Second Life and Open Source
Posted Dec 22, 2006 19:27 UTC (Fri) by
mikov (subscriber, #33179)
In reply to:
Second Life and Open Source by JohnNilsson
Parent article:
Second Life and Open Source
I don't think the parallel with Open Source is completely valid. Lets
leave the designers aside - they are a minority compared to the number of
users.
People use software in order to do work. It is not for pleasure. So, if
the software is free, even better for them. More work, cheaper!
On the other hand, the "trinkets" in Second Life are purely and only for
pleasure. Where is the pleasure in owning something if everybody else has
the same thing ? Here I am not talking about exceptional pieces of art,
but clothes, etc. There is a sense of achievement in purchasing something
unique, that is likely to remain unique, at least for some time, because
it is expensive.
I think that you and other posters in this thread are mistakenly
transferring the values of developing and using free software to other
areas. It is not completely baseless, it is even attractive, but it is not
very realistic.
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