I have no idea if this is the real purpose or if this is the high level of view of my take of our project. Below are some personal reflections of being involved in SL and CDS that shed light on what the purpose is to me:
I have been in SL (with Bromo Ivory as my avatar, even) since January of 2007. I had heard of SL first in 2004/5 or so but knew little of it.
The rapid expansion through 2008 and the contraction and stabilization has seen a lot of things. One thing that seems to be the central core issue is one of persistence. If anyone has been on SL for more than a year, I would wager that a number of favorite hangouts have closed up - sometimes taking whole regions with it. Sometimes it is a cash crunch based upon the owner's personal finances, or faulty business model. Sometimes it is simpler: a loss of interest by the residents, owner or both which would cause a financial collapse of an otherwise sound business model - or just the owner wanting to move on to other projects in RL or SL, so the SIM is re-purposed, sold, shut down or ended in some way much to the consternation of the residents? This constant rise and fall, while beneficial on some levels, poses a problem: What can you do to prevent a sim or region from failing due to a collapse of interest? Or more succinctly - how to you generate enough interest continuously in the region to keep it open all the time - and how to decouple from the "owner effect" where the sim owner would simply close up shop? Is any one place in SL doomed to be essentially an empty nightclub until and unless the owner decides to close up shop because "it hardly pays now to keep the place open?"
I believe CDS, Neufreistadt and Neualtenburg were/are attempts at "solving" this "persistence problem." By giving it's citizens a voice on how the SIM was run through the institutions put in place, with safeguards against any one person or group taking over (why? because that lock on power would create discontent, and a subsequent exodus of citizenry with an ensuing financial collapse of the SIM), and by making the influx of new citizens easy (and their participation in the governance) would propel a SIM to be more than a playground in people's minds since they are running it and creating a renewal of governance and interest as some citizens "retired" or left, and others rose to take their place (democratic elections and voters are exercises in involvement, not apathy). For all its imperfections, drama, and crises, CDS seems to have created - so far - an answer to the problem of persistence and renewal of interest.
Of course it isn't the only persistent SIM - other successes are out there. But what makes us unique is that the element of self determination seems to be the defining moment.
(I won't get into a long discussion of Linden Labs ownerships, Sudane's role, etc. - just to say the Democratic element is imperfect but seems to work in the 6 years + that CDS has existed in one form or another. And that the community, while less social than the Caledon's, Steelhead's, New Toulouses of the SL world, are pretty strong since the "uniting" element is the governance aspect)
So when I say the biggest danger to CDS isn't some sort of dictatorship or fascist regime, it is apathy, this is what I mean.
