Hypergrid here we come

Recently, after a while of absence, I started playing with the OpenSim software again. I dropped it in the past after the refactoring of OSGrid, which wouldn’t let me connect my regions to it anymore, and my technical understanding didn’t reach far enough to modify it. However, I wanted to finally post my animations on this sweet site and thus needed a place to take snapshots of them, and uploading them all to SL just for that purpose just didn’t seem very appealing.

I’ve been renting a region on OSGrid for a while now, and while I’m very happy with the performance and service, I still miss the freedom and playfulness my own OpenSim installation provided. It is, for example, quite complicated to change the terrain, or backup / upload / restore OAR files, and thus play with different scenes. And, of course, it’s more expensive. So I looked at the latest version of OpenSim again, which wasn’t available for my system (Mac OSX), so one thing led to another and I ended up with the Diva distro.

There has been much debate lately about new grids, and new places to go, and a growing nervousness on Second Life, which got me to think – like I sometimes do – about the conceptual direction of the 3d web. And to say it right up front: I think the whole ‘grid’ concept is mislead, and misleading. With the Opensim technology around, there are many grids now, that just try on the Second Life business model by offering a ‘cheaper’ and more ‘friendly’ alternative. Others have already failed at that, and it’s easy to see why: More cheap and more friendly simply isn’t enough to gain a lot of attention when on the one hand you lack at many of the other things that Second Life has – creations, interesting places, large communities – and on the other hand make the same mistakes that Linden Lab makes, and that is – keeping your grid a walled garden.

The Diva distro came hypergrid enabled out of the box (along with preconfigured megaregions, which I spent the first 30 minutes trying to turn off) and thus gave me my first real insight into what the hypergrid architecture is, and can be like. I have hypergridded before, by stumbling on the portal on Samsara in OSGrid and just trying out how and if it works. Back then, it seemed to be a promising, but rather unstable technology to me. With my own standalone being hypergrid enabled, I took a deeper look, though, and the sheer possibilities just took my breath away.

I don’t want to be part of a grid anymore that keeps me locked in. The OpenSim project finally gave us control over our creations, control over our avatar, control over our assets. I will not check these at the door anymore when moving through the metaverse. My assets, my avatar, my inventory, my private regions, they are mine to control and shall not be subject to the laws of grid operators – along with the very real danger of losing it due to arbitrary bans, change of policies, or financial losses.

I hypergridded from my standalone to my OSGrid region Ever 01 first, transferring some of my inventory from there and trying out what did and did not work in hypergrid. Even though some things were limited, asset transfers worked; slowly, but they worked. That also meant that for the first time ever I got things made by someone else and was able to use them on my private OpenSim installation. I could hypergrid to other hypergrid enabled grids and buy things there and bring them ‘home’ with me. I never felt so free in the Metaverse.

Why do we need the grid approach still? Even now, today, it is possible to run your own installation of OpenSim on your machine, and hypergrid around, meet people all over, chat, explore, buy things, have fun, and bring them home with you. And it’s all free. I mean, really free. Not just free of charge, but you’re free to use the software, the assets, the creations, in any way you want. With a little technical understanding you can edit them directly in the database, changing their properties, their permissions, basically anything.

And this is, by no means, a drawback of OpenSim, but actually the biggest chance this technology does have. On the net, all data can, and will, be copied. You will never be able to protect and control the distribution of your creations. Permissions checks, and walled gardens, are an illusion. Does this mean there will never be traction, there will never be an economy, there will never be money to be made? Of course not. The fact that things can and will be copied has been a ‘problem’ for the software industry right from the start, just as it is for the music, film, and media industries, yet nobody would claim these industries do not make any money. And with OpenSim, we’re part of the software industry. We can’t just act as if we can make our own rules and implement ‘unbreakable’ drm barriers when all the rest of the internet is much more creative in that respect.

I’m not saying there is no use for grids. Actually, they are very neccessary for the 3d web, but not in the way their business model envisions it. Grids are communities. They’re places for people to meet, to chat, to roleplay, to dance, to play, to have common experiences. But they will not be the places people will ‘live’. They will not be the places people will keep their assets, or where they will stay in private. There is no need to keep your inventory, your purse, your home, your friends, and your playground all in one location – actually, it’s contrary to what we are usually doing.

So, for myself, I want to be part of the larger Metaverse, that is hypergrid enabled, against all odds and security concerns. I want to be a free citizen of this universe of grids and standalones, of small home regions and larger grid clusters. Join me, if you want. My OSGrid region Ever 01 is up and running at all times, and The Loom (my private standalone) is on occasionally. Click any of the links to hypergrid there (provided you’re on a hypergrid enabled place).