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Second Life on GitHub

community.secondlife.com

21–30 of 126 posts

Re: Second Life on GitHub

#21
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the reason for hosting it elsewhere? My cursory Google searches have failed me.

The historical reason is https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pull/17#issuecomment-56546... Perhaps some of these issues have been fixed by now, but the Linux project has been going on just fine without GitHub (git was even invented for the Linux kernel project itself even before GitHub existed) so there doesn't seem to be any reason to switch even if all the mentioned problems were to be fixed

He's amazing

Re: Second Life on GitHub

#23
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The historical reason is https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pull/17#issuecomment-56546... Perhaps some of these issues have been fixed by now, but the Linux project has been going on just fine without GitHub (git was even invented for the Linux kernel project itself even before GitHub existed) so there doesn't seem to be any reason to switch even if all the mentioned problems were to be fixed

Some good old Torvalds roasting going on in that thread.

Yikes. I didn't know the dude was so prickly. Glad I'm not a contributor.

Re: Second Life on GitHub

#24
post #9

It's been open source since 2007. Linden Lab recently moved the sources from Bitbucket to Github. The Firestorm viewer sources are at " https://vcs.firestormviewer.org/ ". It's a major fork. Technical documentation of the client-server protocol is at " https://wiki.secondlife.com/ " It's out of date, but it helps. The real progress is that the build procedure has been cleaned up. It used to require ancient versions o…

What is a "firestorm viewer"? Is a "viewer" a Second Life term for "game client"? And is Firestorm a particular FOSS client for the game? If so, that's really interesting... like you can access the same shared Second Life world but through a custom client? Does it reuse existing game assets or you free to reinterpret character models, textures, effects, etc.?

It's a client

Assets are downloaded by the viewer from the SL servers.

Re: Second Life on GitHub

#25
post #9

It's been open source since 2007. Linden Lab recently moved the sources from Bitbucket to Github. The Firestorm viewer sources are at " https://vcs.firestormviewer.org/ ". It's a major fork. Technical documentation of the client-server protocol is at " https://wiki.secondlife.com/ " It's out of date, but it helps. The real progress is that the build procedure has been cleaned up. It used to require ancient versions o…

What is a "firestorm viewer"? Is a "viewer" a Second Life term for "game client"? And is Firestorm a particular FOSS client for the game? If so, that's really interesting... like you can access the same shared Second Life world but through a custom client? Does it reuse existing game assets or you free to reinterpret character models, textures, effects, etc.?

Everything in second life is sent to the client (which usually tries to cache). Eg you can even build new geometries ingame.

Viewers are "game clients" yes. The viewer is intended to mostly be a dumb receiver. The server does most lifting.

Firestorm is a fork of the official viewer. It forked about the time I played SL but seems to have grown into it's own these days.

Re: Second Life on GitHub

#26
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, open source means a specific thing. You're perhaps thinking of "source available", which means "you can read the source but have to comply to a bunch of stuff"

Can you define what exactly open source means in that case?

The majority opinion is the OSI definition and approved licenses but not everyone agrees.

Re: Second Life on GitHub

#27
post #12
post #9

It's been open source since 2007. Linden Lab recently moved the sources from Bitbucket to Github. The Firestorm viewer sources are at " https://vcs.firestormviewer.org/ ". It's a major fork. Technical documentation of the client-server protocol is at " https://wiki.secondlife.com/ " It's out of date, but it helps. The real progress is that the build procedure has been cleaned up. It used to require ancient versions o…

I had no idea Second Life has been an open source game this whole time! It might be one of the largest OS videos games of all time then

The server components which are most of the logic are not open source. There has been a long running effort to have a compatible open source server.

Re: Second Life on GitHub

#28
post #20

I don't know if things have changed but the last time I tried SL the client was so rough and awkward it seemed like an alpha. Even moving was laggy and annoying.

The biggest contributor of lag is not having things cached or being in a laggy region.

On first connect, it used to be practice to go to a busy scene (a mall) and then go do something in real life for an hour or so while the viewer grabbed everything and cached it.

Regions can be very low lag or amazingly laggy, depending on a bunch of things (particulary misbehaving scripts).

Re: Second Life on GitHub

#29
post #18
post #5

But afaik the second life viewer is not exactly open source, but instead only selected teams can participate. EDIT: the viewer code is LGPL , but forked Third party viewers are subject to particular terms https://secondlife.com/corporate/third-party-viewers

There are terms which apply when connecting to Second Life servers. Those terms don't apply if you use the viewer to connect to non Second Life servers, such as Open Simulator. For Open Simulator, you have to deal with a somewhat grouchy lead developer who does not suffer fools gladly. (He's helpful if you don't waste his time. He ran a test region server for me and looked at what I was sending to get something to in…

AFAIK the lack of viewer developers is the main reason why opensimulator has stalled. Even the server is supported by very few developers who still contribute, incuding Ubit. The project seems to suffer from high drama for decades.

Re: Second Life on GitHub

#30
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no idea Second Life has been an open source game this whole time! It might be one of the largest OS videos games of all time then

The server components which are most of the logic are not open source. There has been a long running effort to have a compatible open source server.

That's incredibly surprising that it doesn't have one. I was involved in the l2j and wow emulation communities back in the day, and there was just so much effort going into it.
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