Open Grid Public Beta
We've received a number of requests to join the program since the announcement this morning, and are working through the requests. However, we'd like to give priority to those folks who will be bringing up OpenSim regions. We realize that Second Life residents are eager to try this out, but we want to put the resources into finding, isolating, and squashing bugs. If you don't get your invite right away, don't worry, we're adding people as our bandwidth for internal and volunteer support of the program allows.
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
- Testing the ability to log in to Second Life and teleport between Second Life and other virtual worlds.
- Intended for developers, not residents at large.
- 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.
How To Participate
- To participate as a developer, please send a request to join the Open Grid Public Beta Mailing List.
- Please subscribe using an email address associated with your SL account. We may discard subscription requests that we can not confirm belong to Second Life residents.
- Once you're subscribed, you'll be invited to join the inworld group for participants.
- You will receive two invitations, one from the main grid, and one from the Preview Grid (aditi). We recommend joining the group on both grids, however Preview Grid membership is required for intergrid teleporting.
- If you have more than one avatar associated with the same email address, we will invite one of them. If our guess wasn't the av you wanted to participate, email us at ogpb-info@lindenlab.com
- Claim a space on the map for your OpenSim region.
- Download the Open Grid Beta Viewer.
- Build an OpenSim region with the OGP patch.
- Use the Open Grid Client to Teleport between Region Domains
Because the Beta will allow any external regions to connect to the grid, which may or may not provide adult content, the beta is limited to main grid users. We are looking into ways for safely involving Teen Grid residents later in the beta.
If you have questions about the program, please contact ogpb-info@lindenlab.com.
There is a list of public OpenSim regions participating in the beta.
In World Meetings
- Wednesdays, 1:30PM SLT, Whump Linden office hours @ ambleside office
- M-F, 9:00AM SLT @ ambleside office, Open Grid Public Beta daily huddle
Transcripts
- All relevant transcripts
- July:
IRC
irc://irc.freenode.net/#gridnauts
Issue Tracking During the Beta Program
Linden Lab has created new components in PJIRA to track OGPB issues, please read the instructions on how to create OGPB issues in PJIRA.
Status of OGPB issues will be reviewed during daily huddles.
A complete list of beta issues is in the umbrella issue SVC-2632.
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
FAQ
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
- Open Grid Protocol