Manager of US Army's OpenSimulator Project Proposes Oversight Be Transitioned to Civilian-Run Foundation

Interesting proposal from Douglas Maxwell, manager of the U.S. Army’s MOSES OpenSimulator project, which recently got an open source, web-based viewer, for an independent, civilian-run foundation to manage development and evolution of the codebase:

This organization would not be controlled by MOSES in any way, but a parallel civilian entity that shares our work ethic and philosophy for the application of virtual world technology to civilian educational and training uses. Ideally, this foundation would be supported through membership fees, research grants, and service contracts. The foundation should support a staff of code and content maintainers. This foundation would be responsible for the maintenance of a source code repository that would serve as an official residence for a safe and secure open source simulator.

On the surface this looks like a great idea and boon to the future of open source-based virtual worlds:  

Such a foundation could help the civilian version of MOSES evolve into a really powerful and stable platform that educators, non-profit orgs, and even for-profit projects could build on. On the other side, to judge the high drama, inside baseball flamewars going on in the comment thread of Douglas' post, it may be tough to even get that far.

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[Atenco Izcalli]

I left OS 2 year's ago, it was plain to see old drama queens like minethere would always push out any chance it being a true alternative to 2nd life, all my friends fled too, the drama was unreal the trolling was crazy in groups,
crazy part is someone rewrites all the code to perfection, plus added a browser viewer then gives it to them on a silver platter 100% free opensource, trolls they throw it back screwing everyone,seen it happen a million times in metropolis then on the hypergrid,almost like being in prison...you never know who will stab you!
I'll say the funny thing is new platforms are coming then OS is going to end up being just like all the infamy There dot com clones,these people will only have themselves to point fingers at letting trolls screw it up for them when Sansar or High Fidelity is right around the corner."Ay! Caramba!"

[Graham Mills]

I've been using OpenSim for some years, for educational purposes and latterly for history builds. It is affordable, flexible and has good functionality. In my experience the drama is entirely optional.

Last time I checked the Halcyon web-based viewer hadn't arrived. Personally I think it's a "nice to have" rather than a panacea, ditto HMD support. In my view it's too tempting to operate with a deficit mindset and forget the under-exploited potential the platform already supports.

Others with less legacy and even deeper pockets than Halcyon will inevitably do the bells-and-whistles better. Many, however, will come with high walls or unwanted megacorp monetization issues; quite a few will crash-and-burn.

By comparison OpenSim will likely evolve more slowly but at the end of the day it will continue to deliver a "good enough" experience rather than a full-time, full-on Matrix. While the latter may have some value for training purposes, I think education often benefits from a degree of distance between the simulation and the student where the need is not to experience but to understand.

[JohnC]

I spent a year in OS when we were looking for a new start after SL. It certainly was a revelation on the financial front after being fleeced for all we had in SL for so long. But after a while you realise that what you gain on the financial side you loose in all other areas. If your needs are simple then there is no better platform. But if you have any ambition at all to create something professional, something that can be presented to the currant online user as a worthwhile investment in time and money. Then you best be prepared, and have the know how, to take the whole thing and re write it your own way. This is what the Moses guys have done. But I feel somehow they are dreaming if they believe that they can suddenly bring together a core team of developers who will be any different from those who have struggled to drag OS thus far. Sometimes you just have to accept that flogging the horse will not revive it, and to put it out to pasture is the only humane thing to do.

[Graham Mills]

As an example of monetization issues: http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2016/09/22/how-microsoft-is-poised-to-destroy-minecraftedu/

[Belladonna Crumb]

Funniest comment was "How would us "foreigners" be affected or limited in respect of the new Foundation?"
As if anyone in second life cares, when most only see an avatar,thats so off the wall thinking, but telling surely, for being so far reaching just to make a point.
If I've wanted to met people like myself,then I've might as well chat on Craigslist or Facebook then, joining second life was to met new people,experience new ideas,feel new expressions,to understand people different then me,looking to me like in open sim they just want you to think one way or the highway.

Pity Party,it had potential at 1 point,certainly
when you worry more about looking a gift horse in the mouth then if it's able to run winning the race, you're in deadend thinking.

