Fun with the Frenchies

          What keeps a grid alive? A sense of place, a sense of purpose. That is the secret behind Francogrid's longevity. The grid is founded on good old French ideals like Liberty and Fraternity, and they mean it. Freedom is paramount on the grid. A free exchange of knowledge. Creativity given the freedom to grow. And free space. The grid has an impressive history of sims donated to creative people. Freedom too from the humdrum cookie cutter architecture of the past.

Accueil, Francogrid's welcome area, with TP parlor. Build by DJ Phil and Cherry Manga

The English language is, obviously, a crushing force for communication in the metaverse. In Francogrid, just about everyone makes an effort to speak English if they meet a non-francophone, however, this grid does a little bit to push back and remind us all that there are other languages out there. 

Linda Kellie's FreeLife

This is Linda Kellie, previously known as Ayla Holt in SL and Inworldz, where she spent over 5 years making stuff - clothes, furniture, skins, buildings, sculpties, and more. She's gradually putting all her goodies on her website, to be exported, modified, re-used any way you want, as she explains in her personal note. 
It's an extraordinary move, and so far there's over 250MB of material available, all set out in nicely categorized sections. 
Yes, that's right - FREE, FULL PERM/MOD/TRANS.
 On your computer. Good for any grid.
Linda Kellie: Not all of my stuff is on my webpage yet, a lot's here on OSGrid, and I am still adding to it, I haven't been here long! Making things has made virtual worlds more fun for me. I loved both SL and InWorldz, I just worked really hard in SL, and then played hard in IW. I quit for awhile, and decided I needed to do something with all my inventory, backed up on my hard drive. A friend told me about the OpenSimCreations.com site - it was amazing to me that someone would give away files for export to any grid. I didn't know I could even back up to xml. I think you just have to get to a point where you don't care about people stealing your ideas and stuff. I love having my stuff with no rules and giving people the freedom they need. I hope Vanish doesn't think I stole his idea. I kinda did, I guess! But it just made sense to put it on a website that I wasn't using anyway, and he has made a few positive comments.

What could be better? If you like to make stuff, but

Home of the Brave

Everybody has their own Freebie horror story, from the 'cute little dress' with the fatal flaw that you only notice when it's way too late, all the way up to finding one of your generously donated creations being sold on some scuzzy sim. 

Destination shopping is not going to disappear any time soon, though. It's an adventure, and a fun way to meet new people, and discover new grids. It's also going to take time to aggregate all the free things available. Put the words Freebie and Open Sim together and, for most people (especially anyone with a L$ axe to grind) they conjure up an image of utter tackiness, plus a boring re-hash of the whole creative rights issue. The free culture of Open Sim has so little to do with the make-a-buck mentality of SL that it may be hard for closed-worlders to grasp what's really going on in places like the boutiques of Wright Plaza on OSgrid, or Greg Prince's Freeland megastore on Craft Grid.