Exclusive interview with Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon: Part three - Open Source

Lastly, we turned our attention to open-source, third-party viewers, third-party simulators, and the original plan to open up the code to all parts of the platform.

Massively: Back in 2005, Linden Lab announced their intent to open-source the viewer and a chunk of the server-side of Second Life. Now the viewer part has happened, but aside from various infrastructure technologies that were released, built in conjunction with IBM, there's been no sign of the rest. Is that still on the active agenda?

We don't currently have any plans to open source the server code. I will say that I am a big proponent of an open development paradigm where we expose APIs and let the community create amazing new functionality. Apple has done this exceedingly well as has Facebook.

Massively: Third-party viewers: Boon or bane? Why?

Third-party viewers are a boon with a 'but...' A big 'but!' Having talented developers out there creating and integrating new functionality that Residents want and enjoy – that's a boon, for sure. The caveat, though, is that "bad actors" present challenges for us, since some can do things like enabling phishing or copying content without the rights to do so.

Cyn recently blogged on what we're doing to address what is a real concern for the community. We're developing new guidelines and policies that will outline the standards third-party viewers must meet to connect to Second Life, as well as tools to help developers and the community comply with these guidelines, including a 'viewer registry.'

Massively: Opensim's been gaining considerable traction in various quarters lately. Any thoughts?

I see the virtual world through the lens of abundance not scarcity. The virtual world is going to be enormous and pervasive. There will be space for many players with very different propositions. In fact, virtual worlds won't achieve their full potential unless there are many players developing unique offerings for a wide array of users.

My hope is that the major components of the virtual world will be inter-operable and we started to work on that last year with IBM. By necessity, we shifted our focus to more urgent projects this year, but hope to pick it up again in 2010.

And there you have it. Certainly the reversal on opening the server code will come as a disappointment to some but now, just over four years after the original announcement, it can't really come as much of a surprise that it is not going ahead as originally envisaged.

Will an abundance of platforms really be the rising tide that lifts all boats, or will it fracture a market that hasn't yet grown into a genuine abundance itself?