[Belladonna Crumb]

One strong point here, most are aware why open sim is such a disservice,linden lab has always been slow to give the features creators craved, due in part that they have no real competition,that brings less motivation to do so.

[sirhc deSantis]

It is an interesting development for sure, been following the MOSES/Halcyon thing for a while and a web based 'viewer lite' is a - thing I guess. Not all that interesting to me personally but still.

The only problem I have is that the link given in HGB et all (militarymetaverse.org) has been inaccessible for 'reasons' in both Pale Moon and Firefox for a few days (at least sept 27th).
Might be my browsers (or OS, not tried on linux yet) but not prepared to install yet another just to test. Even my life is too short.

[sirhc deSantis]

Yep, checked it is my win set up :) Must have fiddled with something.

[Pamela Galli]

Jeez, who has been running opensim lately Willy Wonka?
history has thousands of cultures who would not or could not adapt, many just got wiped out when someone stronger came along. maybe in the future a museum somebody in Sansar will host an opensim display, comparing them as neanderthals right before the arrival of modern day humans. bwahahaha bwahahaha

Meanwhile my sales in 2ndlife have never been better with even having to expand my store from so much success!long Live the winning side folks!

[Athanasios Yourthere]

Food for thought on a rebuttal on the war between opensimulator vs. moses this was written in an article on Hypergrid Business folks, regarding the military invasion of opensimulator folks, now all the lackeys needs to decide what side they are on as the war clouds approach. part of my point includes words mentioned elsewhere that combined make this not so altruistic.

Very clear it's going to be them or us folks! anyway, it's not for me to apologize as it wasn't my issue, but I just wanted to say I understand this better now and sad to see it happen.

--

I have been reading all this and doing a small amount of specific research in order to try and get a bit of a better understanding. Coding itself holds little interest for me other than if some software works enough for me to enjoy myself and pass a little time, that's all I need personally.

I would suggest that while people discuss who has the better software and who is bigger than whom, that there should be an actual real, and professional, consideration of the basic users, most of whom don't know about any of this and the rest don't care.

People are not just some programmers 1s and 0s.

This typifies the issues in my opinion.

After you read this you might realize that it sounds all good and dandy, but that is not the entire truth of the matter.

You basically have, on the one hand, core opensim, which has been moving along for years, who has given us a platform that we all enjoy, to each their own, and who has made Doug's MOSES team and inworldz halcyon thing even possible. Without those developers who work for free none of this would be here at all (and please spare us the idea someone else would have done it).

It didn't come easy and it never is, even I can understand that, and the most programming I knew was edlin (go look that up lol). Mostly a thankless job as I would hope we can all agree.

But therein lies the problem. We do now have this situation where it has become most clear there are two distinct groups of thought. This has been building up for a time, but the MOSEs team has ratcheted it up a bit.

And that's just fine also. Some like one thing, others like another thing, and all the colors in between are all fascinating.

But that is not all that is happening, and I take the time to write this to those who currently enjoy the OpenSim that our developers have given us, that is better in so many ways to even what paid devs have done. Copying SL takes little effort when countered against all the work core has done. And the next release is about to come out.

And of course as most of us know even a little bit of tech knowledge, we can acknowledge, like that for any uses of OpenSim, there will be issues, and those will be fixed, more will pop up, and those will be fixed. It's software!

It is extremely unprofessional to read some of the things here written by people who think they are professionals, but they "just want to be thought of as so". But yet, this is part of the conversation. You simply cannot, out of the blue, call oneself a professional without the actual professional conduct and regard for fair and honest discourse by people who really understand fiduciary responsibility, as with other people's money, and as with exposing the faults of others with whom one may find themselves at cross purposes with.

That's for politicians, and none of us are that (we can only wish and hope). Professionals have a code of conduct and they do their best to adhere to it, even if it is not written in stone.

But we see here a pattern. A pattern that seeks to push one thing out of the way, while embellishing their own concepts and ideas. To speak negatively of something many of us have enjoyed using to each their own, and for some quite a few years, is dishonorable.

It speaks to a certain mentality that it is "ok" to play dirty, it's not.

