From brainchild to booming platform, 15 years is a big deal for any grid in opensim. Our second destination for this week's Safari was Kitely Welcome, to meet with Ilan Tochner and learn more about the motivations, interests, innovations, and passion that has kept the man and the grid so central to the opensim community for so long.
Lifted Pixel: 15 years of Kitely? is that right? I remember when it was new and the whole 'spawn an instance when needed' was the new hotness. I assume the grid still uses that?
Ilan Tochner: Yes it does, Lifted. Though we do offer one always-on option (the Dedicated Server option).
Thirza Ember: what do you think is the secret of your success?
Ilan Tochner: I think our attention to technical details and ability to modify OpenSim code when needed had a hand in it. Also, I've been told that my personal involvement in the day-to-day needs of the people who use our services helped :-)
We met on the Welcome sim which is always open on Kitely. The region works as your Home sim if you don't rent on Kitely but have an avatar there. It's landscaped in a pleasant contemporary/classic style and the various buildings house useful information about places to visit, the pricing structure of the grid, items from the Marketplace, a dance floor, and an auditorium which is where we go together for our chat. The questions came thick and fast!
Lifted Pixel: is the Kitely market still running strongly?
Ilan Tochner: Yes, Kitely Market is still making tens of deliveries to the Hypergrid each day (each with between 1 and 10 items that our shopping cart allows).
Thirza Ember: Ilan, obviously Kitely is a big grid with lots of stuff going on, I wonder, how important do you think Hypergridding is to the universe of opensim, and to Kitely?
Ilan Tochner: I think the existence of the Hypergrid is what keeps OpenSim relevant. It's this truly open and decentralized metaverse aspect that makes it stand out.
Lifted Pixel: there's no other platforms like this STILL
Ayla Alvarez: maybe there never well be, lifted
Tosha Tyran: yes, I totally agree
James Atlloud: It seems more 'metaverse' than any else at this time.
Lifted Pixel: you would think with all the attention on 'metaverse' the last few years, someone with money and power would find opensim tech and be like oh let's blow this up! let's modernize this!
Tosha Tyran: I would not dare to predict the future though... who had thought 20 years ago things like today would be possible
Lifted Pixel: i wouldn't have thought libopenmetaverse would still be kicking ass in 2023
Ilan Tochner: A lot of projects promise to build a decentralized metaverse but non have ever gotten close to what OpenSim has had for many years now. I believe that the project Oren and I are working on will last much longer than 15 years.
 |
| Ilan Tochner |
Forest Azure: i know nothing about Kitely, really... is it different from other grids?
Ilan Tochner: There are multiple things that make us stand out Forest
Lavia Lavine: I started out in Open Sim in Kitely on a very different avatar with a very different story line....but I love what I'm doing now.
Luna Lunaria: I like being on Kitely - tremendously stable
James Atlloud: I chose Kitely because it has always felt reliable. Not a 'yo-yo' grid!
Ayla Alvarez: Mike Lorrey teaches scripting in Kitely and does a great job at it...and blender too...I often come here for his tutor sessions twice weekly
Forest Azure: but what makes it special?
Ilan Tochner: Oren my business partner is one of the OpenSim core developers and we've made a lot of contributions to OpenSim code. We also have hundreds of proprietary patches that make our version of OpenSim more stable and perform better than regular OpenSim. Those technical improvements add up which you can easily experience for yourself when you visit Kitely worlds. A lot less lag, lower rezz times, etc.
 |
| Browse some items available in Kitely, right here on the Welcome region |
Forest Azure: is it commercial?
Ilan Tochner: Kitely is a commercial service provider. We offer several services: Kitely grid (which we're in now) Kitely Market (which delivers to all OpenSim grids that don't block it) And Kitely Organizations, which is a service that is designed for schools and universities that need to have more control over their users, not just their worlds. The on-demand aspect of our worlds means that (a) we don't waste electricity running empty regions and (b) that we can afford to give active worlds a lot more server resources than we could if we had to pay for them 24/7 even when they aren't really in use. The only downside is if you try to enter a world that isn't currently online then the TP will fail, you'll get a message that the world is starting and you'll be automatically teleported to that world after a few seconds (usually) up to a few minutes (only for complex worlds) once the world is active.
Ayla Alvarez: doesn't Amazon have scalable servers? they sort of expand and contract according to your needs...
Ilan Tochner: Our tech automatically starts up new OpenSim instances on existing (or new) servers on demand. It's all automatic to optimize resource usage and manage costs so we don't have to cram a lor of running regions on the same server to keep our prices low.
James Atlloud: My region spins up in just a few seconds.
Ilan Tochner: If you try to TP into an offline world from outside Kitely then you get TP-ed to a transfer station in which your avatar waits while the world starts. Note that this transfer station will only be shared with other people heading towards the same world. Kitely is the only OpenSim grids that starts up servers on demand
Unadecal Arado: is that technology proprietary to Kitely?
Ilan Tochner: It is, Unadecal and it's a lot more complicated than it sounds. Starting up servers on AWS is easy. But getting OpenSim to start up quickly and have everything work flawlessly and quickly enough for people to not log out while they wait is hard.
Lifted Pixel: i mean you would have the server modified to hear an incoming TP and do the needful to boot the right sever if it's not online and then direct the agent there, and I'm sure opensim is already spagetty code
Ilan Tochner: It's more than that Lifted. If you only did that things would take a LOT longer than they take on Kitely
Unadecal Arado: well, as a hosting provider I can see big pros and big cons with the sim-on-demand philosophy, but it is what works for Kitely and they have developed it for years. Us mere mortals are stuck having to manage resources in a more traditional way :)
Ilan Tochner: OpenSim code isn't great. Some parts are better than others
 |
| Ilan at the center of all the questions |
Thirza Ember: where are your servers? I'm nosey, always curious where in the RL world we have landed
Ilan Tochner: We host all our servers on AWS (Amazon Web Services) datacenter in California.
