[opensource-dev] Open Viewer Development Announcement

[Glen Canaday]

This does sound much better than the previous way of doing things - more
open and closer to the Bazaar, etc., but I want to ask how it came
about. What was the impetus? Is this a direct result of Phil's return to
more active involvement with LL in general? Is it simply the desire of
the devs added to opportunity and freedom thus made into reality?

--GC

On Sun, 2010-08-15 at 12:25 -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.
> 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’. 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
> 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 
> 
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