Linden Labs seems to be taking a page from the SLApple and Microsoft playbooks and trying to register the letters “S” and “L” is combined with ANY other letters … it’s a good thing Douglas SLAdams has shuffled on or the LabDogs would have a restraining order on the use of “SLarty Bartfast”!

I have yet to encounter anyone displaying a modicum of sense seriously use the term “slart” to refer to what passes for in Second Life (hmmm…maybe therein lies the problem?! “sense” + “Second Life” … is this an SLoxymoron?). Richard was using this term to define his efforts to bring a much-needed critical apparatus in discussions of art as it exists inside second Life AND within the greater context of art created in/for Second Life in this first life. The fact that he has irrevocably linked “SLART” (note the caps, as used by Richard) with his journal that exists outside of Linden Labs has NO negative impact upon Linden Labs or the “Second Life” marque. Further, as Richard has repeatedly pointed out, his is the prior claim … he was using “SLART” from the day I joined and started performing in there and that was well-before LL decided that they needed to become the Alphabet Police (December, 2006 to be more precise.

Linden Labs promotes Second Life as an environment in which content is created for all to enjoy by its inhabitants by the inhabitants; some of us inhabitants create content that transcends both environments, to the greater good of BOTH environments. As for LL taking legal steps and asking the court to shut him down, I suspect that the LabDogs are aware of the precedent-setting absurdity (there! that word again!) of this action and want to be sure that they can wield this cudgel with absolute impunity in the future. Seems to me that LL is trying to kill another one of the gold-laying geese.

For now, call me “SLAldo”!

Dennis Moser, aka SLAldoManutio SLAbruzzo, musician