Can "open source" exist in Second Life?

This is a comment Mark Tribe (Professor at Brown University) left earlier: I posted "Open-Source Museum Opens in Second Life" from 3pointD to the New Media Curating list, and Andreas Broeckmann replied: "can anybody who is closer to this project explain how its 'open source' aspect relates to the license agreement that people admit to before getting busy in SL? can there be something 'open source' (as in _source_) in SL?" Whaddya say?

This is our response ("our" being OSMOSA founders Deborah Abramson, Kiera Feldman, and Davis Jung):

Dear Andreas,

Thank you for your question about how the open source aspects of OSMOSA relate to the Second Life Terms of Service.

We are aware of the limitations (or potential for limitations via interference) placed by Linden Labs over all aspects of Second Life. For example, see item 4.2 from the Terms of Service: "you may not modify, adapt, reverse engineer (except as otherwise permitted by applicable law), decompile or attempt to discover the source code of the Linden Software" ( http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php). Item 3.2 also limits the open source nature of the project, in that Linden maintains the non-exclusive, sublicensable right to exercise the copyright of content in our accounts. We understand the implications of such terms of service and bear witness to the gravity of working within a system essentially owned and controlled by another entity.

We are neither interested in nor capable of working with the source code of software within SL. Rather, we are fostering open source culture, meaning technology-enabled practices like appropriation, remixing, mash-ups, and collage that challenge traditional ideas of authorship. Given the Terms of Service, can there be a public domain within SL? We find that, within the limited world of SL, there is a public domain of sorts. This is the domain of objects that have been set to be copyable, modifiable, and free (not for sale). We are enabling a community of people who are interested in producing, transforming, and sharing work within this domain.

We chose Second Life as a platform for our project because no equivalent environment exists. SL is a simple interface in which to create content – factors crucial to a student project such as this one. More importantly, SL already engages a large and vibrant community.

We believe that we can adhere to the spirit of open source within this system. We have adopted the Open Source Definition as a metaphor for cultural production. For example, item two of the definition states, "The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code" ( http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php). If we think of a work of art as the coded object, then what is the source code? In open source cultural practices such as appropriation and remixing, the source code is the original work that is being transformed. In SL, we are able to provide not just a copy of the original work, but the original itself, endlessly replicable and always/never original.

In addition to being a forum for open source art, the structure of OSMOSA is also open source. Curating and architectural design are open: any SL participant can alter the museum building, the selection of works included, the text describing these works, and the arrangement of these works within this space. Just as Wikipedia is an open source encyclopedia, so OSMOSA is an open source museum. The crucial difference is that Wikipedia is built on open source wiki software, while OSMOSA operates within a proprietary system. We acknowlege that Linden Labs has the ultimate authority over the source code of SL as software. As such, the museum is limited but functional as an open source project. Importantly, OSMOSA contributes to the SL version of the public domain and invites new conceptions of art, culture, artist, curator, museum, and open source.

We look forward to further engagement with these issues. Our ideas about open source art and culture are evolving through dialog such as this.

Thanks again for your interest,
Deborah Abramson
Kiera Feldman
Davis Jung