"Second Life is a virtual world, maintained through a
combination of client software and hosting servers. It is somewhat
similar to various 'massively multiplayer' online games (MMOs) but
has the unusual quality that nearly all of the content is
user-provided. It is also unusual in that Linden Labs recently
announced the release of its client software as open source. This
is something that is rarely, if ever, done in commercial MMO apps.
The specific license chosen is the GPL, version 2, with an
exception for FLOSS software.
"In this series, I introduce the client (or 'viewer' in Linden
terminology) and explore the development environment,
documentation, and more. Developers who are used to an open source
environment are sometimes a little put off by things that might be
done differently in a commercial environment, and this project
offers a number of opportunities to explore some of the tradeoffs.
Of course, the best way to explore a program is to do something
with it, so this series gets into the code to make a few
changes..."
