1.) The allegation that “Linux” is copying is like saying Boeing should differentiate from birds and rather build planes without wings. Your statement shows that you have fundamentally misunderstood free software, you therefore voice an opinion over things you have no clue about. “Linux” isn’t “copying”, but is providing free software to do the same tasks as closed softare. These tasks are what form the premise of what software does, how it functions and what it looks like. It’s a mathematical principle. Your allegation is like me saying GM should stop copying Daimler Benz (the inventor of the car) because GMs cars too, have 4 wheels. What happens on the screen must fulfill the requirement of the same elements involved from the user: tasks, eyes, hands, hardware and last but not least the brain. There is now way to differentiate how the eye captures images and sends them to the brain, or to make text appear on the screen.

2.) The very reason OpenSim exists is because it was possible to reverse engineer the server behavior from the client being made free software. Don’t you think it would be weird if OpenSim then, after benefiting from free software, turns around and locks out platforms which make use of the same code premise? That would be…cheap.

3.) Your reasoning against Linux could be used 1:1 against OpenSim…got some cognitive dissonance going on there.

4.) You say >>The ‘cross platform compatible’ concept leads to crappy software<< Uh huh. If Firefox is crappy, then why did it just overtake Internet Explorer?

5.) Yes, Mono has it's drawbacks, however the use of C# was a design decision of the OpenSim team in the beginning, and in order to maintain cross platform compatibility, I suppose its use was unavoidable after the ship had left the harbor.

6.) If Linux is too hard, you're too soft. SCNR. To complain about that when windows as a platform is available to your use is just plain silly. Makes me think that the main reason you wrote that comment is to see your pretty fingers flying over that keyboard.

7.) It's possible that there's an alternative to Opensim, but does that project keep compatibility with Second Life?

Also, as for Linux people getting alienated… Linux needs to differentiate itself from Windows instead of trying to be a copycat. The notion that a piece of software can be developed for both platforms and have the same performance is really ludicrous.

There is an excellent, linux specific alternative to OpenSim that performs excellently but sits idly, waiting for more features, developed by Dalien Thielt. Linux developers should be all over this, rather than the current model of trying to get OpenSim to run properly on Linux.

The ‘cross platform compatible’ concept leads to crappy software that is patchy with extra code and major headaches whenever one developer wants to bring a new piece in. Mono also requires frequent updating, wasting a lot of time.

I run Windows and Linux both and I have been running OpenSim on both for almost a year.

I think Linux is excellent in many ways, but it really makes you work harder to get results. And I am lazy, I do not want to work harder. Linux developers, make software that makes Linux better, instead of trying to make a compatible ‘layer’ that just wastes resources and administrator time trying to figure out why it’s not working.

I see more and more Grids using plugins that are Windows only, be it OLG or Heritage Key which require a Windows only viewer, and even for standard Grids like OSG even just listening to Media/Radio isn’t possible unless one uses the OMVviewer which has it’s own set of drawbacks. I know viewer problems are separate from OpenSim, but it adds to the feeling that OpenSim is a Windows only project.

Medium term, and this is already happening as I can see it in myself, Linux users will begin to withdraw their contributions and be they just social of nature, and move on to do something else. Most likely something other than VW’s because we’re being technically outcasted.

However this does not appear a big loss to OpenSim technology, given that statistically, we don’t matter already…

DefaultGUI\UCMenu.xaml cannot be found
The project file contains a property value that is not valid (probably related to the first problem?)

It hurts us.

How? Firstly, it forces linux devs to use mono, which from a performance standpoint is demonstrably inferior to .net. It also limits participation from the linux community as many simply wont participate due to the windows centricity of opensim developement, which is yet another reason that the dev membership skews heavily towards windows devs.

Secondly, it hurts us because for every slick thing we get with .net, we get a similar amount of pain – .net’s remoting capabilites may be usefull to us, for instance, but they are limited and we are powerless to extend them in more usefull directions.

Additionally, the gradual shift towards more and more windows-centric technology progressively moves the platform in an exclusively windows direction. Already I have people considering Xenki as a potential solution to the viewer-in-a-browser problem, and it will not bother them whatsoever that it is windows only.

Never mind that I wont be able to use it, as I wont make a personal shift to windows on my desktop – having chosen over twenty years ago not to do so.

All in all, the Xenki tech may be impressive – but as a windows-only solution in a project that at least pays lip-service to being cross-platform, I think any choice for new technology that excludes other platforms is a fundamentally bad move – not unlike the choice of c#/.net in the project’s early days.

Please, Adam, you are a sharp guy – find an in-browser solution that does not exclude me and all the other unix devs out there by embedding ActiveX controls in the browser.

Cheers!
James

I’m sure some non-coders out there, like myself, would like to test is as it moves a long.. and it would go along way if I could actually see the progress by connecting to my own grid and seeing realtime results.

That’s because of the X I think, and maybe that more people talk about Snowcrash than have actually read it. I totally missed it myself. Now if you had named it Enzo, Juanita, Namshub, or ‘Rat Thing’ I might have got it.