?By Wagner James Au
It's been several months since I introduced OStatic readers to OpenSimulator,? sometimes described as the the Apache of virtual worlds. The open source project originated as a reverse-engineered spinoff of Second Life's GPL-licensed viewer code, and continues growing and evolving far beyond it.? Especially with the recent addition of an important feature: the Hypergrid , a new core OpenSim network architecture which may well establish the HTTP protocol of the metaverse.? It's the brainchild of Cristina Videira Lopes, a Xerox PARC alum now an ICS professor at UC Irvine who also happens to be an OpenSim developer and co-founder of a metaverse development company.