Viewer Evolution User Group Closed?

Communication?

Once upon a time we had a group that dealt with the evolution of the Second Life Viewer. Esbee Linden ran the group for a time then left Linden Lab. After she left Oz Linden ran the group for a time. When Esbee came back to the Lab Oz dropped the meeting. Presumably it was Esbee’s to deal with.

Office Hours – User Groups

The User Groups page used to have a Viewer Evolution User Group (VEUG). That has been removed. Some of the meeting archives still survive. Some links for VEUG now forward to the Open Development User Group (ODUG) or so I’ve heard. I haven’t found any links left.

The ODUG meets Wednesdays at 1:30 PM SLT/PDT. See the User Groups page for location.

The purpose of that group is stated as:

Open source policies, resources for contributors, and progressing contributions through the Snowstorm process; for open source contributors.

The current ODUG agenda had a number of issues from VEUG copied into it. Oz removed those as not being germane to the group. The discussion about that removal is here: ODUG Talk.

Viewer User Group

It appears there is no viewer user group. Issues we were discussing about SLV3 no longer have a group. There appears to be no place to discuss such topics with the Lindens in charge of the viewer/Snowstorm Project.

Oz has been asked if there is someone handling the issues. We have not heard an answer as I write this.

Where Did They Go?

One could suspect that the priority of the SL Viewer we know and love, or hate, is taking a back burner to Rod’s new Linden Research products. Leaks are appearing in the blogosphere that a Facebook style 2D creative SL-like game/product is in the works. If that is true, it would explain the disappearance of Esbee and some other Lindens from the user groups.

Other blogs are posting about interviews and leaks that suggest the new 2D product for the mobile world is in progress. If LL management were meeting with residents some questions would be uncomfortable. After enough questions one starts to make out the shape of the object under the blanket of security. Staying away can provide better security. Whatever the case, this is just my speculation.

Or there could be some new twist to SL that they are about to spring on us. After all many of those around for the Viewer 2 fiasco are no longer around and that fiasco is before the time of many managers here now. So, it may not be a question of learning from past experience. It may simply be a matter of not having that experience, so it may have to be repeated for this crew to learn.

Hamlet at New World Notes has gotten to talk with some of his inside sources and has checked Rod Humbles Twitter to get more clues. I think there is no doubt something has been started. The Lab is not going to announce what it is for some months. That it is code named 2D… is that fact or speculation… suggests to me a Facebook-like something. Is this a Minecraft for Facebook?

Summing It Up

Regardless of what the new product is, it seems our great Phillip lead era of better communication is coming to a close.

The Viewer Evolution User Group is gone.

2 thoughts on “Viewer Evolution User Group Closed?

  1. I had wanted to ask Oz about this at the ODUG today but arrived too late as everyone, like you, was leaving. I will keep asking questions until I get some answers because there are a number of issues that were just left hanging.

    • Thanks for the effort.

      Oz was called to a postmortem of the SSL Certs fix. Mac users are still having problems, if I understood.

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