Open Source Blog

Specifically, Linden Lab has announced that it is to release the code of its Viewer application to open source developers.

According to the announcement:

"The Second Life Viewer is used by subscribers or ‘Residents’ to access the virtual world’s Grid. Freely-downloadable from the Second Life website, the Viewer software enables Residents to control their in-world avatars, interact with each other via Instant Message, create content, buy and sell objects, access multimedia content and to navigate around the virtual environment. The source code for the sophisticated client software will now be made available to developers who wish to extend and enhance its functionality."

The company will only support users of the official version, but Cory Ondrejka, CTO of Linden Lab, insists the move is significant.

"Open sourcing is the most important decision we’ve made in seven years of Second Life development. While it is clearly a bold step for us to proactively decide to open source our code, it is entirely in keeping with the community-creation approach of Second Life."

"Second Life has the most creative and talented group of users ever assembled and it is time to allow them to contribute to the Viewer’s development. We will still continue Viewer development ourselves, but now the community can add its contributions, insights, and experiences as well. We don’t know exactly which projects will emerge - but this is part of the vibrancy that makes Second Life so compelling," he added.

Turns out my earlier post wasn't so off topic after all.