Pre-Town Hall Answers
Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 at 12:45 PM by: corylindenWhat an amazing first day for the Open Source viewer! With over 1500 people downloading the source, a compile already showing up on Flickr, and a successful bug fix submission, we are off to a good start. However, this is clearly only the beginning. We all have a lot to learn about what it means to have an Open Source viewer out there and there will certainly be bumps along the road. Open Sourcing the viewer is also simply a first step along the path of making Second Life more open and available to everyone.
Rather than chewing up time at the town hall with canned answers, it seemed to make more sense to respond to those in the blog comments first. See you at 3pm PST today.
Answers after the fold:
Remember that the official Second Life viewer will always be available at the Second Life website. You don’t have to do anything with the Open Source viewer to continue logging on as you do now!
Open Sourcing the client does not impact continued development of Mono or other planned improvements to LSL. Although Mono is also an Open Source project, that code will be running on the server, not the client. As has been previously discussed, part of the reason for going to Mono and the Common Language Runtime is to eventually allow more flexibility in scripting language choice.
We recognize that we are currently light on documentation. We will be working though Q1/Q2 to share better documentation as it becomes available. We will also be making additional blog posts about various subsystems in the viewer. While we are open to changes in various parts of the client, fair warning about several major changes that are currently in testing that we hope to release in Q1:
* Multithreading in the client for rendering and texture decodes. This offers a significantly smoother experience and speed improvements on multi-core/multi-processor systems. The message handling, texture decoding, and texture management portions of the viewer have changes a fair amount to accommodate these changes.
* Full support for Vertex Buffer Objects. This provides a performance boost to rendering but has required substantial changes to how geometry and objects are handled on the viewer.
* HTTP texture downloads will allow more reliable and smoother texture downloads but impact the message system.
More broadly, per earlier posts, we’re in the process of moving off of the message template entirely. This will take time, but will result in a far more flexible system better able to accommodate a heterogeneous set of viewer and simulator versions. This, when combined with capabilities, is a major step towards not having to perform monolithic releases of the viewer and servers. Until those projects are released, the official viewer and simulators will regularly go out of sync with the Open Source release. We will make every effort to keep the Open Source version matched up, but we aren’t guaranteeing it. Instead, there will always be a test grid available for the current Open Source version to connect to.
This, of course, raises the question of why release the code now? Several reasons.
First, the Second Life community is the largest and most talented group of designers and developers to ever come together around one project. The sooner we released the code, the sooner the members of the community with an interest in coding would be able to begin building expertise in the code base. Will everyone who will eventually improve the viewer write code this month or this year? Of course not! However, for those with the knowledge and interest, now is the opportunity to get ahead of the curve and capitalize on the experience.
Second, there are enough opportunities in areas not rapidly changing for this to be a huge win for all of us. From optimizations in libJPEG or minor UI bug fixes to improving the build system or playing with how the chat floaters work, many parts of the code are relatively easy to poke around in and open to quick fixes. Annoyed that parcels can’t stream DivX movies? Play around with their embeddable client and then submit the changes!
Third, security. While many of you raised question about security, the reality is that Open Source will result in a more secure viewer and Second Life for everyone. Will exploits be found as a result of code examination? Almost certainly, but the odds are far higher than the person discovering the bug is someone working to make Second Life better. Would those exploits have been found by reverse engineering in order to crack the client? Yes, but with a far smaller chance that the exploit will be made public. Also, as part of the preparation for Open Source, we conducted a security audit and took other precautions to mitigate the security risks.
Fourth, as we continue to scale the Second Life development team — and thank you to the many folks who have helped to get our hiring pipeline humming again — Open Source becomes a great way for potential developers to demonstrate their skill and creativity with our code. Moreover, it makes it even easier for remote developers to become part of Linden Lab. The possibility space for Second Life is enormous, so the more development horsepower we can apply to it — whether working for Linden Lab or now — the faster we all can take Second Life from where it is today into the future.
Several questions were raised regarding security, both in terms of malicious clients and Intellectual Property. Both of these issues are dealt with fairly extensively on the Open Source FAQ, but let me just make a couple of comments. First of all, just like you would be unlikely to use a custom build of Firefox to make purchases on Amazon, Linden Lab will continue to distribute official releases of the Second Life viewer from secondlife.com. Those viewers, and all the code in them, will be screened and tested and any submitted patches carefully examined before inclusion in the main code. Regarding IP, an Open Source viewer in no way reduces your IP rights or claims under DMCA or other relevant law. While it continues to be true that any data that is displayed on the client can be duplicated, it also continues to be true that any such copying may be infringing. I’ve spoken about copying before and I won’t duplicate myself here other than to say that engaging in an arms race in DRM that we will lose is not a good use of development time and effort. We are making changes to allow better meta data and, in fact, much of the groundwork for that has been a critical part of enabling this Open Source release. More discussion on this topic is on the FAQ.
