14:27 – Region crash and recovery.

15:00 – Jessica related that the status of the LSL function was unclear at the time of the meeting.

17:00 – 2.i : You must not display any information regarding the computer system, software, or network connection of any other Second Life user.

2.j : You must not include any information regarding the computer system, software, or network connection of the user in any messages sent to other viewers, except when explicitly elected by the user of your viewer.

This means viewer ID tags, those that say which viewer one is using, must go away.

17:45 – Jessica read a prepared statement.

Choices – Jessica considers the ID tags a benefit to users because she believes in choices. Users having choices improves the user experience. What if one does not know what their choices are? Tags allow the users of TPV’s to see what others are using and recommend other viewers for them to try. If they try the other viewer and don’t like it, no harm done.  They can stop using it. If they like it, their experience has been improved.

Phaylen Fairchild

18:10 – You can see a griefer attack start. Not a problem.

19:00 – Several months ago a Linden asked Jessica what her thoughts were on the Lab breaking the viewer ID tag system. When asked why, the Linden said TPV people were bullying users of the LL Viewers. Jessica didn’t believe it. Jessica speculated on Linden motives. But, off she went to do her own research.

Jessica created an Alt and headed of to some populous places to talk with peeps in SL about their experience. To her horror she was bullied and 2 out of 3 of the people she talked to had stories of bullying.

21:00 – Jessica made her apology to the Linden. She has shifted her stance on viewer ID tags. She still feels the user of a viewer should have the ability to show their viewer brand if they choose. She feels in such a case where no tags are shown, the FS/PH viewers were showing a tag for LL Viewers, bullying would stop. I think she under estimates how sick some of the bullies are. But, there is no easy to know if she is right. Because the Lindens consider adding any such display feature, however activated, a violation of the policy.

21:30 – Community anger over tags being banded. Jessica says she won’t speculate on the reasons for banning the tags, other than to speculate there are more reasons than the stated ones… (sigh).

22:30 – Jessica suggests that if you want to show support for your viewer, join the group that supports your preferred viewer. I suspect bullies will shift their tactics and start using group memberships to select their targets. But, belonging to the viewer’s group is an excellent idea in spite of that. I belong to a number of viewer groups just to follow the problems people are having with various viewers. The FS/PH Support group is very active and level of help is always available.

Most of the viewer groups have a tag you can use to show which viewer you are using. The FS/PH Team has made two groups with chat disabled for the purpose of giving you a Firestorm or Phoenix group tag.

24:00 – Pause as the stream locked up. 26:00 Resume.

26:00 – 2.k : You must not provide any feature that alters the shared experience of the virtual world in any way not provided by or accessible to users of the latest released Linden Lab viewer.

This part of the policy concerns Jessica, some other TPV Dev’s, and the community.

26:50 – It does not mean interface changes, RLV, … most of the things people think it means.

Jessica explains wht a shared experience violation is. She says if they FS/PH team changes how their viewers see their avatars and users of other viewers can see the change, that is a violation. I think she has that wrong. OZ has been pretty clear, IMO, that if you change something in your viewer and that changes what I see, then it is a violation. So, if you want to turn everyone blue in your viewer and that has no affect on my viewer, no problem. But, time will tell who’s right. I refer you back to Oz’s #SL Viewer Policy Change Meeting where he gives an example using the Emerald Viewer attachment points.

27:40 – Jessica talk about how she sees it stifling innovation. Jessica uses the idea of Avatar Puppet Animation. The feature would let you, I think, click drag your avatar to move arms or otherwise adjust you avatar body so if sitting with your arm around someone it was around them and not through their neck. It would also do wonders for sex animations that don’t … align … as Jessica says.

Under the new policy the Lab would have to agree to accept it and release it in their viewer before a TPV could release it.

Jessica explains this is a feature that could easily take 4 to 6 months to develop. There is no assurance the Lab will, in the end, accept the feature as coded and implemented. If they reject it that, it means all that effort is wasted. In the case of Avatar Puppeteer feature the developer has lost interest.

Jessica believes this mean developers will think twice before developing features because there is no assurances the Lab will accept the feature.

The Lab disagrees. I’ll point out that the Lindens I’ve spoken with understand Jessica’s point. So, this indicates the two factions are seeing something different in the process. More about that another time.

31:00 – Lab has been better about taking submitted code and features over the last year. This seems connected to Oz Lindens arrival at the Lab. Jessica’s examples are multi-wearable, multi-attachment, avatar physics, and shared region Windlight.

31:40 – Breast physics… Jessica reaction when she first heard this discussed for development in Emerald was: Really? That is so dumb. No one will ever use it. The Emerald team developed it. It became extremely popular. However, the code was an ugly hack and the Lab would not accept it. The Lab also, according to Jessica, thought it was a bad idea of little interest to users.

Jessica believes that avatar physics was only accepted because of the popularity of the feature in the Emerald Viewer. If such a viewer feature had not been provided to the community, the Lab might not have ever changed its opinion and added the feature. We can’t know that is true. But, Jessica makes a good argument for it being so. I tend to agree and I’ve seen plenty of people that believe it is so.