[sldev] Re: Upcoming viewer releases?

[Argent Stonecutter]

Nicolasz writes:
> I hardly hear anyone refer to a specific Linden, it's mostly "the  
> Lindens" were doing this or that.

There's at least four Lindens who have recently been visibly seen  
having individual, personal effects:
* Soft Linden.
* Runitai Linden.
* Qarl Linden.
* Torley Linden.

Back when Lindens were more active on the forums, Andrew, Torley and  
Kelly Linden had often been particularly distinct voices.

Ventrella and Andrew have had open discussions on the scripters list.  
That was particularly interesting for me because that kind of  
discussion is overwhelmingly often outside our view... but it does  
happen.

> A simple example is that as a Linden you have some idea when the next
> update will be or happen and what will be part of it.  A non Linden
> and even a developer who may be working on patches or tools based on
> the source can expect it in a day or by the end of the next month.

On the other hand, this is definitely true. See my previous message  
for details. It's also complicated when some of the developers are  
working on the source itself and others are working on applications  
using another API... the parallels between viewer and LSL development  
and 'kernel' and 'userland' developers in operating systems are kind  
of obvious to me, and there's the hidden server development as well.

Kelly Linden writes.
> I agree that we are not as transparent as we should be.  I was  
> thinking
> about it earlier today and I can't really think of a time when two  
> lindens
> discussed a design issue on the public communication channels.  If  
> I have
> a design issue I poke the developer(s) sitting next to me, poke some
> developers on our internal IRC or (as a generally last resort)  
> email an
> internal mailing list (either for all internal developers or a  
> specific
> studio).  The result to anyone not in linden is definitely a bubble  
> with
> lindens poking their heads out to either announce things or  
> interject in
> otherwise 'external' discussions.

To me, this is more of an difference between this and other open  
source projects than the way the source code "drops" work. Many open  
source projects have had a distinct "core" and a halo of other  
developers... but the core and halo generally both discuss things in  
the same places.

> * Daily code drops of our 'maintenance' branch, which is where OS
> contributions go first.  More frequent and regular releases of our
> 'release'(trunk) branch.

That would be great. Getting more feedback about upcoming server  
changes as well would really help. Getting an occasional glimpse of  
the famous BLOTTD and what's actively being worked would also help.

> * More communication between linden developers and non-linden  
> developers,
> and more insight into linden's internal communication.  I'm not  
> sure how
> to promote this really.

The fact that LL is pretty centralised makes this harder, even if the  
internal cohesiveness that results is useful (and, yes, it is...  
though the celebrated 'lack of cohesiveness' that has been often  
touched on in the past probably needs to be worked on.

On the other hand LL does have a really good collaboration tool that  
they're promoting heavily and could perhaps use more often internally  
as well as externally. I'm talking about Second Life here, of  
course. :) Yes, I know that there's problems here as well, and the  
office hours both help (though not as much as they could because  
they're during normal work hours) and make Lindens a target... but  
the things that may make office hours frustrating and discourage  
Lindens from having a more continuous inworld presence are also  
things that really need to be improved for everyone in-world: privacy  
is not just for porn. :) And Lindens have better tools for privacy  
already: they can log in without showing up online, and they can  
build on private grids. Heck, I'd love to be able to get inworld  
without showing up on the 'online services' side of things.

Anyway, folks at Microsoft might say you're not eating your own  
dogfood enough. :)

Harold Brown writes:
> It took 3 years for all that to happen...  and people here are  
> falling all
> over each other complaining that the Lindens haven't gotten it  
> right in 6
> months?  That other OpenSource projects are better... well no shit,  
> they
> started out as OpenSource... they don't have to change everything that
> they're used to do things how the community expects.

I hope that what I'm writing is seen as advice on how to change  
things, rather than complaining that it's not all open and public.

I've been involved in another semi-open source project... Apple's  
open sourcing of Darwin... and with one exception they have not been  
nearly as open as Linden Labs, and a lot of the frustration on the  
outside can be seen there too. They have really bent over backwards  
in one area, though, and that's Webkit... but that started out as a  
fork of an already open-source project.

> Seperate public and Internal developer JIRA's... and as stated... few
> Lindens bother with the public one as it isn't as usefull to  
> them...  This
> is not good as it can and will lead to duplicate effort being spent on
> issues... and missed issues.

This one is a real problem. Perhaps people with a contributor  
agreement could get *some* kind of access to the internal one?

> I believe I already showed an example where this resource could,  
> and should
> have been used (llGetObjectDetails) but wasn't.

And the old lslwiki.net wiki *still* has a lot more information.

> Honestly... how many of the Linden developers are signed up to this  
> list?

A lot of us have dropped WAY back in the time we've spent on this  
list here, too, because we've been chastised by Linden Labs for being  
too chatty, because chat and digressions have been driving Lindens  
off the list.