Socially|Mundane

I am fortunate that I never had any financing issues with Linden lab, except when they had their billing through some funky banker overseas in Europe, which apparently was known for being 'loose' with fraud enforcement and prevention. This cause me to contact my own bank by telephone to manually authorize any charge.

Fortunately Linden Lab got wise and went the 'proper' route with a more reputable financier. Unfortunately, any time you have "your people" contact "my people" things can get a bit sticky:

Leeds Metropolitan University:: "As the ongoing saga between our finance department and Linden Lab continues (I just got an email to say that one of our islands was about to get sunk due to confusion around payment), and as a result of our findings from the Open Habitat project, I am determined to make 2009 the year of OpenSim."

I don't think Linden Lab are 'careless' and neither the 'finance department' of this university. The problem comes down to communication and all the red-tape paperwork involved. And this is why the Open Sim project will gain a groundswell of support. More people are popping over there to at least experiment. I've had my own account there for... wow, is it a year, yet?

However, Opensim is not ready for prime-time just yet. Not only are the tools still in flux with regard to reliability and availability, but many of the features provided by Linden lab have yet to be implemented.

Important features. namely: and economy. I remember a report that the Opensim creators — one of them, anyway — was set against any kind of trading token, currently, economy, whatever you want to call it.

However, that is the staple which keeps most people in Linden Lab's Second Life. Open Sim is still a way off before it can be called anything close to a 'legitimate alternative to Second Life".

if you think Second Life is 'beta' software, Open sim might be consider to be in the Alpha stage.

via Virtual World Watch