The procedure for submitting patches is described on the submission page. Our prioritization for accepting patches will vary over time but we are most likely to accept small, discrete bug fixes or optimizations. For larger features, please be sure to take advantage of the Second Life JIRA tool to discuss the project. Whether or not it will be accepted will depend on how much it benefits SL residents in general, the risks associated with the feature, and many other factors. However, the best early uses of the Open Source code will be to make the existing viewer work better.
The Second Life viewer is not yet in an open SVN repository, although that will change in the future.
In terms of what should be worked on first, again the best options are find small things that bug you and fix them! After all, if something is annoying you, the odds are high that many thousands of other people are also annoyed. Bug fixes are our highest priority to accept as well, so this will also give you the best chance of making changes that make it into the official viewer.
There was some concern that open sourcing would impact the Mac OS X or Linux ports in a negative way. I actually expect Open Source to be an enormous benefit to both platforms as they both already strongly tied to Open Source. Plus, now if a specific feature isn’t working on your platform of choice, you’ll have the opportunity to go in and add it!
The reverse engineering work of the libsecondlife crew has already enabled the possibility of someone building compatible simulators, so nothing in the Open Source release changes that. The value of Second Life is the community and innovation within it, so my hope is that time and energy will be better spent on improving the viewer while we solve the myriad technical and security issues around making more of Second Life Open Source.
We just finished one Second Life book and I’m sure the publisher will be thrilled to hear that there is interest in a more technical one!
I will be publishing a road map for Second Life in the next month or so that will outline the anticipated changes to both the viewer and the servers to enable this. It is important for Second Life residents to have as much flexibility as possible in how they use Second Life and what they use it for and we have an excellent set of designs to enable that. But, that is a topic for another day.
January 9th, 2007 at 12:57 PM
Was the client/server “security audit” carried out by the same team that investigated the password database ’security breach’ a few months back - who couldn’t even tell us what information was stored wherever was hacked, or even if it was hacked at all.
I’m sure I cannot be the only one who remains unconvinced that ‘open source’ really was a step forward.
Broccoli
January 9th, 2007 at 12:59 PM
Can’t attend the town hall, yet, i agree that bringing Second Life to Open-Source was a HUGE and GREAT step. Moreover, i know LL wouldn’t just release it without preparing for the worse (in Second Life, there’s a worst coming out faster even than updates lol), i mean they “survived” the CopyBot (YAY! there was NO CopyBot in the Teen Grid! LOL) , and they’ve survived much bigger Exploits. I think you could manage the Open-Source project, but, keep this in mind: You need more laisions for this. Open-Source ideas will come like Tsunamies, and you will need to have enough people to build up a shelter in time (e.g. Many requests, need alot of Linden Laisions to answer or AT LEAST respond).
In conclusion, GOOD LUCK!
I’m with ya on it (Though im a TERRIBLE C++ and C# code writer LOL) 
January 9th, 2007 at 1:01 PM
P.S.: WHY do i always get to MAX 2nd comment? D: haven’t seen any lol Broccoli, you all-the-time-checking-linden-blog-for-posts-adult lol
January 9th, 2007 at 1:02 PM
*any comments
January 9th, 2007 at 1:03 PM
Cory, you forgot to fold the fold, it’s all showing up on the main page.
January 9th, 2007 at 1:03 PM
Another P.S. Related to the Topic Title: Hmm… there was 1(!) town hall for the TG… i think it’s going to be a “Yearly” meeting lol. Still waiting for another >.> or at least a date lol
January 9th, 2007 at 1:04 PM
I’m guessing LL is hoping for IBM to make some significant contributions? If so, wouldn’t that mean the client might be heading towards being more of a corporate collaboration tool, and less of a consumer product?
January 9th, 2007 at 1:25 PM
The more I read your message, Cory, the more I’m convinced that this is the platform I signed in for
Thank you so much for doing this. I absolutely now that it’s in your best interest as well, of course, but… what better definition of “success” than everybody wins?
Ah, to all the naysayers, I challenge you all to stay around for another year. Watch the Metaverse unfold. Have the courage to take the red pill. And if you’re not impressed with what you see in early 2008, leave to never return. One year is not so much time.
But oh, what a year it will be
January 9th, 2007 at 1:28 PM
# Broccoli Curry Says:
I’m sure I cannot be the only one who remains unconvinced that ‘open source’ really was a step forward.
Broccoli
Maybe, but if you post enough about it, you’ll *seem* like more than one person.
January 9th, 2007 at 1:39 PM
I applaud the daring step to open source the client. This will open a lot of potential to innovate and broaden the platform, but one should not forget the step that follows this… the open sourcing of the server platform and the maturing of the SL world in general… This will take some revolutions in SL… A brave first step and I hope that Mitch Kapor will push the team further to complete the mission and not scare off and leave this great platform half-opened.
Do not whine and complain about the client and its security… How secure was web 0.1a3… What if everybody left NCSA and backed gopher then? (this is oldies talk, if you do not understand, then you may want to googlify theses two words).
