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Is open source giving Second Life a second life?

By | February 23, 2008, 9:32am PST

Summary: Linden Labs, whose Second Life is so cool yet so lacking in profits it’s been lampooned in an IBM ad, sent out an e-mail alert this week boasting that open source is giving the company, well, a second life.

IBM in Second LifeLinden Labs, whose Second Life is so cool yet so lacking in profits it’s been lampooned in an IBM ad, sent out an e-mail alert this week boasting that open source is giving the company, well, a second life.

The alert lists a host of open source contributions made to Second Life over the last year:

Linden Labs has also created awards for open source contributions and said its acquisition of Windlight opened up more Second Life code to open source licensing.

The criticism IBM makes in its ad is the same one many people make for open source generally — show me the money. Actual money.

Got any money to show them?

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Second Life, Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983.

Disclosure

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a journalist, writer and part-time futurist for over 30 years.

At the present moment I run only a personal blog in addition to my ZDNet open source blog.

DanaBlankenhorn.Com has the subtitle The War Against Oil. In the past I have used it to write about political history, e-commerce, personal matters, some ideas related to open source, and The World of Always On, which is the idea of using sensors, motes and RFID to turn WiFi links into platforms for applications which live in the air.

My IRA account at Schwab holds a few tech shares, most notably some Intel and Applied Materials, but there are no open source companies in it. I don’t even own any CBS stock.

Biography

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for nearly 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985. He founded the Interactive Age Daily for CMP Media, and has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age's "NetMarketing" supplement, and dozens of other publications over the years.

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There's actually more holes in your argument
Tony Agudo 26th Feb 2008
I was going to actually counter your argument piece by piece, but then I seen the word "socialist" there and decided I didn't need to.
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second life sucks they have the most unstable software i've ever
SO.CAL Guy 25th Feb 2008
second life sucks they have the most unstable software i've ever used. the client crashes every few min. and when the client is running it is so laggy you can't do much with it. and it's been a a year i think since they went open source. if i were a member of the OSC i would not even claim this crap software as a beacon of what open source can be.
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Why not?
Spiritusindomit@... 26th Feb 2008
It exemplifies everything open source is: Outdated, unmotivated, completely lacking in business sense, and socialist. They run on opengl, mysql, linux servers, they buy out other companies and make their source code open source and distribute to three operating systems officially and 5 en totem. They are everything open source stands for, even if they are gpl 2.0. Show me one open source game that looks good, and runs well. In fact, show me one open source mmo that doesn't use the gpl 2.0 dual license!

Frankly, it's more advanced than any other piece of open source technology out there. You just don't like it because of the name it gives itself in the media. And as for mysql, the vaunted open source database with massive limitations on scalability, how can you defend it when it somehow sells out to sun microsystems. How exactly does a company who is supposedly property of the people sell out at all? There's more holes to 'open source' than an expensive car driving through a bad las angeles neighbourhood.
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There's actually more holes in your argument
Tony Agudo 26th Feb 2008
I was going to actually counter your argument piece by piece, but then I seen the word "socialist" there and decided I didn't need to.
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Is open source giving Second Life a second life?
The Rifleman 25th Feb 2008
After looking at Second Life on the Web-Site, I thought so little of it, I refused to download their software. My only personal opinion is Second Life should haver died in the First Life! The "Open Source Community" should distance itself from Second Life as far as is possible! Open Source is far better than this!
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RE: Is open source giving Second Life a second life?
rwilliams@... 26th Feb 2008
Sl is the most ground breaking thing that has hit the Internet in ages.

It's in the same stage the Web was in 1994, and as is the same as the Web, it will just get better and better.

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