0:27:45 Kadah Coba has a new skin for FS, or at least is working on one. Kadah describes the skin.
0:30:20 Skinning in FS explanations. It is 10 times harder to skin FS V2-3 code base than the V1 code base. Some explanation as to why. In V1 a bug could be fixed once. In V2-3 code based viewer versions each individual skin has to be fixed. Skin support is very difficult.
The different skins also make general FS support difficult because various things are in different places. There is an option in the FS viewer to send FS version information to the support people. Enabling that makes it MUCH easier on support personnel, meaning you get better answers.
These complications also contribute to the FS development being behind.
0:38:00 You change the viewer to what people say they want and you get yelled at.
0:39:30 Ed Merryman speech on the problem deciding on defaults.
0:40:00 The best viewer has every option. Not necessarily so. That creates huge maintenance problems for developers. but, this is the path the FS Team chose.
0:41:00 The next relase of FS should have optional chiclets.
0:41:30 Terrain editing delay. FS JIRA Fire-8459.
0:43:00 Options more or less speech by Jessica.
0:46:30 Preferences are going to get moved around in the next release. Listen to the video for why. It is necessary not an idle choice.
0:50:15 Will Inventory be redone/improved? It is complicated. There are bugs. CHUI added bugs to FS. So, changes are a problem. The Inventory code comes from the Lab. Jessica says FS’s Inventory is 98% Linden code.
0:55:00 Memory leaks. There is no end to them. The Team is always fixing them. New code seems to always add more.
0:56:20 Another Ed Merryman ‘rant.’ Sane settings for SL. This is a good section to check out.
1:03:00 Back to CHUI. Next release will not be the CHUI release it will have a version number.
1:05:00 FS Team used a Team viewer. But, the liability is too great. The team incorporated to show responsibility. But, that makes it possible to easily be sued.
1:07:30 Support – remember it is free. Be nice. There is some great information here on how the FS group manages their people. Kudos to them.
1:11:00 FS has a problem with some animations not sync’ing with the viewer. Doors may fail to appear to open or close after being clicked. This is a local viewer thing. A person with the same viewer standing beside you may see the door close while you see it remaining open. The SL Viewer finally got that fixed. The fix code should be in the next FS release.
1:12:15 Toasts – Hover tips – Tool Tips
1:13:30 COF and outfit folders. The FS Team’s thinking is that the Outfits Folder should never have objects/items placed in them that are not LINKS. Numerious people have created subfolders in the Outfits Folder and placed ‘outfits’ consisting of link items in them. That works. Any other use is putting you at risk of some serious Inventory problems.
I think some of the coming SSA inspired Inventory changes will deal with these problems.
Again, most of the Inventory operation is from Linden code. Much of the Inventory process is server side. So, there is little the FS Team can do.
1:17:15 FS on Android? No. More Ed ranting. (He isn’t really RANTING, just explaining.) Lots of discussion.
See: Team Viewer
See: LogMeIn
1:22:30 Considering doing Q&A meetings twice a month. The Team is planning First and may be 3rd Saturday of the month. One in the morning and one in the evening. May be starting in September.
Ed points out that there is an open Q&A after every class.
1:27:45 Most of the OpenSim compatibility in FS is due to Cinder Roxley. Sept 7 & 8 there is a meeting for OpenSim users of FS Viewer. A panel of TPV Dev’s will be talking and answering questions. Jessica will post more information closer to the meeting date. Watch the login screen for recent blog posts.
1:30:45 Hypergrid
1:33:30 Voice connections remain active after leaving region. This is an old bug. Never think when on voice that no one else can hear. The voice channel can be highjacked. Do not ever think Vivox is secure.
Ed points out that there is no privacy in SL.
1:36:35 OTR has probably been cracked by Linden Lab. (OTR = Off The Record – encrypted IM) Cinder says it is vulnerable to 4 different attacks. Encryption is discussed.
Ed tries to explain encryption key exchange. I don’t think he does it well. If you are interested in it Google and learn more. But, Ed does get it right about how key exchange can still reveal who you are, and certainly your IP address.
There is some type of encryption for FS planned but it is low priority. The team wants to either provide security or omit it to avoid giving false impressions of security.
1:44:30 1,800 Viewer Versions – 1,600± were Phoenix-Firestorm versions. Jessica feels this variety of viewers is somewhat due to her not being willing to force people to update. There are people with old hardware that just cannot update. Their hardware will not run the new viewers. That is generally hardware made before 2001 – pre Pentium 4.
We are now at a point where there is no choice. SSA is going to require an update. SSA cannot be back ported to older versions of FS nor Phoenix.
The Dev Team has the ability to block versions of their viewers. They have avoided doing so except in very rare cases. But… that is about to change. The plan is to allow 3 version of Firestorm on the grid at any one time.
