wow, Daniel Voyager is my source for sim closings in Second Life!
ISTE Island closure on 1st March 2012
the International Society for Technology in Education has been a very active group in Second Life for years now (i remember attending stuff they had way back when)
they are going to stay inSL and have a $500 a year budget to do so but i am going to offer my same unpopular opinion that i did when the ALA said they were closing their sim
going from having your own sim to not having a sim is a lesser commitment from a financial point of view (putting less money where your mouth is)
a parcel does not have the same freedom as having an entire sim because you are no longer a Linden Lab customer (unless it’s mainland). you are now a customer, or guest, of someone else - you have removed yourself by one degree from Linden Lab (and potentially another degree from Kevin Bacon) and added someone else who can affect what you do (like if they decide to drop their sim). if i pay my neighbour for the use of their car it is not the same as me making loan payments to Toyota for my car
in the virtual world realm your greatest freedom is OpenSim on your own machine, next would be on your own server (or your institution’s), then your own server with an OpenSim hosting company (including Kitely or SimHost like us), then a commercial grid (like InWorldz or Second Life), and finally renting land from someone on a commercial grid (like Ener Hax’s SL estate in 2008!)
my opinion is that the more committed you are then the more important your endeavor is and the more important that is, the more you want ownership of it (OpenSim OAR backups in your possession versus a license to your work!)
i’m not bashing Second Life, it’s excellent for many projects (from having an active adult education initiative to holding furry fundraising club dance-a-thons) w00t!
i have no doubt as to the enthusiasm of ISTE members and i do wish them the very best as they redefine themselves in SL and i also hope they consider OpenSim as an option or supplement (hmm, go from being the ISSLTE to the ISTE!)
my canadian two cents =)
past post pic - who's more committed to drinking beer?
If you scroll down, you will see that they are most likely opening a region on jokaydiaGrid as well, i.e. OpenSim.
Graham Mills
24 Feb 12 at 11:55 am
i did see that and it’s a good move but still not under their own steam – i suppose i view this from my own perspective of just being two people (me and subQuark) and having our own server versus an international institution!
and maybe i am just a snob! =D
Ener Hax
24 Feb 12 at 12:44 pm
I think that image on the Left is a Fine Canadian Example of dedicated beer drinking (but is that a Bud Glass? eekkkk).
They would be better off running their own OpenSim installation. Having a parcel won’t really do for them what they want in the end and is it worth staying in SL with that ?
WhiteStar
24 Feb 12 at 2:30 pm
Its not what is stamped on the glass, WhiteStar, its what is poured in side it :-) Btw, SL beer doesn’t taste as good as OpenSim beer. That’s cause its a lag
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Sarge Misfit
25 Feb 12 at 6:20 am
I followed some links in this post, and quickly came upon this comment:
“I can appreciate SL needing to look out for itself, but I do wonder if the loss of the educational discount has slowly diminished the educational community?”
The answer is probably one of the more defining reasons why OpenSim should be used for Education. The ISTE blogger himself touches on it: funding cycles.
An Opesnim region and build can hibernate on a USB stick to winter out funding cycles(probably tied 1:1 with Term durations).
Second Life can’t. When the term ends, there is invoicing activity for Regions. And if there is a glitch over a holiday period, we have seen recently that Regions can be nuked by the Lindens, who promptly put the ol’ hand out asking for the previous months tier and also the repurchase of sims.
Edu in Second Life is disastrous. I realize that some lecturers and course controllers just like Second Life so they can run around in furry suits after hours, but be responsible, put your Edu in Opensim, and join Second Life as a furry alt. Everyone wins.
Breen Whitman
25 Feb 12 at 12:17 pm
We played an ofline RPG once where “The Furries” and “The Littles” went to war, it was to test a combat system, but it was still a hoot!
Oh, and I love having my own sim, even though its just a single region play-ground on a 20 bucks a month cloud server. I may eventually start testing some API tricks to launch other regions on the fly. But heck I’m not done playing with the one I have yet.
Maybe I’ll make a how to lanuch on the cloud post over at my silly blog. There are other tutorials like that out there, but it couldn’t hurt to spread the mojo around I guess so more people will find the how-tos.
Araxie Longoar
25 Feb 12 at 6:02 pm
I’d definitely give it a read, Araxie. I was thinking of getting Excelsior Station hosted on the cloud, but have no idea of where to get started.
Sarge Misfit
25 Feb 12 at 7:55 pm
Bud sponsored event so . . . =)
very good Sarge! LAGer! lots of lag! the foam gts in the RAM and then it’s all a mess!
really good point on “hibernating” regions Breen – it was pretty cheesy of LL to charge the $1000 setup fee to the Space History people
wow Araxie! that would be an awesome post! Sarge and i would for sure give you some press and try it out! but it has to be easy for me, i don’t have the skills that Sarge has
Ener Hax
25 Feb 12 at 9:32 pm
I’m not all that skilled, Ener, but thanks for the compliment. And I need it just as easy to read, too. I’ve never dealt with any hosting company, so that end of things is something brand new to me.
Sarge Misfit
26 Feb 12 at 6:41 am
I’ll start the drafts for those tutorials then.
It may take me a bit to get them all kosher and clear ,as somethings I just do on auto-piliot, but maybe once done they will help others launch their sims.
One thing I think I will do different from other write-ups I’ve seen on the web is to write up a section on securing your server also. So, Its in the works guys.
Araxie Longoar
26 Feb 12 at 10:23 am
Awesome, Araxie. I’m looking forward to reading it
Sarge Misfit
26 Feb 12 at 7:55 pm
you can test your tutorials on me – if i can make it work, then anyone can!
Ener Hax
28 Feb 12 at 2:22 pm