A second life for 'Second Life' with open source?

In the aftermath of the hype over the virtual world, a tiny group of developers presses on with building its Linux presence.

By Howard Wen, LinuxWorld.com, 10/31/07

Until recently, the business news media fawned over the Second Life online virtual world. Stories fixated on Second Life "residents" who got rich brokering virtual real estate, or on the numerous corporations and consumer brands rushing to claim their presence within it (by building virtual kiosk centers or "islands"). Virtual world hype trumps open source hype, so little virtual ink has gone into discussing the open source initiative that Linden Lab, the company behind the virtual world, established to further its development.

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One of these projects is the Linux version of the Second Life client, the viewer application that runs on the resident's computer and lets the resident interact with the graphical environments of the virtual world. Ever since its release, the Linux client has remained in constant development by an informal team, usually three people. Their work could directly benefit the open source and Linux community beyond Second Life, in the aftermath of the hype.

Linden Lab declined a request for current figures on the number of people using the Linux client. Nonetheless, Jason Giglio, a developer and Second Life resident who actively works on the client, says he heard through the proverbial grapevine that about 5% of registered Second Life residents, or about 10,000 people, visit Second Life with the Linux client. Giglio does client code on a volunteer basis, but it is work related: He says he earns a living managing virtual land and doing contract programming gigs in Second Life.

Although the Linux population in Second Life is small, the official maintainer and lead developer of the client, who goes by the handle "Tofu Linden," likes to describe them as "amazingly involved and passionate." Tofu is an employee at Linden Lab and works on the Linux client as part of his job. The group has helped him and his volunteer developers, like Giglio, deal with vexing technical issues. Some of their work has helped not only the Linux Second Life client but also the other platform versions.

CommentsAdd to the discussion | Register | Learn about community

LWN comment from Rob Lanphier By dmarti on November 5, 2007, 11:38 am Reply | Read entire comment Linden Lab's Rob Lanphier writes, Hi, I work at Linden Lab (about me). Here's the scoop. Since we're the licensors rather than the licensees, and we haven't incorporated...

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