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OpenSimulator is a 3D Application Server. It can be used to create a 3D Virtual World (ala Second Life(tm)), and includes facilities for creating custom avatars, chatting with others in the environment, building 3D content in world, and creating complex 3D applications in world. OpenSimulator can also be extended via loadable modules or web service interfaces to build more custom 3D Applications. OpenSimulator is released under a BSD License, making it both open source, and commercially friendly to embed in products.

The Virtual Worlds Roadmap seeks to increase the success rate of virtual world-based ventures and the productivity of investment through the publication and distribution of state-of-the-art thinking and analysis on Visions of what value virtual world technology will bring to specific applications Technical and business barriers to achieving that value Case studies on successes to date A roadmap and timeline for achieving mass adoption of specific applications. The Virtual Worlds Roadmap is a commons-based peer production effort. Everyone is invited to take part by commenting on published drafts, volunteering as an author or working group participant, and attending workshops.

The IRS soon may keep a closer watch on the thousands, if not millions, of small firms and the self-employed that have sprouted up in virtual worlds.

System and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space

Project Wonderland is a 100% Java and open source toolkit for creating collaborative 3D virtual worlds. Within those worlds, users can communicate with high-fidelity, immersive audio, share live desktop applications and documents and conduct real business. Wonderland is completely extensible; developers and graphic artists can extend its functionality to create entire new worlds and new features in existing worlds.

Croquet is a powerful open source software technology that, in the form of the Croquet Software Developer's Kit (Croquet SDK), can be used by experienced software developers to create and deploy deeply collaborative multi-user online vitual world applications on and across multiple operating systems and devices. Derived from Squeak, the Croquet system features a peer-based messaging protocol that dramatically reduces the need for server infrastructures to support virtual world deployment and makes it easy for software developers to create deeply collaborative applications. Cobalt is a National Science Foundation-sponsored effort to develop an open source virtual world browser and authoring toolkit application based on the Croquet technology.

Virtual worlds are governed not only by the source code used to develop the world, but also by civil code documents that establish a governance structure that constrains the interactions of users of the virtual world and regulates relationships among stakeholders of the virtual world. While previous research has examined specific aspects of these documents, this paper analyzes these governing documents as a totality. By examining the totality of and the interplay among the governing documents of a number of established social worlds, this paper seeks to discover insights that can prove valuable both for scholarly understanding of social world governance and for the various stakeholders of social worlds. Following this analysis, the paper offers a set of policy recommendations and considerations to facilitate the development of governing documents that more democratically and equally serve the needs and rights of all stakeholders in virtual worlds. The paper concludes that virtual worlds and their governing documents are boundary objects with agency, in that they are the result of interactions among stakeholder groups and in turn reshape the relationships among those stakeholder groups.

A course in information studies was partly held in the virtual world of Second Life. Second Life was used as a platform to deliver lectures and as a place for organizing group assignments and having discussions. Students' opinions about Second Life were studied and compared to their opinions about more traditional methods in education. The results show a lower threshold for participation in lectures. According to the students, Second Life should not replace face-to-face education, but it could serve as an excellent addition to other more traditional methods and platforms used in education. The students also considered that lectures held in Second Life were much more "fun" than those using other methods. This particular aspect, and its effect on learning outcomes, requires further research. This research demonstrates that Second Life has potential as a learning environment in distance education.

Lively, for all its promise appears to be the shortest-lived entry thus far in launched commercial virtual environments. If you dumb something down far enough, very few people will actually want to use it. We're not ragging on Lively here. Instead, we're aiming to learn from its principles and performance. Let's introduce a new principle called necessary complexity.

The Wonderland Modules Incubator project is a sandbox where developers can develop extensions to Wonderland in the form of modules. Incubator projects are not part of the core Wonderland code, but are experimental extensions.

This article explores relationships between players and the owners of the massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) they inhabit. Much of the language around these large scale communities currently focuses on "management." Viewing these complex social systems as essentially mechanical in nature has led to a preoccupation with creating or retrofitting systems which can be constantly monitored, tuned, regulated, and controlled. Though the language often turns to things like "cheating," "griefing," and "disruption of the magic circle," the underlying anxiety about unruliness, transgressiveness, and the emergent nature of these spaces as sites of culture needs to be more fully addressed, as well as the early formulations of the "imagined player" that shape the design process. Players are central productive agents in game culture and more progressive models are needed for understanding and integrating their work in these spaces. Drawing on the long tradition of participatory design this piece explores some alternative frameworks for understanding the designer/player relationship are proposed.

A Declaration of Virtual World Policy made by representatives of law, industry, and academia, assembled in full and free convention as the first Synthetic Worlds Congress.