Lifted Pixel: sunny California!
Ayla Alvarez: I hate the idea of financing Jeff Bezos but he does make a nice product
Thirza Ember: surf is definitely up... Ilan, I'm also curious if you get a lot of people migrating out of SL to Kitely
Ilan Tochner: It depends Thirza, by internet standards the entire OpenSim community of tens to hundreds of thousands of active users is tiny. We get a lot by OpenSim standards but not by internet standards.
Thirza Ember: is this a 24/7 job, Ilan? I can imagine it can become wholly consuming sometimes
Ilan Tochner: It can be at time Thirza. It depends on the season. There are a lot less active people in OpenSim during summer vacation.
Lifted Pixel: Kitely is a full time job for you though yes?
Ilan Tochner: yes, it is what pays for my families bills (my wife works as well, but this is my sole source of personal income).
James Atlloud: Ilan, what do you think needs more attention - opensim viewers or servers?
Ilan Tochner: That's a hard comparison. The viewer code is a mess and a lot bigger but it also does more. The OpenSim codebase could eb improved but relatively speaking it's in better shape. It's important to remember that OpenSim hasn't had full time developers working on it for years. It owes a lot to the people who continue volunteering their time to maintain and update it.
Lifted Pixel: the viewer issue is more than just code... UX is importantfirestorm and the official sl client are a nightmare if you're new
Lucy Afarensis: Nightmare if you are old
Ilan Tochner: If you compare the SL-derived viewers UI and that of other virtual world platforms you'll see how much more Firestorm does. That is both good (options) but bad (hard to understand and learn) I think in the end you need less options or to hide them much better by automating things so that users don't need to mess with it so much. But that hurts professional users so there is a tradeoff
Unadecal Arado: agreed Ilan
Thirza Ember: Ilan, you have said of course that Kitely is your job, I wonder, apart from the income, what would you say is the best thing you have gotten out of virtual worlds, and of course Kitely in particular?
Ilan Tochner: I think my understanding of what real people will want from the metaverse - the VR/AR one that many science fiction books describe and many startup founders want to build. There is a big difference between what VCs think is a good idea and what people who actually use VWs think is a good idea. We're working on a new project that leverages those insights. Something in addition to Kitely, not instead of it. Not a new virtual world, something different
 |
| Lifted Pixel |
Lifted Pixel: people are obsessed with HMD first virtual worlds when the truth is people don't really like HMDs because you can't alt tab out of a headset so OS/SL won't go anywhere even when VR is more mainstream
Luna Lunaria: pictures me throwing a headset lol
Ayla Alvarez: I can't imagine using a head set, I spend too much time in-world to have that thing on my head
Ilan Tochner: Headsets need to improve a lot for them to become commonplace. Even Apple's Vision Pro is still too bulky
James Atlloud: /me likes his headset - but then he uses Mouselook as a rule in opensim
 |
| When not wearing a headset, James makes do with an elephant. |
Thirza Ember: Another question Ilan, if you could go back - what - 18 years ! and give some advice to the Ilan who was just starting out with Kitely grid, what advice would it be?
Ilan Tochner: I'd sit myself down for a few days and educate me on what is and isn't a good idea and how best to go about doing things relating to VWs. We've had our share of mistakes over the years. Mistakes are the best way to learn. They allow you to test hypotheses not correct course. If you don't try new stuff and see how you misunderstood the subject then you're just doing what everyone else is already doing. And then what's the point. You just have to keep in mind that smart people make mistakes all the time and be honest enough with yourself to catch yourself doing something unoptimal and correct course in time
James Atlloud: Looking at the world map it seems many Kitely land owners have isolated regions, but there are still people with joined regions. Something I've always enjoyed from SL was just exploring from place to place, but that model seems to be going away.
Ilan Tochner: Kitely worlds are between 1 and 64 regions in size. No two worlds are adjacent. So if you see continuous land on the world map then you're looking at a single big world.
Lucy Afarensis: It can be a problem having neighbors in opensim
Thirza Ember: Ilan - a big THANK YOU for taking the time out of your day for us, and here's wishing Kitely at least 15 more years of growth and success. I learned a lot today... was so nice being with you all
Lucy Afarensis: Yes, enjoyed it, been fun.
Tosha Tyran: thanks Ilan, thanks Thirza and all the others that have made this round really special again
Yara Eild: Thank you. It was very interesting, bye bye
Lifted Pixel: one of the best parts of opensim is the people that are in charge and run all the stuff like to come and chat with the commoners ... thanks for the inside info :D
James Atlloud: Thank you Ilan and all the Kitely team. It feels like home.
Ilan Tochner: My pleasure. Feel free to join our weekly Kitely community meetings every day at 1pm PST here in the Kitely Welcome Center
Ilan Tochner: Does anyone have anything else they wish to ask me?
Beth Ghostraven: I need to figure out how to sell my things on Kitely, Luna gave me some tips
Ilan Tochner: Beth, start with this: https://www.kitely.com/virtual-world-news/2013/05/11/kitely-market-is-now-open-to-merchants/
Beth Ghostraven: That's helpful, thank you, Heading for a sandbox
Angelic Kisses: Have a great evening everyone
Lifted Pixel: hope everyone has a great rest of the day! see y'all next week
Ilan Tochner: Thank you Thirza for organizing this. Bye everyone
HG Address: grid.kitely.com:8002:Kitely Welcome Center
Good timing for this event - 15 years - wow. Thanks Thirza.
ReplyDelete