The Connect Between Open Source And The Metaverse

This article looks at the relationship between the metaverse and open source. It outlines a few key areas where open source is playing a pivotal role in realising the full potential of the metaverse. It also explores the opportunity that this iteration of the internet and associated virtual spaces presents to reinvent open source

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The metaverse is loosely defined as “a combination of the virtual reality and mixed reality worlds accessed through a browser or a headset, which allows people to have real time interactions and experiences across distance.” It is generating a lot of attention now, as it matures beyond its previous predominant realm of gaming into its much broader field of application as a place not only to play but also to socialise and work.

Both ‘metaverse’ and ‘open source’ are catch-all phrases in their relative fields, covering everything from technology and communities, to markets, methodologies, and more.

A considerable number of components of the metaverse are being developed as open source projects, according to open source principles—for example, self-sovereign identity (SSI) and smart contracts, both of which are built on blockchain technology.

Interoperability and connectedness

One of the reasons the internet has been so lucrative and transformative is because of how it was created. Throughout the 1960s to 1990s, the foundation of today’s internet was built through a variety of consortiums and informal working groups composed of government research labs, public universities, and independent technologists. These usually not-for-profit collectives typically focused on establishing open standards that would help them share information from one server to another (i.e., messages or files), and in doing so make it easier to collaborate on future technologies, projects, and ideas.