*"Snowstorm operates in the open; the home page of the Snowstorm team is on the public wiki at" A BROKEN LINK!** * NOT a very reassuring feeling that the very first call-to-action link in such an important communication leads us to... a broken link.
Thank you, LL QA people, for being asleep at the wheel as usual. Well, at least you're consistent. ~The Original M~ On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 9:25 AM, Oz Linden (Scott Lawrence) < o...@lindenlab.com> wrote: > > What’s Next For The Second Life Viewer? Linden Lab spent the better part > of the last two years revamping the Second Life Viewer to create Viewer 2. > Some of the changes were important new features, and some were controversial > - some were both. The bulk of the design and engineering work was done with > only limited, indirect participation from the open source and resident > communities, which has left many in those communities feeling alienated and > disenfranchised. > In recent months we have released both Viewer 2 and a 2.1 update; Linden > Lab has also been through a major reorganization. We are now evaluating the > results of all of this work, and we are making significant changes to the > way we design and build the viewer. > Introducing Snowstorm Linden Lab has created a new team whose goal is to > develop the Second Life Viewer in the open and in response to the needs of > our Residents. Here are our goals: > > - Show Residents continuous visible progress > - Work in the open by sharing not only our code, but our process > publicly -- this includes our backlog and our discussion about it. > - Engage with the open source community and aggressively accept good > work the community does into our product. > - Release new ‘Development’ Viewers frequently -- our initial target > is bi-weekly. All builds from the ‘Development’ branch are visible and > available for testing. > > > - Improve the user experience > - Make continuous improvements to the design and implementation of > the Viewer’s user interface. > - Import desirable patches and features from Snowglobe and other > Third Party Viewers. > - Add small features and fixes that have high value and low cost, > while still remaining consistent with an overall product vision. > - Renew and deepen our relationship with the community > - Integrate community work directly into our main line Viewer rather > than routing it through Snowglobe first. > - Demonstrate rapid responsiveness to feedback and patches from > community. > - Engage continuously with the community to develop new project > proposals and provide resources that open source developers need to be > effective. > > > How Snowstorm Works > > - Viewer development has moved to a single open source model > > > - There are no longer internal ‘private’ and external ‘public’ > versions. Viewer source (with the exception of one wrapper library we > cannot > legally release), is now in public Mercurial source repositories. All > viewer > integration is happening in the Development repository at > ‘<http://hg.secondlife.com/viewer-development> > http://hg.secondlife.com/viewer-development’. It is used by all > Linden Lab viewer development teams, and open source developers are > encouraged to pull from that repository and submit changes for > integration > to it. > > > - Code in the Development repository is now released under version 2 of > the GNU LGPL > > This allows community developers greater freedom to use the viewer code, > including incorporating it into products that also include closed source. > > - Accepted contributions go directly into the official Second Life > Viewer > > There is no longer a two-step process of contributing to Snowglobe and then > hoping that the contribution is imported to the Linden viewer. Viewer > development efforts within Linden Lab go through the same integration queue > and into the same repository that open source contributions use. > > - Innovations from Snowglobe are being imported to this new viewer > > > - Some changes may be left behind or modified in order to fit into > Viewer 2; Linden Lab will work with open source contributors to > harmonize > contributions with the product goals of the Linden viewer. The plan is > to > import as much as possible of the excellent work that has been done in > Snowglobe as quickly as possible (this rate does depend on help from > you). > > > - Snowstorm team plans and priorities are open > > We publish both what we’re working on (in public Jira issues and on our > Sprint Backlog) and the projects we’d like to do (our Product Backlog). > These projects are available for open source contributors to take on, and > the Snowstorm team coordinates getting access to any Linden review and > collaboration resources that are needed. Community members are encouraged to > propose additions to the Product Backlog. > Who Is Building The Viewer? Within Linden Lab, many different groups are > doing Viewer development; the Snowstorm team manages the Development branch, > coordinates contributions from open source, and does rapid small feature > development itself. > Snowstorm is: > > - Q Linden - Tech Lead, Team Lead > - Esbee Linden - Product/Business Lead > - Oz Linden - Open Source Lead > - Merov, Aimee, Tofu, and three external contract developers > - and, crucially, the open source community. > > > Where Are The Details? Snowstorm operates in the open; the home page of > the Snowstorm team is on the public wiki at > <https://wiki.secondlife.com/Snowstorm_Team> > https://wiki.secondlife.com/Snowstorm_Team > it has pointers to our various communications channels, processes, and > contact information. > > The Snowstorm Team leads will be at the Second Life Community Convention on > Aug 15, and will hold an open in-world meeting Aug 16 at the Hippotropolis > Theater from Noon to 2PM SLT: > <http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hippotropolis/239/28/24> > http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hippotropolis/239/28/24 > > _______________________________________________ > Policies and (un)subscribe information available here: > http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev > Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting > privileges >
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