"A Week in the Life of an Avatar" or "The Virtual shoe on the Other Virtual Foot"
A Linden Labs employee, we will call Bob, wakes early one morning happy and excited. Bob is excited to get to the office and work on his latest project. As he is getting dressed he notices that all his shirts have turned white and say "MISSING IMAGE" across the front. "I have to talk to that dry cleaner." he thinks, feeling just a little less happy and excited. He slips one on since he has no other shirt to wear. Bob rushes through breakfast and arrives early at his desk. He is happy and excited about his new project and begins coding away.
A few hours later Bob sits back and stares with pride at the hundreds of lines of perfect code he has finished. "Time for some lunch." he thinks. Bob pops across the street to his favorite noodle shop and orders up his favorite "shanghai noodles". He passes the clerk his debit card only to hear "I'm sorry. The card has been declined.". Bob thinks "Hmmm.... but that PayPal transfer from Linden Labs should have gone through days ago." Oh well, he pulls out some cash and pays for his lunch, feeling just a little bit less happy and excited about the day.
Bob swings by the music store next door to grab a couple of new CDs. As he heads to the counter he thinks "better use the credit card on this one". Bob pays for his purchase, takes his receipt and heads back to the office happy and excited to finish his project. But as Bob reaches the front door of Linden Labs he finds a sign on the door "Sorry we are temporarliy closed. Only administrative staff is allowed in." Bob thinks "WTF? How long is this going to take?", feeling a little less happy and excited. Bob sits on a stone curb and patiently waits.
*** Time Passes ***
Finally the doors to the office swing open a few hours later. Bob rushes back to his desk. But as he enters he finds pornographic images covering every screen in the shop. The Linden Labs IT manager walks by saying "We'll have this all cleaned up tomorrow." "No way I'm going to get anything done today" Bob thinks, feeling a little less happy and excited. In frustation Bob heads home. Arriving home he opens the bag from the music store. "Hey where are those CDs I just bought?!" Bob knew he had them in the bag when he left the store. "No use asking the store for new ones, tried that before." And so, feeling quite a bit less happy and excited, Bob goes to sleep.
Bob wakes early the next day, almost as happy and excited as he was the day before, but not quite. Bob slips his "MISSING IMAGE" shirt on and heads to the office. Dropping into his chair he finds a sticky on his screen "All of our source code was accidentally released onto sourceforge while we were fixing things. We asked them to give it back. IT Staff" "WTF!? I've spent months on this project!" Quickly scanning the net he finds hundreds of new sites handing out Second Life source code, offering free sim hosting and client hacks allowing anything to be duped. Bob snatches up the phone and dials the IT group "What the hell have you all done? That is our livelyhood!". But all Bob hears is a precorded message "We are sorry for the inconvenience. We have asked everyone to please delete our source code. If you find anyone reselling it or misusing it please call the IT Staff." Bob feels unhappy and not excited at all.
Bob walks slowly across the street and orders some noodles. "I'm sorry sir this credit card is maxed out. I hear that a bunch of credit card numbers where stolen recently. Ever hear of some place called Linden Labs?"
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Just poking a bit of fun at you guys. Hope it gives you a little taste of our end of all this.