Is Second Life worth saving?

Evidently, while we in Digital Worlds have been busy with our final projects, trouble has been brewing in Second Life.

Does anyone remember a few weeks ago when we logged in to Second Life and were greeted with a new Terms of Service (ToS) to agree to? Turns out that Linden Lab had altered their ToS to become more restrictive as to how others use their copyrighted material (their logo, icons, etc.). You can read what were some of the changes here, as well what are some of their legal ramifications.

To make a long story short, Linden Lab has decided to restrict any kind of usage of their copyrighted material to only that usage which they find VERY favorable. Since it's not possible to enforce this kind of preferential usage of copyrighted material through trademark and copyright law, Linden has taken the audacious step of circumventing copyright law by making these restrictions on their copyright as part of their contract with the user (the ToS).

Now, most of the users out there in Second Life (myself included) are not really affected by this. However, there are some who are irate as to the situation and have gone to strike the use of Second Life (don't worry, the strike's over by now).

In light of all of the other problems that have been plaguing Second Life, from banks running away with people's money to companies leaving Second Life for greener pastures, pissing off your core audience is not something that Linden Lab wants to do. After all, these people give you, in essence, free publicity by blogging about their second lives. The last thing Linden Lab needs is more bad publicity.

As such, a question needs to be asked that I think we all should answer: Is Second Life worth saving?

Now, don't get me wrong. I believe there is a bright future in virtual environments and I think that they will become more interconnected with our lives. But, will it be in the form of Second Life? Why should it be?

Second Life is limited environment for programmers to work with. For example, from my experience in this course, programming in Linden Script has been a challenge, to say the least. Not because Linden Script is hard to understand. But rather, it is very limited in what one can "officially" achieve in Linden Script. And unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to expand on the language, as it is still closed-source. Add to this Linden's willingness to take advantage of the open-source community, at the cost of providing almost no feedback this community politely asks for it, as well as their other recent problems and I start thinking that something's rotten in the state of Linden. Maybe those companies are seeing the beginning of the end and have decided to abandon ship.

Or maybe not. Maybe the recent change in the ToS was really necessary due to the amount of increased competition Second Life's been getting from other open-source virtual environments. And maybe they'll finally finish their Mono upgrade of Linden Script and then become fully open-source. And maybe Linden Lab will create new ways to appear lucrative and companies will flock once more to Second Life where they'll live happily ever after.

It seems the time is coming when Linden Lab, and us as users of Second Life, must decide whether we want Second Life to grow and expand, or not. Regardless of the outcome, I think Second Life has shown how Linden Lab has been a pioneer in brining virtual environment to the masses, and that there is a future in virtual environments. Let's just hope that they're not another Netscape.