Colour me unimpressed (and deeply suspicious)

Open Grid Public Beta Begins Today yells the official Second Life blog and I hate to be a party pooper but what the hell is this all about?

Pass through authentication? To what end? This isn't about expanding Second Life, this is about Second Life technology and I think some of those doing a happy dance are in for a rude awakening when they realise the difference.

There is no point in this process if it means we're all going to be bound by Linden Lab's terms of service. PKR and such like are going to want a piece of this pie or it's not going to fly, that means gambling, legal authorised gambling this time. That of course will also lead to separate registration processes.

Who else is going to recognise the Linden dollar as currency? Are we going to have a bureau de change on the borders of independent sims? Are we even going to have a currency? Well yes I expect we will, but it won't be backed by Linden Lab in the long term.

This is a long long long term project, it's not really about being able to teleport from one world to a next, it's proving a point for a future that doesn't involve your Second Life inventory and people need to get used to this concept.

I'm sure some people are going to want to tag along to the main grid, after all that's where it's all at for the moment, but long term, the main grid is going to be a blot on the landscape. The whole issue of the Second Life world and the Second Life Grid becomes more and more apparent.

People need to think logically here, why would an independent grid want some of the content from the main grid on it? Why would they want to have to wait for Linden Lab to develop or release code to make everything compatible, and in the process break something else?

The Internet is held together by protocols, it's not held together by an overbearing terms of service and the more protocols you have, the less widespread a platform becomes.

Portability is all well and good but what people need to be asking is, why do we need it? What will it do for me? What are the long term aims?

Pixellated clothing and sex beds will not conquer the world.