I don't like to talk about my real life all that much, and it's definitely in the past. Mostly I just like to goof off and try to have a little fun, but this is to serious for that, and sometimes it is necessary for a person, or people, to put their best foot forward and bring some comeuppance to the issues.

I know very well what it is to be professional and what it actually means as I was a Realtor for around 30 years or so. Realtors, despite what some people like to believe, have a well written code of conduct. Fiduciary duty is at it's core, we cannot commingle our funds with a clients, as an example. It is reinforced by annual classes and enforced by each statewide organizations.

To be reported to those oversears is a very unpleasant idea to all Realtors, there are real consequences to unprofessional acts.

We are not seeing that in these discussions, what we are seeing is people who think they need to say they are professional so much, that one would think the idea is that it will come true if said enough times. That they need to be so emphatic that the old ways, the core opensim ways, are passe. This isn't true at all.

The fact is that it is all well and good that Doug and his MOSES team like using the inworldz halcyon code, it is fine to discuss all their perceived plusses about it, even embellishing at times is ok. It is fine if they go on their way doing what they want to do with it all.

What is not ok, and unprofessional, is to deride and insult, much less attack, an opposing thought process and those who use it, and like it.

Do your own thing is the right thing, repeated attempts at unprofessional actions are not.

I love our Opensim and our core devs need to be applauded, let's not forget who brought us here to this website, and give them a thumbs up sometime, and say it more. We have a very large reservoir of talent in core, people who have a sharing spirit and are just awesome. I won't be a part of any militarily hardened opensim and there is no reason for me to. I know that thousands of others feel the same...be well

[Aviworlds]

@ Athanasios

Aviworlds is behind you one hundred an ten percent!

Moses needs to go now soon quickly this is coming from one of the largest best grids online today.

We will be here for you.
Alex

[Graham Mills]

As I said, I do amateur history builds these days. Back in 1830 George Stephenson, a taciturn engineer from outside the establishment, built a railway from Liverpool to Manchester. It worked so well that it ignited a period of over-excited investment in what came to be called Railwaymania.

On the upside there was continuous refinement of engines and track and, based on the Liverpool & Manchester experience, guidance for others on the best way to operate a railway safely. On the downside, track was put down without a decent business case, there was duplication of effort, dubious business practice, massive waste of capital. It was definitively not the most efficient way to establish a railway network.

Moreover, initially it was only the wealthy who could afford to travel and the companies did their best to ensure that people would want to pay for a premium experience by making life miserable for those in second class carriages. Ultimately the government stepped in and forced the companies to run a decent service for the average worker.

Anyway, the one thing that outlasted George was standard gauge, the gap between the two rails. Arguably it wasn't optimal but the scale of adoption and need for interoperability between all these little railways ultimately won the day.

Fast forward 186 years and we have VRmania. Lots of small pieces of expensive kit and content, largely isolated in terms of their tech and support for different operating systems, massive duplication of effort, prospect of mergers/acquisitions/closures, standards as optional, premium content closely sequestered, failure to reach potential, disillusionment down the line.

The hardware is one thing (Oculus, Vive, Daydream, Sulon Q, HoloLens, Magic Leap...) but the software is another.

Let's change hats and imagine I'm an educator running a virtual lab. Maybe I bought a nice package that I use as a pre-class simulation. It uses a pipetting device to transfer liquid from one place to another. But times change and we now use a different device in-class not supported in the original package that can't be updated (maybe the vendor went bust and the sim is closed source). I can't change it for a device from another vendor because the objects and avatars don't play together. In reality fingers and thumbs are pretty much a standard (I appreciate that's not always a given) and liquids "know" how to flow under normal gravity.

Conclusion? I'm not a software engineer so I'm not sure I have one. One thought I do have though (as mentioned earlier) is that maybe OpenSim should evolve into the "good enough" workman's train of VR software and be proud of it. Just as with reality it shouldn't be necessary to take megacorp's shilling to use VR nor should it be necessary to rush out and buy the latest hardware to run it. Instead OpenSim should emphasise support for diverse platforms and pilot interoperability just as it does now with the hypergrid. The "train" may arrive a little later and the seats may be a little firmer but the outcome will be the same.

[JohnC]

There you go, that's why OS will forever remain an armature enthusiasts dead end

[Graham Mills]

I'll readily confess to being an amateur and an enthusiast but I don't see anything wrong with that.

