Firestorm Viewer Q&A January

The Firestorm team has not been announcing their Q&A meetings. At least not in such a way that a non-fan-boy would notice. But, a recent post (2/7) announces postponing the planned meeting until this coming Friday (2/15).

The time will be 4 PM SLT. The location is the Firestorm Support Island. These meetings can run long, a couple of hours or more.

Firestorm Logo

Firestorm Logo

Jessica Lyon says, “I expect we will have more solid info by the 15th for you along with some great news!

So our next Q&A will be Saturday, February 15th, at 4PM SLT. We hope to see lots of you there—exciting things are coming!”

This meeting comes the day after the SL Third Party Viewers Developer meeting. So, we may hear some interesting news.

At the recent Beta Server UG meeting the Lindens said again there are projects in the works they cannot talk about. When the Lab is quite this long, there is usually something up. Whether things are slow because Rod is leaving and was wrapping things up, we don’t know. I think the Lab develops plans, short and long term. So, work would not slow or direction drift because the CEO was leaving. The plans would keep everyone moving. A new CEO may change directions and priorities. That might cause a lull in releases, but I doubt it in the Lab’s case.

Also, developers are often kept in the dark or silenced with Non-Disclosure Agreements. (NDA) Keeping track of what one can say, when what expires, and what is an isn’t still covered can get confusing. So, I think some just generally keep quite once they start signing to avoid problems and loss of trust.

Bloggers often speculate from historical experience or wildly guess. Those posts are usually inspired by what others are saying and rumors. Some PR departments reach out and provide advance information provided NDA’s are signed or bloggers agree to what is termed information embargoes.

The result of such PR actions is certain subjects become taboo. Everyone in the know stops talking about that subject. Then one day the surprise is sprung. It is both often fun and builds excitement. When done right, it is good for both the surprisee and surpriser.

So, what exciting thing has everyone stopped talking about? Is that the ‘surprise’ what Jessica is hinting at? Or is it something more mundane? I mean we know the current Beta version Firestorm is doing pretty well, at least the comments I am hearing from knowledgeable users are mostly positive. The Beta is probably more of a Release Candidate than a beta. So, are we on the verge of a new version release? Probably. But, is that all?

We will have to wait and see.

8 thoughts on “Firestorm Viewer Q&A January

  1. I suspect the decision to call the latest Firestorm release “Beta” was made to distinguish their release process from LL’s. Release Candidate has become associated with the Linden’s multitrack release process.

    • You are probably right.

      There are specific meanings for the labels. So, they may just be being precise.

  2. I watch the Firestorm Source and the only commit I can see that some people find exciting is this one…

    First draft on a Leap Motion flycam implementation. Leap Motion mode: 10

    Made some time yesterday (Friday evening UK time).

      • You can see what’s been committed to the main release repository. (and pull and self compile the code, word of warning it will take about 6 hours to get a development environment up and running)

        http://hg.phoenixviewer.com/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl

        • I really don’t want to compile a viewer. I have too many other things for my computer to do.

          I’ll try my question another way, does the Firestorm use private repositories like the Lab does?

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