[opensource-dev] Open Viewer Development Announcement

[Maximilian March]

*"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) <
oz at 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
>
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