For people like me I'd say OpenSim has a lot going for it, e.g. ability to move avatars between regions on different grids via hypergrid, to archive entire regions and work offline, to create/clone/delete regions from a web panel (Kitely grid, for example), to create avatar groups offline with predefined appearance and landing sites (Dreamland), as well as to use scripting extensions that put text and shapes on prims, save text to notecards, and create and control NPCs. Cost is an issue for many and I know SL folk who specifically use OpenSim when they want to develop on a region or multi-region scale.

I'm not saying the platform is perfect and I'm sure it will continue to evolve in interesting and distinctive ways that in my case suit the "amateur enthusiast". I'm not planning to follow the proposed MOSES fork but wish them well.

[JohnC]

I totally see your point, but the chances are in time the platform will fade away due to lack of interest and use, you only have to take a serious look at user numbers, in OS people celebrate when they hit the hundreds, in all other online ventures no one would would get out of bed in the morning for anything less than multiple thousands . A huge problem that does not really affect those who have no professional interest there is security. Basically as long as no one is interested in what you do you are fine, but if you do anything at all that draws more attention than usual you are open to attacks by anyone who fancies stealing your stuff or bringing your sim down. Things were bad in SL. We had popular sims that were constantly under attack. But in OS it is pretty much open season. What
Douge says about the security should worry people there, but they seem not to care because they are doing nothing that anyone cares much about. There is a kind of far out hippy attitude that pervades the place of, hey man make your stuff free then no one will steal it. And many people seem to hate that a few have tried to take the platform and make a commercial success of it, which is just plain stupid. So maybe it is best left to those who use it as a simple pass time until it falls of the edge of the virtual cliff.

[Graham Mills]

In the grand scheme of things your argument re numbers applies equally to SL and most likely to Sansar, the difference with OpenSim being that I get to choose when the off switch gets thrown. I'm also getting decent results with porting regions to Unity so it's by no means a dead end.

Maybe I've been fortunate but I've not had any problems with DDoS in OpenSim since I started a good few years ago. Whether affiliation with Doug Maxwell's fork makes you more secure is a moot point. His intention to write a public article on security deficiencies of core OpenSim appears less than collegial.

It's true that I give my stuff away but this is just part of a long tradition of Open Educational Resources in OpenSim and SL. On the other hand I don't have a problem with buying commercial products with appropriate licences and know others who make sufficient from their commercial sales to maintain an interest irrespective of whatever level of illicit copying takes place (if such is the case).

[JohnC]

Your view is actually, I'm ok with things as they are, it's working for me, so why change them. And my view is, it didn't work for me, there are many problems, there needs to be many changes made. If you had applied a view such as yours at any point in the development of the railways, since that is your thing, then we would still be traveling on steam trains sitting on those not so comfortable seats in 3rd class maybe. Still I suppose that would be "good enough" for some people.

[Graham Mills]

"Good enough" can evolve with time. In the UK, for example, an Act was passed in 1844 requiring:

"the provision of at least one train a day each way at a speed of not less than 12 miles an hour including stops, which were to be made at all stations, and of carriages protected from the weather and provided with seats; for all which luxuries not more than a penny a mile might be charged"

which is a lot better than it might have been.

[JohnC]

When people say "it's good enough for me" they do not imply any kind of improvement upon the item or situation. I see a guy eating disgusting food and tell him I have better he could eat, he says, no thanks it's good enough for me. In that statement he does not imply that should a better alternative turn up he would take it. He imply's a kind of negative reaction to change. To say good enough can improve with time is just dithering about the speed of progress.

[Graham Mills]

I see it more in terms of a cost-benefit tradeoff where you have a greater audience by virtue of being able to deliver on hardware that is readily available. Cost will be an issue in any widespread adoption by education or community groups where you have to address a lowest common denominator. Of course, Minecraft has already delivered on this to a degree, hence presumably Microsoft's pricing moves.

Anyway, we clearly differ significantly in opinion and are unlikely to find common ground so I suggest we terminate the discussion at this point.

[JohnC]

One does not terminate a discussion by making a comment first. That's like shooting at your opponent and when you miss asking him not to shoot back ;)

[Graham Mills]

One just did.

