Open Grid Public Beta

The Open Grid Public Beta program is a Linden Lab sponsored opportunity for developers to make their virtual worlds interoperate with Second Life. Virtual world interoperability is enabled through the Open Grid Protocol, under development by the Architecture Working Group of Second Life residents.

On June 30th, 2008, a group of Linden Lab and IBM "gridnauts" successfully launched from a Second Life developer grid and teleported over to an OpenSim grid running IBM's modified code. They arrived without any of their attachments or inventory, since the protocol does not transfer assets between grids.

Key Points

1. Testing the ability to log in to Second Life and teleport between Second Life and other virtual worlds.
2. Intended for developers, not residents at large.
3. Demonstrates login and teleport only, no assets are transferred from Second Life to other virtual worlds.

Participation

Participation in the Open Grid Public Beta program is intended for the developers of virtual world viewer and simulator software.

Developers in the program implement the Open Grid Protocol in their software. The protocol provides a communication path between clients (Second Life Viewer), an Agent Domain (Second Life preview grid), and a simulator (Second Life, OpenSim). In particular, they implement the teleport protocol.

Beta participants will have access to the Open Grid Protocol version of the Second Life viewer, which logs you into an agent domain running on the Second Life preview grid, and allows you to rez, without inventory, on a destination grid that understands the Open Grid Protocol.

In the first phase of the program Linden Lab will work with the developers of OpenSim and OpenSim operators to login to our preview grid and teleport between the Second Life preview grid, and regions in OpenSim.

In the second phase of the beta, Linden Lab will open participation to other grid and virtual world operators and developers.

In World Meetings

• Wednesdays, 1:30PM SLT, Whump Linden office hours @ ambleside office
• M-F, TBA, Open Grid Public Beta daily huddle

Transcripts

• All relevant transcripts
• July:
  • Office Hours: 23
  • Daily Huddle transcripts

Beta Support

Throughout the beta, Linden Lab engineers will hold office hours inworld to answer questions from developers in the program.

They will also be availble several times a week to support developers who are debugging their interoperation with Second Life, and will coordinate over those sessions over IRC.

In addition Linden Lab will provide an email list, and an inworld group for beta participants.

Beta Timeline

• Beta launch -- July 31, 2008
• Interop testing with OpenSim (Phase 1) -- July 31, 2008
• Open to other virtual world platforms (Phase 2) -- TBD
• Beta period ends -- TBD

How to Participate

To participate as a developer, please send a request to join the Open Grid Public Beta Mailing List.

Once you're subscribed, you'll be invited to join the inworld group for participants.

Once the Beta starts, we'll provide links to Viewer binaries. In the meantime:

Zha Ewy's patch for OpenSim OGP support is available from OpenSim's Extension's Repository (registration required).

If you have questions about the program, please contact ogpb-info@lindenlab.com.

Resources

• Wiki pages
  • Open Grid Protocol
    • Open Grid Protocol -- introduction
    • Agent Domain
    • Login Protocol
    • Teleport Protcol
  • Architecture Working Group
    • In-world discussion group -- for programmers and technically minded citizens
    • Relevant in-world discussion and office hours transcripts
    • Pyogp -- Python-based OGP test harness and client library
      • Pyogp discussion transcripts

• OpenSim
  • OpenSim transcripts

• Issue Tracking During the Beta
  • Umbrella Public Jira Issue for all OGPB Issues
• Office hours TBD
• Testing times TBD