The Impact of NMC's Collaboration With SUN on Second Life

Fascinating analysis from Dusan Writer's blog on the impact on SL education of NMC's partnership with SUN: "Education Second Life’s Killer App? Not so fast ... A shot across the bow at Second Life from the largest group representing educators in Second Life - the New Media Consortium, which has announced a collaboration with Sun Microsystems to launch an Open Worlds project whose characteristics take aim at issues with Second Life. Namely that is is not:

* Standards-based
* Open source
* Secure
* Protective of intellectual property

With over 400 universities in Second Life, many of them members of the NMC, and with new universities turning to it for advice, services, and tools, this is a serious blow to Second Life. The Lindens have been claiming that the failed rush of brands to Second Life was too much too soon, and that the real value of Second Life would be seen in the short term in the domains of education and business collaboration.
In launching the Open Virtual Worlds project, the NMC will build on its extensive presence in Second Life and add to the services it offers educational institutions with a suite of services aimed at those who need a secure extensible platform or simply prefer an open solution. Open Virtual Worlds will be a new project housed within NMC Virtual Worlds, along with its extensive Second Life project. "The NMC remains deeply committed to the Second Life platform, and plans to continue to offer comprehensive services for it for the long term. At the same time, we believe that Sun’s open-source platforms will meet the needs that many institutions have for higher levels of security, clear ownership of intellectual property, and portability. Adding a suite of open-content, open-source services will add an important dimension to NMC Virtual Worlds that we hope will help members continue to explore the evolving range of options unfolding in the virtual world arena. This might, however, be more to assure those currently invested in the platform that they won’t be abandoned (yet). But what university is going to turn to the NMC and not respond positively to help setting up on a platform that offers what the Sun platform is offering, with some assurances that Project Wonderland was originally developed specifically for education, rather than a grid that was developed for, um, entertainment, doesn’t offer portability or security, and whose IP protection is laughable? Attrition can be slow or fast, or it can happen so quickly you don’t notice that the grid is empty. Second Life needs to accelerate communications and planning around the very issues that residents have been harping about for months if not years.