[JohnC]

did not

[Silenced Voice]

Since Hypergrid Business website claims to represent OS but they delete non-flaming posts that do not make the system look in a good light but critical on facts that is very telling!

When they are so sensitive to someone speaking with a different viewpoint they silence them that will say everything.do not waste your time finding out sooner or later when you try to be part of something they will not let you have a voice and silence you!

People should not waste time on a system trying to catch up 10yrs later to linden lab.if they don't have it together by now do you have another decade to spare? imagine by then how outdated it will be! while second life all that time kept getting new features and updated.

-Sansar is coming
-Sine Space is open
-High Fidelity is gearing up
-Facebook and others are near launching new virtual worlds

Linden lab will never try to silence residents they never ask websites to silence critics while they never get involved in resident disputes or take sides (for the most part)

When i wrote 10 thought out fair and balanced posts,they delete them to make it appear everyone is agreeing and nothing is wrong behind the scenes that is the kind of two faced place for now on I will stay away from.

Second Life might not be perfect but number one!if you want to make more money just create an alt in second life opening a new store and brand or wait until the dust clears on new exciting worlds right around the corner.

[Outerworldz Grid]

To Silenced.that might be expected coming from HBJ.

Maria only wants drama that works in her favor. like the articles she wrote against Aviworlds,AVirtual Life & Frank Corsi from CloudServe.2 of those she cost them customers and damaged unfairly reputations.

The last article regarding Aviworlds was totally unwarranted. everytime he tried to defend himself in came her pit bull moderator deleting any defense he had just perverting the whole story for HBJ clickbait.

Best thing Alex at Aviworlds can do would be open a High Fidelity world instead!
that is what my grid is doing right now with 6yrs of Opensim failure we have had enough !! plus High Fidelity is free opensource too !!

What were you expecting ?? Bwahahaha..'they will never change' !!

[Minetheree Athanasios]

Hello James,

Firstly I want to apologize. I rarely search on this avie name and so I often miss other people saying things about it. I had just decided today to do a search and found this page.

It is actually better when it turns out this way as I get to see the comments in a, kinda, after the fact way.

My first passion is really related to https://hgvisionz.wordpress.com/ and we did our first press release here http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2016/10/visionz-out-tomorrow-with-a-halloween-theme/

So my first loyalty, as a result, is to the Hyperverse connected aspect of Opensim following the versions released by the core developers http://opensimulator.org/pipermail/opensim-dev/2016-September/026360.html which is where the first gist of this was publicly posted.

That in turn led me to the HGB article (and I do watch HGB regularly in any case).

I would also like to clarify while I am here that the comment here Posted by: Athanasios Yourthere | Saturday, October 01, 2016 at 01:42 PM

was not actually posted by me, but it is in full and I do stand behind it. I think it was one of my better comments on HGB actually.

As to the other comment calling me a drama queen. This, as with most things, is unimportant, tho I am an old lady, sad to say. Those sorts of comments are inevitable when one feels the need to speak out publicly. In trying to comment with a professional tone, there are always those who wish to make it something it is not...as I am sure you know, James.

I rarely go to that much trouble. I am a retired Realtor and this is all only my pastime, something to do. Along with catching up on all the Dune related books that Frank's son, Brian, is writing https://forum.dune2k.com/topic/9670-a-list-of-all-dune-books-and-related-work/.

Incidentally, I have been in the process of determining if you would be interested on posting an article about our HG VisionZ magazine. It is primarily passed out in-world and the rack can be found in numerous places that are hypergrid enabled.

Our main purpose is to help to show people things that are going on in our spaces. Though, of course, we are all aware that SL is much, much larger. We do tend to think we have things to offer.

I have recently taken on the task of promoting the magazine. Previously all promotions have been, and still are as well, in social sites such as Facebook and google+, g+ being where a lot of the socializing pertaining to the Hyperverse goes on outworld.

We do not have pretensions to professionalism. We just are volunteers who find the hyperverse interesting enough to do our little magazine...because we just want to.

In any case, the conversation here has some value as my comment posted above by someone relates to. But it is really just a minor thing to me personally.

warm regards