The surname of a large extended
virtual family which acts as the "gods" (i.e. administrators) of the metaverse known as Second Life. Any avatar with the last name "Linden" is therefore part of an elite upper echelon of Second Life
muckety-mucks responsible for new policies/protocols/programming but never responsible for such trivialities as lag, sim crashes, missing inventory items, or gridwide outages.
The hoi polloi are thereby cautioned: if you spot a Linden in-world, approach at your own risk; griefing a Linden may be the ultimate in hilarity but it will likely herald the end of your Second Life.
*Disclaimer: the most friendly of all the Linden family is likely
Torley Linden, as witnessed by his uberchirpy trademark "Friendly Greetings" salutation and his many helpful YouTube tutorials.
Example:
Q: Why do I keep crashing so much?
A: Because the
Lindens hate you, n00b.
Some well known Linden family members:
Philip Linden (founder of Second Life),
Torley Linden, Kate Linden,
Pathfinder Linden,Teagan Linden