[sldev] Why Linden Labs needs to let the community extend the client without asking for their IP

[Tim Shephard]

Since this thread has become high volume in such a short period of
time, I've created a wiki page here:

https://wiki.secondlife.com/w/index.php?title=Plugin_closed_source&action=edit

thx,

Tim.

On 4/6/07, Ettore Pasquini <ettore_pasquini at 3dconnexion.com> wrote:
> On 4/6/07 5:54 PM, "Tim Shephard" <tshephard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > a) LL is suffering from scalability issues
>
> How is this related to the plugin API "problem" you mentioned earlier?
>
> > b) LL is falling behind in the feature races as competitors gather
>
> Who are the competitors?
>
> > c) SL has a large developer community that could create the features LL is not
> > d) That developer community needs realistic incentive to extend the client
>
> Opening the sources of the viewer was really a major step, it just doesn't
> happen so frequently. This move gave a tremendous and "realistic" incentive
> to extend the client already.
>
> >>> So: open up that plugin API.    Talk clearly and consistently about
> >>> how we can extend the client and maintain our own closed source.
>
> Hmm, closed source plugins for an open source app... Doesn't that sound
> weird, at best? If you really want it to be approved by LL and the
> community, you really need to explain what advantages a closed source plugin
> architecture would bring over an open source one. And write it of course.
>
> Ettore
>
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