Highlights –

  • The objective is to provide a collaborative environment for different industries to create open-source software and standards for an inclusive, universal, vendor-neutral, and scalable metaverse.
  • Users, networking, transactions, security and privacy, simulations and virtual worlds, digital assets, artificial intelligence, security and privacy, and legal and policy are the eight Foundational Interest Groups of OMF.

The nonprofit Linux Foundation has founded the Open Metaverse Foundation (OMF) to develop open-source software and standards for an open metaverse.

According to Royal O’Brien, executive director of the OMF, the objective is to provide a collaborative environment for different industries to create open-source software and standards for an inclusive, universal, vendor-neutral, and scalable metaverse.

Numerous open-source communities and thought-leading organizations like Open Voice Network, LF Edge and amp; Networking, Veriken, GenXP, Hyperledger Foundation, Futurewei, and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation are working as founding members to support the effort to accomplish this vision.

These participants bring years of expertise on projects including Artificial Intelligence (AI), digital assets, cloud and edge computing, identity, transactions, networking, security, simulations, and other areas.

O’Brien said, “We’re still in the early days of the vision for an open Metaverse, and we recognize that many open source communities and foundations are working on vital pieces of this iterative puzzle. While the challenges may seem daunting, I’m energized by the opportunities to collaborate with a broad, global community to bring these pieces together as we transform this vision into reality.”

The goal of the Open Metaverse Foundation is to create a robust community of developers, engineers, academics, and thought leaders who could overcome the barriers to creating the open metaverse. This can be done by using open-source software and open specifications that allow portability and interoperability for a world that is open, global, scalable, and supports immersive and interactive experiences for the benefit of any person or business.

There are numerous challenges to be addressed. Therefore, it is unclear when the work will be finished or how many versions will be created.

O’Brien stated, “It is a foundation that is focused on building open source libraries and standards for the different components that we need in the metaverse under Apache MIT type licensing or Creative Commons.”

As a result, any technology that businesses contribute to the standard will be free from patent restrictions. The technology will be accessible to anyone without any fees. The group is attempting to define the metaverse and has already started work on a glossary.

The group will work in collaboration with many other long-standing organizations. The institution will also work with the Khronos Group’s Metaverse Standards Forum, another standards body. The Open Metaverse Foundation will develop a significant amount of the standard-related code.

Foundational Interest Groups

The Open Metaverse Foundation is divided into Foundational Interest Groups (FIGs), allowing a distributed but focused decision-making framework for essential issues. FIGs offer specialized tools and platforms for finding fresh perspectives, completing tasks, and integrating new contributors.

They are made up of individuals from disciplines who are dedicated to advancing projects or scalable technologies in their area of expertise as well as making sure that the management and ownership of the code for every identifiable project component (such as a GitHub.org repository, subdirectory, API, test, issue, or PR) is taken care of.

Users, networking, transactions, security and privacy, simulations and virtual worlds, digital assets, artificial intelligence, security and privacy, and legal and policy are the eight Foundational Interest Groups of OMF.

Expanding Into Different Fields

The open metaverse is anticipated to use various currencies, including cryptocurrency. The blockchain groups may create their own standards group that contributes to existing standards organizations. However, fragmentation, which frequently isn’t any better than private technology, is not what the foundation wants.

O’Brien believes it won’t be possible for one firm to rule the metaverse and doesn’t want that to happen. The foundation is presently working to enlist the assistance of hundreds of businesses and communities.

The metaverse will need standards for things like assets and metadata structures for asset interoperability in order to achieve the goal of interoperability. Candidates in this field include glTF, a web-based 3D transmission system, and Universal Scene Description, an open-source technology that Pixar developed initially.

Avatars are another area where businesses like Ready Player Me have an advantage. Although it depends on which innovations address the most issues and gain the most traction, their technology could serve as a de facto standard.

The Linux Foundation, which was established in 2000 and has more than 1,000 members, is the leading forum for international cooperation on open data, open source software, open standards, and open hardware. The world’s infrastructure depends on initiatives from the Linux Foundation, including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and others.