http://mrbichel.com

About a year ago i bought a Macbook Pro and made the change to Mac OS X from Windows, and for a while i became a true Mac-Zealot. Then as now i was enthusiastic about open source software and hell i discovered a lot of small and nifty applications for OS X. However more often than not i found that the best Open Source applications was made natively for Linux and then ported to Mac, and the best games were made natively for windows and often not ported at all. At first i was perplexed that software manufacturers did not develop for Mac. But as i became increasingly aware of Apples company structure, it wasn’t startling. In How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong Wired describes the Apple company as the Evil Genius in vivid detail. I won’t go into further detail on the article but i truly recommend you read it, especially if you are a dedicated Apple fan the article can put things in perspective.

Motivated by moral reasons i finally installed Ubuntu on my Macbook Pro. The change did not involve major complications. In fact the synaptic package manager puts more order into your computer than any drag and drop interface and gives you access to an ocean of amazing Open Source utilities making ubuntu a good choice for both the casual and the professional user. Unless you are a hardcore gamer ubuntu will most likely more than suit your needs.

This week i recieved my preordered copy of Big Buck Bunny. A video production by the Peach open movie project. The movie tells the story of a giant hearthful rabbit taking revenge against three rodents who harass him. The storyline is alright, and the general quality is stunning. However the aspiring aspect of the project is the philosophy behind.

The two open movie projects, Orange and Peach respectively have pionered the world of open movie production. The Orange movie project released Elephants Dream as the worlds first open movie and the same team supported by the Blender foundation now gave us Big Buck Bunny. Both projects are made entirely with open source graphics software such as Blender, and with all production files freely available to use however you please, under a Creative Commons license.

Traditionally you need to watch the mandatory disclaimers and copyright notices before the action starts. That is; if you are lucky enough that the region code of the dvd matches that of your drive. In short the paranoid industry spends enormous amounts of resources on lawyers and copy protection. Protectiong themselves from who? One might be right to ask.

The open movie projects are a breath of life to the industry and a prove of concept that professional movie production and animation can be accomplished with an open phillosophy utilizing only open source software.

This friday we had the last reception on the Danish National Gallery where the final two artworks were launched. I have spend some time organizing and refining the scripts which i have developed for the installations in Second Life. Jacob Sikker Remin submitted his work in Arduino and Processing for memory SLot. I have encouraged all of the artists to submit there own work as well. (more…)

If Second Life needs to evolve even further there is no way around Open Source. Therefore Linden Lab decided to release the Client Code and they are working on a release of the server code. Of course Accident Designs are looking forward to the release and we expect it will enable us to set up our own exclusive servers available for our customers.

Open source virtual worlds already exist but the release of the Second Life source code will definitely bring us closer to a 3d network accessible to the whole world as we know it with WWW.

Know more:Open Source Busybody Reporting for Duty – Official Linden Blog
Embracing the Inevitable – Official Linden Blog
http://www.uni-verse.org/
http://www.opencroquet.org/ – 2 existing open source virtual worlds