[sldev] Opening the server source?

[Able Whitman]

I'm sorry, but the idea of encouraging the Balkanization of the grid economy
is just plain silly. Certainly, independent grids could have their own
isolated economies. But restricting access to the main grid's L$ economy is
not to Linden Lab's advantage -- just the opposite, it is to their advantage
to encourage the L$ economy to grow.

Just because it's a virtual economy with virtual goods doesn't mean that
basic market forces don't apply. The attractiveness of LL's economy will not
be due to the fact that it is /their/ economy; there's nothing in the way LL
runs the SL economy that makes it inherently better, it will be the fact
that it is the /largest/ economy that makes it most attractive to enter. A
larger economy means a more liquid market, and it means that there is a
larger population of consumers available to buy and trade goods and
services.

Every roadblock that is imposed on the transfer virtual assets from one grid
to another amounts to a tariff, and such roadblocks will only serve to
discourage consumers from investing money in an economy where the feel
locked in, and will in turn encourage them to purchase alternate goods which
are unencumbered by such roadblocks.

It might be an interesting technical challenge to figure out a permissions
mechanism to control which goods can move between which grids. But such a
mechanism would likely have to be centrally managed, and would require that
the export/import permissions for existing goods and services be modified as
new grids come online. Even if there were a usable import/export mechanism,
producers who sell their goods without import/export restrictions will have
a significant advantage over those who impose such restrictions on their
products.

Cheers,
--Able


On 7/2/07, Argent Stonecutter <secret.argent at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 02-Jul-2007, at 10:35, Chance Unknown wrote:
> > remove the economy when traveling to foreign grids.
>
> That's basically what I said: each grid would have its own assets.
>
> > there is nothing that says lindens need to provide L$ outside the
> > confines of their servers.
>
> I'm not talking about L$ at all, this is all about assets in the
> sense of "the stuff on the asset servers". I suspect making *Lindens*
> transportable would actually be a MUCH easier (and profitable for
> Linden Labs) nut to crack.
>
>
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