This does sound much better than the previous way of doing things - more open and closer to the Bazaar, etc., but I want to ask how it came about. What was the impetus? Is this a direct result of Phil's return to more active involvement with LL in general? Is it simply the desire of the devs added to opportunity and freedom thus made into reality?
--GC On Sun, 2010-08-15 at 12:25 -0400, Oz Linden (Scott Lawrence) wrote: > > > What’s Next For The Second Life Viewer? > Linden Lab spent the better part of the last two years revamping the > Second Life Viewer to create Viewer 2. Some of the changes were > important new features, and some were controversial - some were both. > The bulk of the design and engineering work was done with only > limited, indirect participation from the open source and resident > communities, which has left many in those communities feeling > alienated and disenfranchised. > In recent months we have released both Viewer 2 and a 2.1 update; > Linden Lab has also been through a major reorganization. We are now > evaluating the results of all of this work, and we are making > significant changes to the way we design and build the viewer. > > Introducing Snowstorm > Linden Lab has created a new team whose goal is to develop the Second > Life Viewer in the open and in response to the needs of our Residents. > Here are our goals: > * Show Residents continuous visible progress > * Work in the open by sharing not only our code, but our > process publicly -- this includes our backlog and our > discussion about it. > * Engage with the open source community and aggressively > accept good work the community does into our product. > * Release new ‘Development’ Viewers frequently -- our > initial target is bi-weekly. All builds from the > ‘Development’ branch are visible and available for > testing. > * Improve the user experience > * Make continuous improvements to the design and > implementation of the Viewer’s user interface. > * Import desirable patches and features from Snowglobe > and other Third Party Viewers. > * Add small features and fixes that have high value and > low cost, while still remaining consistent with an > overall product vision. > * Renew and deepen our relationship with the community > * Integrate community work directly into our main line > Viewer rather than routing it through Snowglobe > first. > * Demonstrate rapid responsiveness to feedback and > patches from community. > * Engage continuously with the community to develop new > project proposals and provide resources that open > source developers need to be effective. > > > How Snowstorm Works > * Viewer development has moved to a single open source model > * There are no longer internal ‘private’ and external > ‘public’ versions. Viewer source (with the exception > of one wrapper library we cannot legally release), is > now in public Mercurial source repositories. All > viewer integration is happening in the Development > repository at > ‘http://hg.secondlife.com/viewer-development’. It is > used by all Linden Lab viewer development teams, and > open source developers are encouraged to pull from > that repository and submit changes for integration to > it. > * Code in the Development repository is now released under > version 2 of the GNU LGPL > > This allows community developers greater freedom to use the viewer > code, including incorporating it into products that also include > closed source. > > * Accepted contributions go directly into the official Second > Life Viewer > > There is no longer a two-step process of contributing to Snowglobe and > then hoping that the contribution is imported to the Linden viewer. > Viewer development efforts within Linden Lab go through the same > integration queue and into the same repository that open source > contributions use. > > * Innovations from Snowglobe are being imported to this new > viewer > * Some changes may be left behind or modified in order > to fit into Viewer 2; Linden Lab will work with open > source contributors to harmonize contributions with > the product goals of the Linden viewer. The plan is to > import as much as possible of the excellent work that > has been done in Snowglobe as quickly as possible > (this rate does depend on help from you). > * Snowstorm team plans and priorities are open > > We publish both what we’re working on (in public Jira issues and on > our Sprint Backlog) and the projects we’d like to do (our Product > Backlog). These projects are available for open source contributors to > take on, and the Snowstorm team coordinates getting access to any > Linden review and collaboration resources that are needed. Community > members are encouraged to propose additions to the Product Backlog. > > > Who Is Building The Viewer? > Within Linden Lab, many different groups are doing Viewer development; > the Snowstorm team manages the Development branch, coordinates > contributions from open source, and does rapid small feature > development itself. > Snowstorm is: > * Q Linden - Tech Lead, Team Lead > * Esbee Linden - Product/Business Lead > * Oz Linden - Open Source Lead > * Merov, Aimee, Tofu, and three external contract developers > * and, crucially, the open source community. > > > Where Are The Details? > Snowstorm operates in the open; the home page of the Snowstorm team is > on the public wiki at > https://wiki.secondlife.com/Snowstorm_Team > it has pointers to our various communications channels, processes, and > contact information. > > The Snowstorm Team leads will be at the Second Life Community > Convention on Aug 15, and will hold an open in-world meeting Aug 16 at > the Hippotropolis Theater from Noon to 2PM SLT: > http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hippotropolis/239/28/24 > > _______________________________________________ > Policies and (un)subscribe information available here: > http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev > Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges _______________________________________________ Policies and (un)subscribe information available here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges
