Vivox's Voice Not on Open-Source Second Life Servers, But Still an Option

Vivox, makers of the voice client integrated into Second Life, say they’re seeing over 330,000 Second Life accounts using voice for an average of 70,000 conversations per day. Put together, that reaches 20% of Skype’s traffic in daily use. However, as Linden Lab prepares to provide an open source version of its server software, Vivox' voice, which runs as a separate executable, won't be automatically available without some form of certification from Linden Lab. "Moving forward, if you're running on an open source server, it won't work," said Dave Verratti, Director of Product Management. "We're willing to work with anyone, though, to get it out there." 

While the introduction of voice to Second Life met with some complaints, Clay Hillhouse, Field Applications Engineer, said that the company has ramped up over the last few weeks, addressing technical issues that came from the large jump in users, from 10,000 to 80,000.

At the Austin Game Developer's Conference Hillhouse showed off a demonstration of Vivox in Second Life, letting us chat in crystal clear voice with his co-worker in Boston. When I expressed surprise at how much clearer the voice was there than in conferences in-world, Hillhouse pointed out that one person with a bad connection could make the whole experience go poorly.

"But I haven't had one meeting with the rest of the guys at the company that wasn't Second Life," he said.

Hillhouse showed off a Vivox phone booth in Second Life as well that allowed for PSTN-in/PSTN-out communication, letting users call from Second Life to the real world or vice versa, giving more options for conducting business in Second Life. However, the company is still trying to determine how to monetize the service without making the hosts fit the bill for all the calls.

Likewise, Hillhouse said Vivox is interested in bringing its technology to other virtual worlds and is currently talking to several companies.

Currently, the security options for voice include private chat, setting boundaries on a parcel of land, and monitoring who's listening in an included window. But that's not enough for many enterprise users. The system is still being run on Linden's servers and is potentially open to prying eyes. With potential integration into the open sourced Second Life and other options on the Linden-run servers as well, Vivox is looking to create more secure areas.

"There are lots of things we can do to create private spaces and lock them down that even the Lindens don't have access to," said Verratti. However those options are still in the future.

Vivox has been integrated in other ways with games like EVE Online and Dungeons and Dragons [Insider], and Varretti says the company is interested in expanding in different ways inside of Second Life.

"We've worked with the Electric Sheep Company for a while now," he said. "There are lots of interesting things in the open source project that could come up. One aspect would be recording voice on the server to the client, on a track by track basis for different speakers. There are also some interesting things coming with PSTN. I'm not confirming anything, but it's safe to assume that at some point you'll be able to give your avatar a phone number that others can call into the world with."

Comments

[Sean FitzGerald]

I'm confused.

I'm not sure whether it's what Dave Verratti said, or how you've written it (no offense), but at various points in this post he seems to have said:

1) Voice won't be integrated into the open source server.
2) Voice will be integrated into the open source server.
3) Voice "won't be automatically available without some form of certification from Linden Lab."
4) Voice may be integrated and be able to run on independent servers, but only after working with entities unknown.

Could you please clarify as this has an impact on the likelihood of the evolution of an independent, fully-featured SL-style grid.

Option 3) seems to fit in with Linden Lab's evolving business model where they hope to leverage their first mover advantage and charge people to connect independent grids to the Second Life grid (the one with the greatest population and user-generated content) and also to access centralised services like the assets database and the economy.

Until reading your post I've felt that Linden Lab have been kidding themselves if they don't think that the minute they open-source the server software that a new ecology of independent grids and independent hosting services won't spring up and connect to each other via a new set of protocols (like the ones currently being developed by the OpenSim project).

But if Option 3) is the plan then independent grids won't have permission to use voice, a feature I am very interested in, and I think critical to educational and business uses.

[Joey Seiler]

Sure, Sean. My understanding from talking to Dave and Clay is that this is an evolving strategy, so it could change. Right now the Vivox voice integration runs as a separate executable from the rest of the program, so it's easy to not package that in with the open source. It sounds like whatever licensing agreement Linden Lab and Vivox have (and this is speculation on my part) doesn't include repackaging the voice software.

So right now, it sounds like voice will not be automatically integrated with the open sourced version of Second Life. Vivox, however, is interested in working with individuals or groups interested in including it on their grids. So you could potentially use it directly from Vivox. The certification sounded like it would come through a process of working with Linden Lab to develop a private server and getting your access to Vivox through Linden.

I'll try and follow up with Vivox today and see if I can get a step-by-step explanation of how it will work.

[Joey Seiler]

Look for a follow up with Vivox VP Monty Sharma tomorrow or Friday along with some insight from Linden. For now, Vivox Director of Marketing Jennifer Almeida had this to say:

In the meantime, I can tell you simply that we are interested in working with the open source grids. We are working with Linden to do this. There is complexity around how and when we can make software available to the community and how to deal with managing the cost of the voice traffic.

Right now Linden covers those costs for all users initially the traffic from open sims would hit our servers so we would need to find ways to deal with it. We will work with Linden to try and simplify the process.

[Sean FitzGerald]

Thanks for the clarification Joey, and I look forward to hearing more.

It still sounds like voice will be an impediment to a fully independent SL-style grid if it has to be approved by Linden Lab.

I can understand Vivox's concerns - they have to pay for traffic through their servers.

My question would be: "Would they be willing to deal directly with companies that are setting up hosting services outside of Linden Lab's control?"

If not, I think they will be shooting themselves in the foot as I reckon within a year or two of open-sourcing the server software there will be an independent grid that is outside of Linden Lab's control, and if Vivox don't offer to service this 'competition' then that leaves the door open for someone else to step in.

My belief in the desire for an independent grid outside of Linden Lab's control comes from the number of people I have seen who've said they want that, including many large educational institutions as well as businesses who aren't comfortable with the security issues that arise from hosting VW's on Linden Lab's servers.

And while spatialised voice is nice, from what I've seen organisations aren't going to use the lack of it from stopping them hosting their own independent grids. And they can always go back to 3rd party voip tools like TeamSpeak if necessary.

I'd be curious to see if Vivox gets that message. ;-)