And beyond that: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Open_Grid_Public_Beta

There's a bunch of us merrily teleporting between grids, right now.  
I'm not saying it's just like Second Life grids merged together; you  
have to explicitly teleport between grids, inventory doesn't move yet  
and even once it does there will be limitations based on trust and  
licensing. However, we're definitely looking at a situation where  
students could teleport from their home grid, to the main SL grid for  
a lecture, or where SL residents could teleport into regions set  
explicitly open for that purpose.

Our test region for OGP is down at the moment, as there's not been a  
lot more progress made for it to seem worthwhile patching it up to  
latest, but if people want to try region teleports I can update it and  
then pass out details?

On 1 Sep 2008, at 10:55, Ferdinand Francino wrote:

> You people with this line of argument *are* aware of this, aren't you?
> http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/07/08/ibm-linden-lab-interoperability-announcement/
> http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2008/07/11/interview-linden-prepares-for-an-opensim-future/
>
> enjoy!
> ~f
>> I agree. It would be a great loss if educational virtual worlds  
>> were all kept
>> apart. There is a lot to be gained for staff and students to visit  
>> each
>> others creations, or to attend joint seminars/events; and many  
>> tutors who
>> develop resources or environments for their own students on a  
>> particular
>> course would be happy for other people to use them at other times.  
>> Open
>> virtual worlds give an opportunity for the academic community to  
>> work as a
>> community, something a bit different from usual, and possibly a  
>> benefit?
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>>
>> Dr Andrew Rothery
>> Head of E-Learning Innovation
>> Information and Learning Services
>> University of Worcester
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: For anyone working in education with an interest in virtual  
>> worlds on
>> behalf of Andy Powell
>> Sent: Fri 29/08/2008 15:13
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [VIRTUALWORLDS] OpenSim hosting for academics
>>
>>
>>
>> I was going to make a similar point... that it is the (social)  
>> network
>> effects of working within a global environment that we stand to  
>> lose by
>> building closed (or semi-open) virtual world intranets.  My  
>> suspicion is
>> that there is a loss even in the kinds of scenario you describe,  
>> even if
>> it is only in the sense of students having a larger audience with  
>> which
>> they can show/discuss work.
>>
>> But I understand the arguments for more closed environments -
>> particularly concerning the age issue - and in any case I'm very
>> strongly in favour of more experimentation with things like OpenSim
>> because the advantages of developing a viable open-source  
>> alternative to
>> SL are self-evident.
>>
>> In my brief talk at Virtual Policy 08 I tried to draw an analogy with
>> what has tended to happen in the schools sector where we have  
>> somewhat
>> competing government agendas around schools playing a greater role in
>> their local communities (which one might assume to mean becoming more
>> 'open' to those communities) vs. the health and safety drive to
>> literally wall themselves off from the outside world (fences, gates,
>> etc.).  However, I accept that for various reasons it's not a perfect
>> analogy by a long way.
>>
>> http://efoundations.typepad.com/efoundations/2008/07/education-panel.htm
>> l
>>
>> On the cost issue I think that the Web 2.0 environment tends to
>> encourage us towards assuming that everything can be free (though  
>> this
>> does not apply to SL of course).  But long term sustainability is  
>> also
>> important.  If we make the assumption that there is no viable long- 
>> term
>> advertsing-based business model for hosting virtual worlds (is this a
>> valid assumption?) then at some point institutions will either have  
>> to
>> bring the costs in-house (by doing their own hosting) or pay a
>> sustainable rate for external hosting by a third-party.  (I'm  
>> making a
>> second assumption here that any central funding will only be for a  
>> fixed
>> term... but I don't think that is unreasonable).  Again, I can see  
>> that
>> there are arguments in favour of "centrally-funded, free to  
>> institutions
>> at point of use" kinds of solutions, but there are also downsides in
>> terms of skewing what would otherwise be an open market and in  
>> terms of
>> assessing real cost/value.
>>
>> Andy
>> --
>> Head of Development, Eduserv Foundation
>> http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/
>> http://efoundations.typepad.com/
>> [log in to unmask]
>> +44 (0)1225 474319
>>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: For anyone working in education with an interest in
>>> virtual worlds [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>>> Behalf Of J Ross Nicoll
>>> Sent: 29 August 2008 12:26
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: [VIRTUALWORLDS] OpenSim hosting for academics
>>>
>>> Which if fascinating, actually; we see Second Life primarily
>>> as a way of doing things that would not be cost
>>> effective/feasible in the real world, for example a
>>> recreation of an archeological dig site, or a simulation of
>>> wireless network traffic. We do this in the relatively
>>> controlled environment of our own island.
>>>
>>> Second Life from a social aspect isn't so much what we've
>>> been looking at, and... well, if that's what you're using it
>>> for, I have to admit I don't think we'll be in a position to
>>> help any time soon (the next year or so, anyway). As OGP
>>> progresses and grid-hopping becomes simpler and more
>>> powerful, it might make sense for student's "home"
>>> grid to be non-SL, but that's off beyond the timescale we're
>>> dealing with initially (which is my way of saying I haven't a
>>> clue when it will happen).
>>>
>>> On 29 Aug 2008, at 12:13, jeremy hunsinger wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> well, the main counter-argument is a wee-bit understated, it isn't
>>>> just the content, it is the cultures, peoples, architectures, etc.
>>>> etc.  second life is immensely rich.  opensim is hugely poor, and
>>>> likely to be seen much like activeworlds by students, which
>>>>
>>> is what i
>>>
>>>> tend to tell people to use if they want a private world.  it is
>>>> stable, it has been around a very long time, and at least students
>>>> find it quaint and tend not to find it to be a creepy
>>>>
>>> treehouse, which
>>>
>>>> is what i suspect students feel about sl, if they aren't allowed to
>>>> join and actively participate in its communities and
>>>>
>>> cultures as part
>>>
>>>> of class.
>>>> On Aug 29, 2008, at 6:13 AM, J Ross Nicoll wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> The main counter arguments I'm aware of are that you lose
>>>>>
>>> the giant
>>>
>>>>> library of pre-existing content in Second Life. On the other hand,
>>>>> I'm not sure about other universities but most of our core
>>>>>
>>> content is
>>>
>>>>> developed locally, and one of our core goals is that everything be
>>>>> copiable, so you'll have a small but entirely free library of
>>>>> textures, scripts etc. to use. Depending on timescales, it
>>>>>
>>> may even
>>>
>>>>> be that the Open Grid Protocol is far enough along by the
>>>>>
>>> time we go
>>>
>>>>> live, that you can pick up your own items in SL, teleport to our
>>>>> grid, and drop it (the teleport works right now, from the SL beta
>>>>> grid anyway, but inventory doesn't).
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Jeremy Hunsinger
>>>> Center for Digital Discourse and Culture Virginia Tech Information
>>>> Ethics Fellow Center for Information Policy Research
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
>>>> --Pablo Picasso
>>>>
>>>> Access the list, archives and filestore via the web on
>>>> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/VIRTUALWORLDS
>>>>
>>> The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland :  
>>> No
>>> SC013532
>>>
>>> Access the list, archives and filestore via the web on
>>> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/VIRTUALWORLDS
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Access the list, archives and filestore via the web on
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>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
> --
> \o/        Don't fight back. Fight forward        \o/
> \o/ What I'm thinking outside of isn't even a box \o/
>
> Ferdinand Francino aka Gwynn Gunawan
> Project Manager CU There
> GCU Second Life (Web 3.D) Presence
> http://www.caledonian.ac.uk/cuthere
>
>
> Glasgow Caledonian University is a registered Scottish charity,  
> number SC021474
>
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>

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