#SL News 2 Week 36

The news and server cycles are off this week because of the US holiday on Monday. We are getting information in small bits. Today via Grid Status we are advised that the Magnum release channel is getting a roll out and will be restarted.

Cube Project – LEA20

It looks like Magnum is getting the code from Blue Steel plus the fix for SVC-8208 – L$ received notification not appearing when on an RC region. Some Lindens were absent from the typical user group meetings they attend. I surmise they were working on a fix for SVC-8208. Oskar Linden was not sure yesterday the fix would be ready for a Wednesday roll out. It seems they made it.

Blue Steel and Le Tigre are going to update on Thursday, according to Oskar Linden and an updated posted in the Deploys thread.

Le Tigre is going to be running the ‘infrastructure’ update with possible new fixes added. As of today the Lindens have not decided which updates to include. It will likely be toward the end-of-work-day before that decision is made.

Main Channel

The main channel did not see a Tuesday roll out. Problems in the new code kept all the test code in the QA process for another week.

It is hard to know how much the Lindens are adding to or changing the test code from week to week when they hit problems and want to get a fix like SVC-8124 and 8155 to the main grid. It is not like each piece is a completely separate item. They are all intertwined to some degree. Even the ones that seem separate often have an effect on other parts. The Lindens decide from what they know which combinations should be tested and which are the most likely to make it through QA on a release channel. Sometimes they are wrong and nothing works.

I suspect there is some pressure, or may be just desire, to make up lost time when any release channel fails to make it out.

Annoying People

Oskar Linden apparently reacted to some of the posting in the Deploy thread and posted:

Paratrex, this is a forum thread for the QA team at Linden Lab to talk with residents about current issues in the Release Candidate channels in the attempt to stop these issues from going live. This is not a forum for everyone to whine about how bad they think LL is this week. Please keep your thoughts on topic and productive. If you would like to voice your strong opinions on things unrelated to the server code please create your own forum thread.

__Oskar (reference)

It seems Paratrex is an Alt made just for the posting. The post is gone now, at least I can’t find it. I’m amazed Oskar puts up with as much as he does. It is no surprise to me that a large number of Lindens refuse to talk with the community.

Toward the end of the day Oskar made another posting:

Ok here’s the update. Finding that issue on a weekend with a Monday holiday has been very tricky. It messed up our whole release process and schedule this week. All the code that was to go to RC had to be redone. We had to investigate the issue, narrow it down, find a fix for it, build it, deploy it, and test it all in the time frame of a few hours. This will continue to be tested overnight and we will have one channel ready for deploy Wednesday AM. Magnum will be updated then. The other channels will continue to be QA’d Wednesday for a Thursday morning release.

The Magnum channel notes are updated now.

__Oskar (reference – 9/4 5:28PM)

Of all the various sections of the Lab, the server team is the most communicative, IMO. There are a few Lindens that provide all the information most users want, of course they are limited in what they can say and will not discuss security issues, other than when gathering information about them. But, that does not get them any better treatment than the Commerce and Web teams that are nearly as uncommunicative as many describe the Lab as being.

There is no way to fix the people that cannot cope with frustration or inconvenience and inappropriately vent in public or attack their imagined target. They obviously have not read the 1936 book: How to Win Friends and Influence People, which is still selling today. They are stuck in a frustrating purgatory of their own creation. The callous thing one can do to them is leave them alone to continue their behavior. It shortens their life and adds to their misery. The best one can do for them is gently point them toward a mirror. I often have to work on the ‘gently’ part and I really have to work at keeping my mouth shut.

But, we can take the time to thank the Lindens that do help us and put up with so many annoying people. Gratitude and equanimity lengthen our lives… or so the people that study these things say.

8 thoughts on “#SL News 2 Week 36

  1. As a daily lurker on your blog I wanted to also extend kudos for this post.
    It amazes me how restrained Oskar is. The effort he/they went through to address this nasty bug is very understated and should be met with hi5’s, not trash.
    I also want to thank you for saving me from wading through countless posts (searching for “Linden”) to keep abreast of current happenings. You have a knack for distilling issues. Much appreciated!

  2. Neatly and concisely explained Nalates. Yet another reason why your blog is a must-read: there is always good info here minus the raving that I see on other SL blogs. Great work!

  3. While still maybe true, your words “Of all the various sections of the Lab, the server team is the most communicative, IMO. ” sound a bit euphemistic in the light of the JIRA-change…

    • It is not the server team that made the change. From listening to Oz’s comments I get the idea this change came from upper management. Both Alexa and Oz stated they were not in a position change things. I got the same impression from Oskar and other Lindens working with user groups.

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