[sldev] [META] How LL can profit from open source

[Tim Shephard]

You're analogy is weak.

It would be MS giving away Windows Vista for free with the caveat that
any apps sold would be done via a Vista marketplace.

Given the issues with adware/spyware/viruses in Windows - I don't
think it would be a non starter at all.

In fact, MS has already started in that direction with various
security features that requires you to register your software with
them in order not to flag security warnings on IE.   As that gets more
and more awkward to get around, more developers will be signing their
software to avoid that error.  Pretty soon you'll need MS permission
to sell software for Vista, at that point they can lower the cost on
Vista and get their money from developers.

This model is already being used on SL.  If you want to sell virtual
goods, SL is the best platform to do it on.

You have to rent land in order to do so.   You *MUST* have an SL
account in order to sell virtual goods, and you *MUST* comply with the
SL TOS in order to sell virtual goods. .. in fact, you have to agree
to a license saying that you give up all patent rights in order to
sell virtual goods.

This idea of a connector agreement is the non starter.   People are
going to start up their own grids and in fact, many people will have
very little desire to connect to the SL grid because that means
they'll have to comply with SL laws / policies.   Who wants to do
that?

The only real revenue generator LL has is selling L$, but I'm not sure
how long that'll hold out.



On 9/17/07, William Anderson (neuro) <neuro at lindenlab.com> wrote:
> First time posting to sldev, "hello everybody!"
>
> Tim Shephard wrote:
> > Simply - buy out SLExchange.
> >
> > Get out of the hosting biz (a profound strategical error) and enter
> > into the marketplace biz.
>
> Intersting, in what way is the hosting business a strategic error?
>
> > Enforce a license such that anyone who wants to develop assets for SL
> > and use SL IP must either sell their assets through your marketplace
>
> Um, IP owners already sell their assets through "our" marketplace: that
> marketplace is called Second Life.  What you're proposing sounds to me
> to be akin to Microsoft saying "hey, we're open sourcing IIS, but if you
> want to build websites to sell stuff using IIS, you have to go through
> us, and you can write and sell your own middleware to plug into IIS, but
> you have to give us a cut", i.e. a non starter.
>
> --
> William Anderson - Operations, Linden Lab
> neuro at lindenlab.com
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