In what appears to be the beginning of a major shift in Second Life, Linden Lab has introduced the Second Life Grid ( http://secondlifegrid.net/ ). This formally separates Second Life technology from the Second Life product (the SL virtual world).
The SL Grid will be more focused on organizations than individual residents, and has already rolled out programs such as the Community Gateway Program and the Global Provider Program.
This appears to me, as the first step towards Linden Lab open sourcing their servers so that anyone can plug there server into the grid and link up with the virtual world of Second Life. This will probably not happen for another 10-12 months, but the secondlifegrid.net initiative appears to be the first step towards reaching that goal.
Introducing the Second Life Grid « Official Linden Blog