On Sun, 15 Aug 2010 12:25:21 -0400, Oz Linden (Scott Lawrence) 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. ^^^^ "Some" ?... You are modest... :-P
> 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. Indeed ! > 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. Well, the first improvement to do is to actually revert 80% of the UI to the way v1.23's one was working, especially getting rid of that moronic side bar is its modal tools which impair productivity and user-friendliness... The question is: will LL finally admit that the viewer 2 UI is a failure and widely rejected by 80% of its regular user base, and accept a move in the way of "going back" (actually repairing) UI-wise ?... > 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. This is all good provided it does translate into actions and facts. > 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’. 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. How the submission will be done ? Commits to the repository, or some filtering process where LL will have the final word about what goes in or stays out ?... > 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. Does it mean we don't need anymore the privacy-threatening "contribution agreement" form ?... I do hope so, unless you want to keep segregating developers like myself, who value more their privacy than helping LL to make a better viewer. > Accepted contributions go directly into the official Second Life Viewer Again, how contributions will be accepted, will there be votes from the Open Source community, or will only Lindens decide ? > 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. More details on this, please. > 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 Broken link. > 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 Will try to come, hoping it's not going to be one of those voice meetings where non-English people like me can't speak well enough neither understand what is being said... Regards, Henri. _______________________________________________ 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
