[opensource-dev] Open Viewer Development Announcement

[Henri Beauchamp]

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.