Oz Linden Interview Summary

01:00:00 – Oz says a few words about why the Mesh Deformer got left out of the Mesh Project. He didn’t touch on the reasons. You know them if you follow this blog. Basically, that what the Beta testers wanted and the main grid residents was different, the complexity, the time available, and choice to release or delay. They made their decisions and here we are. Whether that was good or bad depends on how you work with mesh.

01:01:00 – Oz points out that we have seen the results of doing things in the open. In the case of Simplified Inventory it worked well. In many cases it has just generated heat and distress. There is no good feedback or actionable information gained. The Lab has to make a call and decide which way to go; open or closed.

01:01:50 – Some development is going to be closed. In some cases the Lab wants tight control of how the feature is released. They want to try and shape how the feature is perceived. Doing open development means they have to give up that control. In some cases they are willing to and in others they aren’t.

It’s in the Lab’s best interest to have TPV’s stay current. But, it has to balance with other business needs.

01:03:00 – Oz mentions that he was on stage with Esbee when she made the statements about working in the open and the mistakes of working in secret. Oz supported her and those ideas. But, as time passed they learned that working in the open was creating more distress than positive experience. Features only partially completed in the LL viewer were taken into TPV’s and changed. The Lab lost control in some cases. People got upset. It became obvious that working completely in the open was not working for the community or the Lab.

01:04:00 – Jessica asks about putting TPV dev’s under NDA form some feature but letting them know about so they can be prepared.

OZ says he can’t commit to that on is own. He feels the TPV Dev community and the Lab have evolved from a heavily armed cold war stance to a much more cooperative and fast approaching collaborative relationship. So, he can foresee a time with something like what Jessica asked about can happen.

For now there is a trust building process happening. Eventually it should lead to a more collaborative effort.

01:07:00 – Oz talks about NDA’s. If they use NDA’s and someone leaks information, what is the Lab going to do? A law suit is pointless, most TPV Dev’s don’t have any money. Jessica points out that the Lab could then lock out those people. Oz doesn’t want to get there. So, I’m taking it they are resisting the use of NDA’s.

Oz says they want to avoid getting into an oppositional relationship. The Lab’s goal is to move toward a trusting and collaborative relationship.

01:07:50 – Oz’s personal opinion is the Lab has evolved significantly in its understanding of open source. Oz feels more than adequately supported by his management in open source. He is optimistic that the Lab and TPV Dev’s will be working collaboratively.

01:09:00 – Oz points out that his Linked-In profile shows he tends to be a long term employee.

01:09:50 – Jessica starts a review of the policy changes… which suddenly turns into questions…

Q: What TPV features have to immediately change? Online status. That is it.

The idea of using a viewer version tag inserted into group chat when asking for help in the viewer’s support group is all right provided the viewer asks the user if it is OK and the default answer is NO.

01:10:50 – What is the time frame for the change to come into compliance? There is no time frame. In this case meaning no time. They will not be blocking viewers or complaining to TPV Dev’s.

Should users of older viewers be concerned that their accounts are at risk? No.

01:11:15 – Long statement. Should we be getting closer to gather because we have the same goals? Yes.

01:13:00 – Some asks if they can skip all the formalities and just write code. No. One of the realities of professional software development is all the formalities, styles, processes, code reviews, usability, and other requirements that allow a large team to work together.

Oz says he will make it as simple as possible. But, one does have to deal with the realities of professional software development.

01:16:00 – Would you tell us sort of what you are working on so we avoid duplication? Nooo… but… give the Lab a proposal for what you want to work on. The Lab will basically say hold off or go for it. One can infer that if they say hold off, the Lab is working on something similar or something that will change what you would develop.

Rambling question… sheeese… I think Jessica was rushing and trying to combine several questions. How many LL dev’s actually use the viewer and SL? We find odd features that seem to indicate they don’t. The Lab seems to add features TPV users don’t want. The priority of issues often surprises us.

6 thoughts on “Oz Linden Interview Summary

  1. Pingback: New TPV policy changes - Page 100 - SLUniverse Forums

  2. Pingback: WHAT IS THIS CRAP? » And imagine how far we could fall

  3. Excellent Nalate’s, thanks for posting this “reader’s digest edition” it’s nice to finally read the end result of this review.

    One point which kind of stuck out though, Parcel WindLight… Seriously ? google “LightShare OpenSim” then google “LightShare Aurora-Sim” and you’ll make some interesting discoveries which have nothing to do with PH/FS or LL but rather Parcel/Region LightShare has been in OpenSim / Aurora-Sim for almost 3 years, supported by Imprudence Astra, Singularity and a couple of others…. by the way, it works wonderfully. Why not be up front about it and take from what is already designed, tested, implemented, debugged & known good ??? OpenSim being the best free idea sandbox & test resource that LL has. (oh I forgot, all the folks that were there @ LL when IBM argued that point are all laid off, so the corporate memory is NULL_SPACE.)

    I guess the next new innovation that LL & PH/FS dream up will be “Flexi-Regions” or “Flexi-Sims” which will look just like Mega-Regions or Variable Regions (as used in Aurora-Sim)…

    Sorry but it does leave a bit of an unpleasant after taste .

    • I’ve met you in OSGrid and appreciate the help you gave me. Thanks for being in both places and helping others.

      OpenSim does have a nicer version of WindLight in their Lightshare. I suppose while the OpenSim people could give the viewer side of Lightshare to LL and the Lab could use it, the Lab’s server is not open source. For the Lab to take the OpenSim Lightshare they would have to comply with the open source license. I seriously doubt that will happen.

      If you listen to Oz at 31:50, he is talking about how there is a mixed opinion about open source within the Lab. I find that completely understandable considering how some open source people have abused the Lab in the past.

      Flexi or Mega regions in SL seem unlikely to me. One of the Lab’s goals is to increase the population a region can carry. I suspect that is going to require some significant change and I believe those changes would have a major impact on how Mega regions would work. While I may be wrong, I see Mega regions being way down the road, if ever.

      I’m not sure which ‘it’ leaves the bad taste. For me, I see our biggest problem being how poorly a vocal part of the community is handling the changes at the Lab.

      • “it” = LightShare / WindLight is opensource as is OpenSim and yes while the platforms differ they are not that different. The viewer patches exist and are out there and also not a massive nasty. Parcel WindLight is something we all started asking for & discussing as soon as WindLight became available, LL did not bother to consider a full environment solution until well after OpenSim went ahead and implemented it because it not only made sense, it is used extensively.

        Re mega regions…. refer to https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-7583

        Completely agree that the culture that has evolved @ LL in regards to the open source community and that benefits no one which is a genuine shame that so many lose out as a result. Unfortunately that also has a direct impact on the overall community by effectively removing unity from community. Henri Beauchamps of CV had an excellent & clear look at the impact of TPV, very rational & sane without all the “sky is falling” chicken little routine.

        /me admits his guilt in helping people on various platforms and trying to get discussion going in ways to be of benefit to all.

        • Thanks for JIRA ID. I don’t understand the high JIRA number and the 2009 creation date…

          For a 2009 dated item to not yet be touched in some way by a Linden suggests there is some internal decision process at work.

          I think the change will be complex and lots of work. That usually mean it goes to the bottom of the priority list.

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