1) The SL Sailing community is at this point very much aware of OSGrid and a number of yacht clubs for virtual sailing are migrating across. Sailboat technology there is advancing. As of today, a minimum requirements boat exists and informal sailing races (with wind shadowing) have taken place.

2) OSGrid is not operating at the same overall level of performance from a sailing perspective as SL has under Havok 4, but its performance as of now seems to be acceptable and is advancing each day/week.

3) Tutorials for hosting one’s own sim are available at the OSGrid Baya sailing sim, as is a free copy of the sailboat.

4) There does not seem to be any apparent business model for OSGrid as of now, but it seems likely that models, plural, are going to evolve there.

5) The SL sailing community is somewhat wide and people hosting sailing sims on OSG are all well known to each other and not particularly insular. New sailors are always welcome.

The troll who will never go away. Trolling Second Thoughts just isn’t enough for her.

Pixeleen, try to catch the glint of the sun off of my grill a little better next time. It lights up my mouth like time square!

As for Prokofy – Nice lady or man or whatever you are. You seriously need to get your head out of the sand and quit poisoning yourself on the Linden Cool-Aid.

Sure, I’ll be the first to admit that OpenSim has its bugs and problems. After all its still ALPHA software you know. Just think of what SL was like back before it entered into the beta stage. I’m sure it had just as many bugs and glitches if not more given the Linden’s style of programming. But technology wise, regardless of its problems I’ll also be the first to admit that even in its early stages OpenSim is already light years ahead of SL and that’s in just the basics.

SL as a whole seems to be built from the ground up around the concept of greed and capitalism. You’re limited as to how many prims you can have as well how big those prims can be. For what reason? Prims = money in that world which also means that you have to pay to be creative! On OpenSim by default each region can hold 45,000 prims (the maximum hard coded into the client), of which each prim is willingly clamped at 256x256x256 meters. If I want bigger its as simple as flicking a switch in the config file and I can do _ANY_ size I want. In regards to building and in world design, the OpenSim gang really did pick up where the Lindens left off and rightfully so. The false technological limitations that the Lindens built into their own system have been removed thereby clearing the way for creativity to thrive!

You need to realize that not all of us share your visions and ideals for the perfect virtual world. Some may be out to simply make a quick buck, others may be out to provide a service, while yet others simply want to have fun. Sure, my grid has an economy enabled but its not linked to any real world funding source and in all honesty it never will be. Mind you its rather easy to create that link too, at max 10 lines of code in a config file but in all reality I’d rather take an axe to the head and have my dying corpse dragged down a busy freeway then foster the sort of greedy mindset that Linden’s economy has created.

I’m currently working with a team of ten content developers and each of us holds the concept of free and openly distributable assets rather close and dear. Sure, there are a few items that are closed source but again that’s the wonderful thing about the in world permissions system. If you don’t want people to see how something is made or operates its as simple as ticking one little option while still keeping that asset freely distributable. However in most cases we prefer that our users have the ability to pick apart and examine whats offered if they wanted to so that they may either customize and build from it or if need be learn how it was created.

Light heart-idly I have to ask, how many times have you spent money on an item in SL only to have it delivered and find that you cant modify or even copy make a copy in your inventory? How many times have you purchased that perfect wig only to decide several months later that you want to change the color and found you can’t because its no modify? Instead you wind up having to go and re-buy that same wig or paying the creator even more then what its worth to simply slather on a new texture for you! Annoying ain’t it? But I digress…

In the end a virtual world is nothing more then a technology consisting of a client, a server, and a network in between. Bits, bytes, pixels, and packets all transferred, organized, and rendered into an interface that you can move around and interact within. Sure it takes money to run all of these things but how much all depends on what you plan on using it for.

Load wise, I’m planning for a small to medium sized crowd of at most between 20 and 30 concurrent users to start. Nothing big and nothing fancy, but if I need to I can always scale up or down. That’s the great thing about dealing with raw server space in comparison to a fixed Linden sim. If you need more capacity you can buy it. If you need less you can simply downgrade. In any case however its simply amazing how much less resources OpenSim takes in comparison the Linden’s software!

In regards to land, I’m not sure when you last looked at OpenSim but since I started experimenting with it over six months ago I’ve always had the ability to partition off plots. As for an instant buy tool, that too is available and running! Honesty, if I were you I would check my facts before claiming certain things to be broken or unavailable!

In my little world we’re not looking to make money. Financially it is our goal to take a PBS type of approach where the whole setup is user supported thereby allowing our own contribution to be put toward expanding and further building the grid itself. So of course, in that regard we will be offering land however there will be no purchase price and that is not the driving purpose in our grid’s existence nor will there be any sort of markup. All transactions will be paid for using real world currency, and not laundered using spacebucks (to borrow Pixeleen’s term). And yes, this means that when we’re ready to start offering land, unlike most SL land barons and prim peddlers we will need to declare ourselves as a real world business, most likely as a not for profit.

Anywho Prokofy thanks for ruffling my feathers. I always enjoy the chance to let loose with a rather long rant. But in all seriousness, regardless of whatever strange little attachment you have to those decaying old servers and horribly inefficient software over at Linden keep an eye out for OpenSim. For over six months now I’ve been using their software, actively within the past three months since I started my grid. Each week they release a whole new set of fixes, updates, and features. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. That’s just the nature of software development for ya! But regardless each week they’re getting closer and closer to matching if not surpassing the level of stability and features offered by Linden’s software. Sooner or later you’re going to have to face the fact that whether you like it or not the closed source, mystic silos approach that Linden has taken will fail and right now OpenSim is there to step up to the plate as a replacement.

Now, back to Pixeleen – I’d like to offer you the chance to see a heavily built out OpenSim setup. Its still under some pretty heavy construction but we already have two full sims built with two others that are about 85% complete. As well, most grid services (search, economy, etc.) are operational. If you like, please contact me either via the email in my post info or via SL as Orion Shamroy and I’ll give you the login information.

Thanks!

As to the promotion of legend via a bias slant … I suspect what a great many of us have learned is that we can’t let our resentment of sl’s behaviors blind us with a giddy hope in another grid. i know that before i spend time, money, and my promotional skills again, i’ll be interested in having much more info re the grid and it’s owners — real life verification of the grid owners and documentation about them and their team’s qualifications, etc. — for starters.

Um so as i was saying. it’s my hope that the herald was simply blinded by hope. time and actions will tell all.

I lol’d.

Open Sim is changing the way the world views virtual worlds. OSGRID is an open society, one of the best I have seen so far.

Prokofy Neva thanks for the laughs! Very narrow minded perspective. (Stomach still hurts from laughing so hard!!!)