Second Life: going toward an open source virtual world?
Things are moving really fast three weeks after Linden went (partially) open source.
Reverse-engineering client code users in the libsecondlife community have created the first (basic) open source Second Life server.
The libsecondlife project is an effort directed at understanding how Second Life works from a technical perspective, and extending and integrating the metaverse with the rest of the web. This includes understanding how the official Second Life client operates and how it communicates with the Second Life simulator servers, as well as development of independent third party clients and tools. With all the media buzz on Second Life I am sure the project will attract more and more talented software engineers who will quickly (perhaps in only a few months) produce a fully operational open source version of the Second Life server code.
The availability of the Second Life server code might allow service providers to deliver independent Second Life services, while current virtual land owners have expressed fears. It’s interesting how opening Second Life is fastly raising up questions about business models, not differently from what happen with open source business.
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