IBM and Linden Lab Officially Announce OpenSIM Interoperability

IBM and Linden Lab announced today that their research teams had teleported avatars from the Second Life Preview Grid into a virtual world running on an OpenSim server. It doesn't seem significantly different from the limited interoperability achieved between OpenSim and Second Life last month (there's still no transfer of assets and inventory items), but it's another step towards promoting larger interoperability between Second Life and other virtual worlds.

"In fact, Linden Lab will start an Open Grid Public Beta in July, making the Second Life Preview Grid available with Open Grid Protocol support for login and teleport," explained Hamilton Linden on the company blog. "This first phase of the Open Grid Public Beta is designed for developers who want to test OpenSim interoperability with Second Life. IBM will contribute back to the community the enhancements it made to the OpenSim source code to support the Open Grid Protocol."

For IBM and Linden Lab, though, it's a move for security in the future. IBM's Colin Parris points out to the Wall Street Journal that interoperability of assets and services is a selling point for clients. A project begun in Second Life can be completed or extended in an OpenSim world.

For Linden, it's another way to extend the virtual world's  reach.

"Linden Lab sees interoperability as essential for virtual worlds to reach their full potential," explained Hamilton Linden. "In addition, interoperability will enhance Resident experience and the new architecture will improve scalability and stability."