[sldev] Opening the server source?

[Tao Takashi]

forgot to CC the list of course.. ;-) here my reply to Soft..

Hi!

Just to get this clear: Is releasing the server as open source and opening
up the grid to plugin third-party servers one project?
I'd think that as long as you don't open up the grid but only release the
source code you wouldn't have to worry about lost revenue?
(as long as nobody creates the backend services themselves and creates
another (separate) grid).

Of course I can imagine that opening up the grid is a somewhat difficult
task to do from all points of view.

-- Tao



2007/6/25, Soft Linden <soft at lindenlab.com>:
>
> We're certainly a ways off from being in a position where opening the
> sim source fully would make sense. I haven't been in on these
> discussions, but as an outsider to those discussions, I can anticipate
> that LL wouldn't want to do this until a few things happen:
>
> - We need to be in a position to profit from the growth that comes
> with third-party sim hosting - at least enough to replace lost revenue
> from our own sim hosting.
>
> - We need to be in a position to run a variety of versions of the sim
> on the same grid.
>
> - We need to be able to scale core services to meet a spike in use
> from a zillion new sims.
>
> - Licensing issues on the middleware that I don't even want to ever
> have to think about. (Thank you, Rob and Liana!!!)
>
> That said, it's probably silly to treat open sourcing the sim as an
> all-or-nothing affair. If there are specific pieces of the sim you'd
> like to see, I can lobby for us to open source select files.
>
> What you can do is to identify any specific bits and, for each, give
> me strong justification I can arm myself with. The stronger and more
> concise, the better. I'd have to convince folks (including myself if
> I'm putting my name to the effort!) that the benefits outweigh the
> costs. Between legal, developer time, and security auditing, this
> isn't free. Good will on sldev is worth a lot - but so is remaining
> solvent. :)
>
>
>
> On 6/24/07, Able Whitman <able.whitman at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Right, having the source in order to build a working simulator only
> makes
> > sense if you can also build the pieces of the SL service that the sim
> > depends on.
> >
> > But even without a decoupled architecture, the server source has a great
> > deal of value today: It would tell us how the sim works and interacts
> with
> > the viewer, in much more complete detail than what we can infer from the
> > viewer source.
> >
> > Just having a copy of the server source for examination would be
> extremely
> > useful. Either that, or a set of detailed, up-to-date design specs. In
> my
> > experience, though, "up-to-date" and "design specs" are mutually
> exclusive
> > concepts. So I would prefer the source. :)
> >
> >
> > On 6/24/07, Adam Frisby <adam at gwala.net> wrote:
> > > **Speculation**:
> > >         I believe LL is targetting sometime next year for the official
> > server
> > > release. As far as I am aware, LL still has a long way to go towards a
> > > distributed central architecture before that is a possibility,
> although
> > > they certainly appear to be moving in that direction fairly quickly.
> > >
> > > Adam
> > >
> > > Able Whitman wrote:
> > >
> > > > Laurent reminded me of a post I meant to make after triage, but
> forgot
> > > > about in my absentmindedness...
> > > >
> > > > It would be nice to know more about the plans to release the sim
> source.
> > > > At the last bug triage, Rob mentioned that it was a "long topic for
> > > > another time". I'm not really asking for every last detail, just
> some
> > > > information on where things stand, and where they're going.
> > > >
> > > > Is there a timetable for releasing the server code? Are there
> blocking
> > > > issues that are confounding the process? At his town hall, Cory
> talked
> > > > about the next generation of SL (I'm not sure if "SL 2.0" was his
> term
> > > > or not). Will we see a server source release before "SL 2.0"?
> > > >
> > > > I'm just askin' :)
> > > >
> > > > --Able
> > > >
> > > > On 6/24/07, *Laurent Laborde* <kerdezixe at gmail.com
> > > > <mailto:kerdezixe at gmail.com> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > >     On 6/25/07, Soft Linden <soft at lindenlab.com
> > > >     <mailto:soft at lindenlab.com>> wrote:
> > > >      > Are there one or two things that frustrate you the most,
> > > >      > which we could make part of our third quarter goals?
> > > >
> > > >     The server side performance and bug we can't patch because it's
> > > >     closed source.
> > > >     (and being syadmin, i'm sure i could help with server
> performance)
> > > >
> > > >     ::smile::
> > > >
> > > >     --
> > > >     kerunix Flan
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