Creative and talented

"While it is clearly a bold step for us to proactively decide to open source our code, it is entirely in keeping with the community-creation approach of Second Life," said Cory Ondrejka, chief technology officer at Linden Lab.

"Second Life has the most creative and talented group of users ever assembled and it is time to allow them to contribute to the Viewer's development," he said.

He admitted that he didn't know what projects would emerge but expected initial tinkerings to include bug fixes, improvements to compatibility with less common hardware configurations and even new look and feel 'skins' for the Viewer itself.

All code developed outside Linden Lab's in-house team will be thoroughly reviewed to ensure quality standards, stability and security.

"We feel we have a responsibility to improve and grow Second Life as rapidly as possible," commented Philip Rosedale, chief executive of Linden Lab.

Second Life was the first virtual world to enable subscribers to own the rights to the intellectual property they created.

The popularity of Second Life has seen companies competing for a presence there and some residents have become unhappy with the increasing commercialisation of their environment.

Estimates put the economic value of Second Life in 2005 at $64m (£33m). Some objects, such as a virtual space station commanded a price of $100,000.