New locks for Open Doors

Last evening I stumbled across a posted discussion concerning some proposed developments for the Second Life grid and its potential for linking to various Open Sim grids. The primary topic of discussion dealt with the Lindens' development attempts toward an Open Grid Protocol, which is basically a login procedure that would work across multiple virtual worlds while also attempting to protect the rights of content creators.
The main intent is apparently to seamlessly (in a relative sense) integrate the various Open Sim grids (and possibly others) into the Second life experience, allowing users to teleport to and fro with ease and carry at least a modicum of their inworld belongings with them. Essentially, SL is opening its doors to the rest of the neighborhood.
The question that arises at this point of course is..."What if my neighbors are thieves?"

Protection of intellectual property rights is and always will be a major concern for developers, and hasn't consistently been a major strong point of the SL experience. Whether one lived through the copybot scares, or simply witnessed the rash of texture/skin thievery, it is not difficult to see that the all mighty permissions system is far from perfect. Considering this new plan, it isn't any more difficult to see how the idea of opening up to 3rd parties who may or may not be trusted could cause butterflies to start fluttering in the stomachs of more than a few people.

An additional concern or perhaps something to look forward to, depending upon your outlook, is that Zero Linden has been working like a madman to redesign the underlying structure to not only handle the average 50,000 concurrent users effectively...but to deal with projected estimates of one billion users in the eventual future. Some suggest the redesign may in time effectively deal with as many as 1,000 simultaneous avatars in a single region...at least, that is the goal toward which they are striving.

More to follow along these topics. For those who would like to read the posted discussion themselves, I have posted the link below.

New Protocols Discussion


I have also provided a link to the Second Life Grid Open Grid Protocol itself.