The "lock" checkbox is essentially useless with group builds, due to a long-standing bug.
Steps to reproduce this problem:
1. Find a friend who's in a group that you're in.
2. Create a prim.
3. Edit it, and set full next-owner permissions and click 'share with group'.
4. Test that your friend can move the object.
5. Go to the Object tab and click "Locked".
6. Test that your friend can't move the object.
7. Uncheck the "Locked" checkbox.
8. Test that your friend still can't move the object.
9. Examine the "General" tab.
Actual Results:
At step 8, your friend still cannot move or modify the object even though it was originally shared to the group. At step 9, you'll see that the "share with group" checkbox is checked but greyed out... as if it's "set but not really". The object is not shared and will not be modifiable by group members until you uncheck this box and recheck it.
Expected Results:
Flipping the Locked checkbox on and off should not destroy the group-sharing setting. This means that if I lock a build and then unlock it, if I don't remember to vigilantly fix the "share with group" box, my group won't be able to modify the build.
While I'm at it, even if this bug were fixed, Locking would still be entirely useless with a group build. Locking is a mechanism to prevent unintended modification/movement of a build. The intent is that you will have to consciously realize that you need to unlock the build before modifying it, so it acts as a safety catch. However, group members don't have access to uncheck this box, even if the locked object was shared to the group.
This makes it impractical to lock a group build. I want to be able to lock most of the buildings in the sim my group and I made so that we don't accidentally break stuff with stray clicks. However, we all constantly tweak parts of the build when we notice that something's not quite right, so my group members will need to be able to modify Locked parts of the group build if they choose to. However, since they can't uncheck the Locked checkbox, this destroys the usefulness of the Lock system for group builds. In short, if you don't want your fellow group members to be able to modify a build, don't share it.
I wonder whether this is a bug in the viewer or in the sim, though. Any thoughts on whether this could be fixed (or nicely worked around) with a viewer patch?
(P.S. This was considered a "long-standing bug" over a year and a half ago, and has affected countless builders, but still hasn't been fixed? Lovely.)