From my first wandering in SecondLife, I was always somewhat leery of the platform’s dependency on centralized arrays of servers and the inability to peer into the server code. OpenSim is an important step in decentralizing SL servers allowing users to host their own simulation or link to other nodes to create broader collaborative environments using services like OSGrid, Central Grid, and OpenLifeGrid.
Haven’t had a whole lot of luck managing permissions on objects and have had some wonky physics engine issues, but at 0.5 Beta – there is significant potential in OpenSim. Have my OpenSim on the university LAN, so no listing with aforementioned directories as of yet. Hope to have the bugs worked out in the coming months and start listing my OpenSim regions.