@Soft Linden - apparently it's not just the 'one guy' - it looks like this list is full of people who only want the viewer open sourced so they can 'free' intellectual property.
I emphasise that it's your salary that is being paid by the likes of me owning Sims, not ideological 'copyright is theft' zealots. Linden Lab really need to put the foot down with this. Now. A. Have the guts to stop apologising for Linden Lab's decisions. You own the ballpark. Apple has a great developer program but that doesn't mean that it squirmed to its users because XCode 3.2 beta (iPad capable) wasn't available the moment Steve Jobs announced the iPad. B. Remove the Open Source licence from the viewer with immediate effect. The volume of 'copyright is theft' zealots on this list should convince you that continuing as open source will be a company-threatening mistake. c. Create an 'iPhone' like walled garden. There are numerous ways you could do this, for example required all connection to the grid to operate via a licensed closed-source version of libsl which uses some form of public/private key to identify itself. Or why not strip back the viewer so it's analogous to the iPhone hardware and licence 'applet' development for it? Apple has shown that it's perfectly possible to have a thriving developer community based around extension to an existing tightly controlled platform. Personally I'd happily swap the 'choice' of different Open Source viewers for an 'applet store' on the Second Life website where I could go and download (even pay for) a choice, of say, enhanced inventory management tools which would slot right into the official Linden Viewer. Actually I'd even look at developing myself - a dollar or two per download over a potential half a million use market could be quite useful :-) Certainly that's a much more interesting development model than just downloading the source and making yet another derivative viewer. In fact I'd suggest you'd get *more* innovation because an applet model would enable developers to individually focus on and perfect just one aspect of the interface/functionality that interested them. When the Lab open sourced the viewer a couple of years ago that would have looked like the best opportunity for harnessing community-driven development because it was really the only proven option. You now have other models before you which could work better, without putting the means to 'liberate content' directly into the hands of Hax and his ilk. Just because content might still be stolen by other means you are under no obligation to throw up your hands and give him (and others) the means to do so on a plate. _______________________________________________ Policies and (un)subscribe information available here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges
