The in thing in the workplace these days, the big headache generator for IT Support departments is bring your own device, or BYOD as it is affectionately known, or pain in the arse bloody devices (PITABD) as it is unofficially known. I was in a meeting this week discussing how wonderful it is that people want to link their own devices to our work network, how cost savings can be made on our own hardware purchases and how we need to have a list of policies as long as both arms to deal with issues such as data leakages, insecure devices, unprotected devices, authenticators to login, acceptable use policies yadda yadda yadda .. several cups of coffee later I came away with a headache and a feeling that the more control we seem to pass to the user, the more control we need to get back by investing in even more security and polcy documents
Which brings us to Second Life and what some see as it’s insular approach to the wider metaverse. Hypergrid Business is a great site to get the lowdown on other virtual worlds, collaborative projects between owners of different grids, sims. There are examples of great business and education projects using worlds other than Second Life. However I can appreciate why Linden Lab have been reluctant to join the party. The wider metaverse has been discussed at Linden Lab, Robin Linden discussed others joining the Second Life grid back in the day when she was here and running office hours. However controlling access is a problem and the bottom line really is, Second Life is not the right project to join other grids. However that doesn’t mean Linden Lab could never engage.
Linden Lab, love them or loathe them, are the daddy of these sort of virtual world owners. However in Second Life they have a product that they need to have control of, they need to be in control of the code to minimise security risks. They need to be in control to protect merchants and customers. Second Life is surely now at the stage where it is its own product. However as I pointed out recently, Linden Lab CEO, Rod Humble, is taking the Second Life out of Linden Lab. By that I mean he’s moving Linden Lab to a position where it’s known as a company whereby Second Life is just one of its products. This is good for the company and it’s longer term future, it also allows Linden Lab to branch out into a bigger world.
What I can’t ever see happening now, is Linden Lab allowing other users to use say, sim on a stick, to join the Second Life world or use a different host to connect their sim to the Second Life grid. Bring Your Own World (BYOW) is not suitable for Second Life, but that doesn’t mean it’s not suitable for Linden Lab.
Linden Lab have the technology and expertise to create their own blank canvas style hosting of virtual worlds and allow those to join the wider metaverse, to allow people to bring their own Linden Lab hosted virtual world sim to other collaborative projects and embrace them. Linden Lab could introduce cloud hosting for these and allow people to pay for usage or flat fees, but it would need to be walled off from Second Life completely.
Standards can be agreed with virtual world intergration, upgrade paths required, but Second Life is more than just a virtual world hosting solution, Second Life technology on the other hand, that can be marketed and sold as a blank canvas. I know they tried that sort of thing with the enterprise project, but that was aimed at large enterprises, it was never an option for small ventures, nor was it intended to be.
I’m speculating here, Linden Lab may not have the time or inclination to go down this road, it would be a costly move and would require additional resources. They may have plans afoot to allow others to join the Second Life grid, but personally, I just don’t think that’s ever going to be suitable, Second Life needs to be controlled by Linden Lab and controlled quite tightly.
Actually I could see Linden Lab allowing Sim on a Stick. Although it would have to be their flavor of Sim on a Stick, that way they can as you mentioned control it and protect all parties involved. The LL Sim on a Stick would have to be able to receive updates from time to time. You know, bug fixes and keeping up with the compatibility of the rest of the grid, but I could actually see this happening. I think it could be a viable market as well. Can’t afford a SIM on their servers, but you could afford a monthly or annual fee to run the LL Sim on a Stick on your own server. You’d have a connection to their grid, but you could also TP to your home (your LL Sim on a Stick) which would run on your PC, so you are not a drain on LL’s servers, and you can customize your land with in the limits of your PC. Have a few friends over for a party even, to be amazed at your place. Yes, I can easily see this happening and with great interest. I can even see how they could protect IP rights with this as well.
I like the potential of sim on a stick sims and smaller fees, so that more people will engage, but I think it’s outside the remit of the current model in Second Life. The idea is a great one.
I think things will head that way eventually, it’s a logical step to make but I do feel Second Life won’t be embracing that, I’d be delighted to be proved wrong as it’s something I’d like to see.
Even from a viewpoint of designing and creating, it would be nice to be able to do that in an offline environment that could then easily sync when you went online and there would be lots of use cases that would please people.