What does it mean to create open-source software, say, and release it for general use? Most people, up till Thursday last week, would have said that anyone can use it, change it and even sometimes redistribute it. It's free, right?

I was searching for virtual worlds today. What I found, after several different combinations, were many worlds that were both virtual and free - at first. None of them are exactly open-source, though some allow user modifications.

In just about every online game or environment, there are avatar representations of the participant. You. What you look like, and how you want to be represented is malleable, to some degree. I have a friend who loves bright pink hair on her avatars, no matter what game or world she visits. If it doesn't have pink hair, it doesn't feel like "her." Others prefer something that looks far more true-to-life. Still others like to branch out into crazy or unusual looks.

We're continuing to decorate, improve, and otherwise install more functionality in our e-Vironments, all created on Sun Microsystems' open-source Wonderland platform. The worlds will look more interesting and more fleshed-out each week, with regular running tests on the installations as we go.

The concept of something called a "flash mob" has nothing to do with flashing or inciting civil unrest. Instead, it's flash for fast, and mob for largish group. The idea is that, in some manner or other, a date and time and theme is communicated to a large number of persons, and those who can be available and are so disposed to participate will then congregate, do the thematic thing, and disperse. This often happens suddenly, without external notice, and is over in minutes. It's fun, according to those who do it.

The fusion between an idea and the next idea that it inspires is hard to pin down. The concept of shared applications presents the opportunity for amazing fusion and the spontaneous idea generation it can enable, as much as for the ability to collaborate instead of acting consecutively. So what's the big deal about that?

People can enjoy chance encounters anywhere in the physical world. Nowadays, we can also do that online. One person has an IM (Instant Message) program open, and an old friend chances to be online and says, "Hi!" Another person is in his or her favorite game, and a game buddy stops to catch up. Or possibly - and this is becoming more commonplace by the day - a person is in a work or educational virtual environment such as Wonderland, and people stop in to chat about their projects, the environment, and what it could mean to their business or school.

The new Wonderland realms, lovingly crafted and carefully tweaked. They're cool, they're new, and they're available to you!

How would you write a commercial, a jingle, or develop a saying to sell the idea of using Wonderland for meetings, education, or anything that needed people to be "near each other" even when at a great distance? I got to thinking about this when I was trying to envision business cases for using this instead of anything else.

I was reading about technology in general and space in particular tonight, when I stumbled across the news that there has been a joint venture between Russia and European groups to design a spaceship. I use the term because it may be the most accurate. Where the Columbia was a spaceplane, this really is a rocketship that will come down the way a rocket was imagined to, before mankind ever went to orbit. With thruster jets.

The aim of a how-to document can vary greatly. There are development documents, application documents, and end-user documents. Each has its voice, and each has its challenges. In every case, the material must be accurate up to the publication date, and revised as needed at set intervals or at trigger points.