Linden Lab, the creator of 3D virtual software Second Life, released the source code for its viewer application earlier today January 8, 2007. This surprising move brought cheers and gasps from 20 thousand concurrent daily users and over 2.4 million total signups in the Second Life community.

“This is awesome news! Wow, this opens up so many amazing possibilities! Good job LL!” said Ehdward Spengler in a posting on the Second Life blog.

“After reading the announcement and the replies I feel a little apprehensive. I’m fairly new to SL and know nothing about coding but seeing that it’s obvious Lindens are reading these replies and NOT offering any reassurances isn’t very reassuring. I want/need someone who knows to tell me my personal information and credit card info is, and will continue to be, secure.” said Stoni Innis, Second Life user in a posting on the Second Life blog.

Coinciding with the source code release available for download is the creation of a developers community, documentation wiki (collaboration utility designed to help developers share updates and code), allowing users to submit code for review and inclusion, feature requests, and licensing under the GNU General Public License, version 2.0, with a FLOSS exception (read more about this licensing here:).

In response to security concerns, Linden Lab is stressing that the source code is for the viewer only and not the backend or server software that handles financial transactions or the availability of the virtual world. Code submissions will be carefully reviewed, however, it is highly recommended that different versions of the viewers be downloaded only from the SecondLife.com site. Extra attention should be paid to any “spoofed” or fake sites attempting to impersonate the SecondLife.com site often linked from email.

Linden Lab commented on the release on their site earlier today:

“We were the first virtual world to enable content creators to own the rights to the Intellectual Property they create. That sparked exponential growth in the richness of the Second Life environment. Now we’re placing the Viewer’s development into the hands of Residents and developers as well. This extends the control Residents can have over the Second Life experience and allows a worldwide community to examine, validate and improve the software’s sophistication and capabilities.” said Philip Rosedale, CEO and founder of Linden Lab.

Only time will tell if this move by Linden Lab will result in a more secure application and further popularize Second Life, or if widespread exploits and security issues will bring the apocalypse for our Second Life.