Open Source Chat System.

I think there is a plan afoot to open up the SL chat system to make it able to contact existing chat systems.

Anyone able to offer some ideas on what this might make possible?

Well I think they are making it more jabber friendly which uses XMPP.

So, the open standard is there and I guess if you get permission to hookup to their network you could use any XMPP client / protocol plugin.

At some presentation in Germany or something it was revealed that they are in the process of replacing a lot of things, including the built-in IM system with open standards. Cory Linden said in some interview something like "the IM system is stupidly not Jabber", so I'm pretty sure that is what they are implementing.

Might this mean that we could have persistent chat streams?

I remember the old ICQ chat, in addition to the coolness of seeing each keystroke as it arrived, it remembered everything forvever. One time I got asked about an outfit I had been wearing years before, it was neat, all I had to do was do a simple search for the maiin words in their question, and magically I was able to respond as if I had some idea of what they were talking about, which I most certainly did not.

Would this have implications on the utility of the forums?

Here's a list of extensions and proposed extensions to the jabber protocol: http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jeplist.shtm, some of those are not currently supported by any clients or servers though, but it may give an idea of what kinda stuff jabber supports.