high fidelity if suddenly linden lab wants to copy its road map with it for the same customers head on?