So, if version 1, 2, and 3 are out and a new version 4 comes out, viewer 1 will be blocked. Only version 2, 3, and 4 will work.
Jessica does a lot of talking explaining why they are making this change. She talks a lot about how cheap new computers are. On eBay you can buy some really nice computers that can run SL for US$100 to $200.
There is going to be a warning sort of… new releases will appear on the viewer splash screen. Starting a blocked viewer will pop up a splash screen that advises the user to update because the viewer they have is being phased out.
1:51:00 Griefers … nothing new here.
1:52:15 Will there be a FS class on RLV? The team is open to it. But, they have to work out which class they are providing; the one for users, the one for region owners, the one for product makers.
1:55:00 September 3rd – 3rd anniversary for Firestorm-Phoenix. There will probably be a party. You’ll have to watch closely for an announcement. They only have a single region to party on. I suggest you not expect a blog post or a viewer splash screen notice. There will likely be a group announcement and hour or so before the party. That alone is likely to fill up the region.
1:58:45 JIRA’s – The only way to get anything fixed in any software company/project is via a JIRA, a bug report. Jessica goes into detail as to why that is.
See: Heard That One Before, Part 9: Connecting the Dot Dot Dot.
The average time to fix a JIRA from the day it is filed to completion is: on average 273 days – that is on the Firestorm JIRA and it is typical for most software houses. But, this number skews long because duplicates may not be closed until a semi-annual review gets them closed. Also, some number of them are waiting on the others to solve problems first. Others being like nVidia, Havok, Microsoft, etc.
This would be a good section of the video to listen to if you think JIRA’s are ignored.
2:10:30 Look At Feature – Discussion – Ed’s grip. The feature is a major fuel for drama.
2:11:40 Jessica relates the story of a new Linden that thought to remove Look At.
JIRA discussion continues
2:15:30 Jessica relates how Nyx Linden spent his personal time to fix the hover feature in FS that was broken by the Lab. That has never happened before. The fix is not ideal and many bad mouth it. But, it is as close to a fix as is currently possible.
See: Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.
2:19:45 Temporary Uploads soon to die. Use local texture picker as a replacement.
2:24:00 Who gets to release new features first. More on temporary upload.
2:28:30 Talking about content creators building unsupported content – This is a reference to Liquid Mesh.
2:31:30 Back to Team Viewer – it is not an SL Viewer. It is a remote computer control service.
2:32:30 Inventory moves when a friend comes on line. Calling Cards.
2:35:00 JIRA triage prior to viewer release.
Mostly rambling from this point on…
2:40:00 Next Q & A may be Sept 14th… may be.
2:44:31 End
I shed single tear for those running 2001 hardware. Ok. It’s been shed. Let’s move on now…
🙂 OK.
I got this sudden image of someone trying to run Firestorm viewer on Hal9000’s hardware. LOL!
“This is the end of the Phoenix Viewer.”
This should be news to absolutely nobody. We’ve been saying it for more than a year and a half. I blogged about it several times/ The first was on Christmas Day 2011; I wrote more in December 2012, and twice more this year, once when the SSA rollout was announced in June and again, short and sweet, <a href="when it actually started in July.
We’ve been telling people to migrate to Firestorm for quite a long time. We weren’t lying, and we weren’t obfuscating,a nd we weren’t trying to lead anyone down the garden path. We had good reasons for doing so. If you haven’t upgraded by now, you deserve what you get.
I agree with almost every point you made. The FS Team has made many efforts to inform their users.
The problem in your thinking is in the word “should”. It has nothing to do with reality. What we think people should know and/or understand usually has nothing to do with what they actually know or understand.
I’ll also take exception to your use of the word “deserve”. You do not know the people you are talking about or their circumstances. While their fate may be sealed, that does not mean they “deserve it”.
I didn’t hear or see this covered though it was in the chat a number of times. Will all versions of Phoenix be blocked? And when will the blocks take place?
They don’t explicitly say it. But, I am sure all versions of Phoenix will be blocked.
In week 34 SSA will likely roll out. If that happens, I would expect the viewers to be blocked within the next week to four.
Well people can still get a different viewer that uses V1 interface and get all others benefits from V3 so they shouldnt worry too much for that.
I really would like to see the “Look at” feature moved out lol. I never use that, I dont want to see people’s “Look at” axis around. But is really ANNOYING when people IM you just to tell you to stop looking at them! Seriously, whats wrong with people lol.
Good point, Kitsune.
Look At is fuel for drama. But, Jessica does a good job of explaining why the base need for it exists.
In any other MMO or video game, there would be NOTHING explosive about being required to keep not just close to current, but fully current with present patches in order to be able to use the service.
In fact, in this MMO, Second Life, that was the case as well up until 2009, from what I have heard.
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