[...] Making the viewer available as an open source item would certainly speed up adoption in some ways. It would almost immediately add possibilities for simplified user-interfaces (new users are presented with an interface that's far more complicated than it needs to be), or custom branding (businesses love brands and branding), plus of course, the ability to crib from clever fixes and ideas. An open source viewer *does* also give people the information and testing basis to create their own grids and servers, in a limited way - although actually doing that would be a dense technical effort.

[...] At current growth trends, SL could be a real economic force in a few years. When things really start to hop, SL will look more like it's own private Internet. Or a privately held virtual nation. At the point that millions of people spend most or all of their waking hours within the SL world, we'll know this has happened. I think people (and governments) will start to get a little nervous at that point. It will be impossible for SL to put both its shareholders and users first, and history suggests that users will get the shaft.

[...] What might make more sense in the long run is more of a Wikipedia-like approach to Second Life. A non profit organization running open source software where people can add their own island just by plugging in a server in their living room or the hosting provider of their choice. Whoever builds that and provides a serious alternative to the SL experience could help the world at least as much as Wikipedia has.