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One way or another the SL economy is headed for a crash... Scripts, ironically, are probably the most secure because they are exectuted serverside (right?), so they are at least as secure as the server they're running on.

I am an advocate of open source, but... Open sourcing and creating a a sort of "SL Multiverse," with people running sims on their home computer, would seem to open the multigadget to more abuse. The sim will have to recieve some form of the script, compiled/encrypted/DRM, but it would still be open to scrutiny of the sim operator. So any script that travels between servers would be less protected.

At any rate... time will tell. Secondlife's economy already seems to be headed for some sort of collapse and reorganization. Scripts are but a small part of it... clothing textures and prims move a lot of the money around. Textures are already being ripped via sl-lib and prims are being imported via sketchup. It's only a matter of time before someone puts a pretty face on these products, and we start seeing largescale pirating, an economic collapse, and a large huge backlash (if unfairly) against LL.

LL is talking about SL being the next internet protocol... So I guess, look to the web to see what may be of value beyond that time. Images can be ripped, but are not generally... because they're part of an bigger experience.

The real money, in a free-love open-source multiverse, would seem to be in making scripts that provide a unique experience in a sim you know to be secure. I'm thinking of Svarga's artificial ecosystem as an example. Something that never has to travel between servers. Think of Amazon or Last.fm whose matching services provide lots of value, but can't really be "ripped."

Hosting special events, like concerts and roleplaying and whatnot, could probably bring in advertising... :shrugg:

Hard to know what lies beyond the SL economic event-horizon.