Standards For Interconnecting Virtual Worlds 142
Tao Takashi writes "Linden Lab, developers of the popular 3D platform "Second Life" started to think about an open standard for interconnecting virtual worlds. The motivation behind this is to make Second Life more scalable but also to allow connection of other grids not hosted by Linden Lab. The process of defining components and protocols is supposed to be handled completely in the open with community participation. When finished the protocol documentation is supposed to be submitted to standard committees such as IETC, W3C etc.
The discussion has already started on the Second Life wiki and you can also find a first architecture proposal by Linden Lab."
We tried to get Worlds.com to do this 10 years ago (Score:2, Informative)
I worked for http://worlds.com/ [worlds.com] back in the mid 1990s (remember the billboards in S.F. and other major cities? What a freekin' JOKE), and we had the basic technology to do this back then. The system included a world builder as part of the product, although it needed at least another year of work to become a real product. The backend also allowed for this, you could link to other servers on different machines. Users of Worlds have been hacking on it to create their own worlds for years (the server really only tracks your location -- the textures and such are served up from HTTP servers, so once you get the server to a location that YOU have created, you can just distribute your world to your friends and serve up the textures). The problem was that the management at the time blew their entire wad on marketing (see above) and other follies, rather in focusing on anything that might be of USE! It was truely frustrating.
I am impressed by the tenacity of the current president -- Worlds.com has gone broke twice and is STILL hanging on and appears to be planning something for this fall (what it is, I have no idea -- I haven't worked there for over six years).
Re:Whoo hooo! (Score:3, Informative)