The big news on the street is that Linden Labs bought both OnRez and XStreetSL -- the two online shopping experiences for Phil's place. Samara at Phil's will have one new prim for her 512 soon as OnRez will be closing down and her OnRez box can be deleted.
So what does this have to do with Openlife? Maybe not much. Maybe a lot. People are wondering if Linden Labs might buy out Openlife to stop any future competition. Is this a possibility? Hard to say. Would it be a bad thing? For all the folks coming to Openlife to get away from "Linden control" it certainly would be.
If we spin out some possible scenarios we see that this certainly could happen. We have no TOS in Openlife -- a topic I covered with way too much text and an absence of pretty pictures some time ago. The TOS question is being revisited on the blogs and forums. So, there is no "I promise not to sell out" clause anywhere (wink). People who have purchased clusters at a fair number of dollars are the ones with the most to lose of course. And if Linden Labs decided to make Openlife just like SL(R) -- not a stretch by any means -- they could reinforce those nasty prim size limits. If they did that most all of my builds might fall apart or disappear. So content creators could at risk also.
We have no reason to believe a buyout is in the future. We also have no reason to believe it is not. Anything can happen and small companies get swallowed up by big ones every day. In some cases that was the whole point of making the small company in the first place :D
Some folks are a bit trepidacious with this news following on the heels of the 16.2 viewer mandate and the locking down of the grid from Second Inventory. Add to that the vicious personal attacks still going on in the official forums and the atmosphere is a bit grim. Some people still have faith it will all work out -- and it certainly may.
But again, there are no guarantees -- or TOS.
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5 comments:
Hmmm.. LL buying out 3DX. Not impossible but not needed either.
OpenLife is not positioned to be a threat just yet. If you think about it there are only a handful that went full time at OLG and left SL totally behind.
If LL bought OLG it would need to by LCO next. LCO is way more stable and together at this point in time compared to OLG (including having a TOS and mission that is clear). If OLG closed many would just go there.
BUT, if you had told me last week that LL would buy out both SLX and ONRez I would have given you the stink eye. One would have been possible to me... both, unbelievable.
Well I didn't say "tomorrow" :D I just said possible. I don't think LL would consider any world without currency a real threat. And while LCO does have a lot of things going for it as you say, it is still awfully small and empty.
But what about in July when the mini sim rates go up to full price? (I hope I have that date correct -- haven't been paying much attention really. )
And yes, I read some other amazed folks this morning. It does make sense to buy both and close one, but as someone else mentioned another group could come in and try to be a competitor. With the current economy though, it would be tough.
And I continue to be amazed today how many people don't even know what a TOS is. ?!?!?!?!?!?
Oh well.
Watch for APEZ to be an up and coming competitor to take the place of OnRez and XStreet. :)
And I know you didn't mean tommorow lol. The thing is the way things are going today with lack of communication and a firm foundation (TOS) it won't take long before another grid stands up that offers that (LCO does actually but had it's drama recently) and people will migrate. The thing that keeps OLG up now is the land prices. Also the community spirit. That can foster elsewhere though. No gaurantees... as you said. ;)
I have been wondering for a while whether sites like OnRez and XStreetSL might have started to sell content to the opensim worlds. I believe it would have been a win-win scenario since they were in condition to bypass the current lack of currency. Now I guess this is never going to happen and the threat of serious competition for SL have been pushed away
I think the scripting issues is what was holding back XStreet or ONRez before, Wildstar. So much doesn't work with OpenSim yet and few of the commercial grids have real devs running them that can fix what is needed.
Apez actually has a presence in Legend City right now. They offer most if not all of the features XStreet and OnRez offer, they have just been fairly unknown up until now except for their vendors. I have used them a long time so they are not fly by night. So, the race is not over just yet.. it just got a new strong competitor. :D
My only concern is for an opt in or out system. For instance, perms are pretty tight in Legend City and they have a strong DMCA policy so I would be inclined to let my stuff be delivered there. I may not feel the same about some of the others though.
But, at least they are looking at the future. Someone else may come along too, we really have no clue at this time.
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