You have my full support and blessings!
January 9th, 2007 at 1:44 PM
As I complained about yesterday, that wasn’t addressed and I can’t come to town hall, I hope there’s some serious answers on all the major problems I spit out.. maybe hastily… but then again, I just crashed and spent another 2k replacing a few items from the last time I lost an ‘essential’.
At least all these problems are happening during Town Hall times… maybe those who don’t come on the grid, like Philip often… can see just what we are griping about when we can’t even play SL anymore.
January 9th, 2007 at 2:10 PM
I shall not be able to attend the Town Hall meeting but of all my reading of the blogs and BBs the one over riding issue some seem to have a degree of concern for are security issues on accounts, passwords, credit cards, and inventory.
From my own personal viewpoint I believe these issues are not a great concern but imho it may be helpful to debate/cover that point
January 9th, 2007 at 2:14 PM
Sorry Gwyn, but what’s to get excited about when the SERVER side never changes? In 3/4 of a year we’ve had one upgrade (flexiprims), and the server is where it’s at in Second Life. Customizing the client may result in some happy-happy for users, but ultimately we’re still stuck with five-year old simulation software. With physics, scripting and prim-types all resigned to server-side technologies, how much “unfolding” can happen?
Sure, a DirectX Windows client would be a performance godsend over OpenGL, cool new ways to display IMs would be an interesting project, ad de-coupling sub-windows like inventory would free up screen real estate, but ultimately these don’t affect the world that be created, only in the way it’s “lived”.
In one year tech is ever changing except where it matters in the Second Life realm, namely the server.
January 9th, 2007 at 2:20 PM
thanks for answering the questions about documentation, how about the plugins question?
January 9th, 2007 at 2:40 PM
DirectX? Not until Microsoft (or should that be MicroMonopoly?) make it available on all platforms… Yes, shock horror, the whole world does not run on Windows.
So this is interesting, more ideas, more tweaks, more bugs, on a network that can’t even handle 20,000 users. There won’t be another year at this rate, the whole thing is falling over now. Network vendor systems are failing, ad panels can take an hour(!) to change status, chat lines can lag by three or four minutes, and arrive after several others have been sent, let alone all the other problems like permanent grey, not being able to move, invi avs and the rest of the lag problems.
What Linden needs to do right now is:
1) Sort db issues
2) Improve the network drastically and immediately
3) Halt all new updates until the above are done
4) Freeze all new account opening until the above have been done
Otherwise guys, code all you want, you’ll never see your efforts in-world… unless you’re prepared to wait a week for them toi show up.
January 9th, 2007 at 2:43 PM
You might want to check on that “resolved” issue again…
Still happening.
January 9th, 2007 at 2:52 PM
[...] Answers after the fold: (more…) [...]
January 9th, 2007 at 3:13 PM
[...] expands on many of the topics mentioned above, and discusses other development issues. Read it here. Topic: Online Worlds Tags: second life, linden lab, open source, multiverse, raph koster, open [...]
January 9th, 2007 at 3:19 PM
Broccoli Curry Says:
I’m sure I cannot be the only one who remains unconvinced that ‘open source’ really was a step forward.
No, there have been a couple of other people who know nothing about open source too. However, it seems that they all read the posts by the people who know what they’re talking about and have not stubbornly clung to a LL-is-out-to-get-us mentality.
Please take the time to read the posts, especially by those who are experts. Hopefully it will open your eyes and slow your trigger-fingers.
January 9th, 2007 at 3:23 PM
how interesting. i tried to call secondlife regarding to my account and i told my mama about it too. dad isn’t … good but for now, i am playing habbo.com
January 9th, 2007 at 3:23 PM
Cory Said:
-
Third, security. While many of you raised question about security, the reality is that Open Source will result in a more secure viewer and Second Life for everyone. Will exploits be found as a result of code examination? Almost certainly, but the odds are far higher than the person discovering the bug is someone working to make Second Life better. Would those exploits have been found by reverse engineering in order to crack the client? Yes, but with a far smaller chance that the exploit will be made public. Also, as part of the preparation for Open Source, we conducted a security audit and took other precautions to mitigate the security risks.
-
Jeska Linden shouts: Jeremy Duport: Considering the current Open Sourcing of the viewer has made the protocols used to stream simulator data (that is, primitives, textures, avatars and so on) widely available in order to allow third-party midified clients to function properly, what measures are being put in place to directly protect the products and other intellectual property of residents involved in content creation?
Cory Linden shouts: The protocols were figured out before we open sourced. There is an extensive security and IP discussion on my blog post and the FAQ page.
-
There is no answer to my question, in your pre-answered questions OR in the above blog answers by other residents. This was the REASON for my question.
You can’t blow us off forever. A lot more people than you think care about IP rights and the issues concerning them and the issues with theft via direct replication of server streamed data.
You know, corporations and big money-makers in Second Life.
For the slower among the readers, that’s “copybotting” and “stealing from the people with the ninja lawyer teams”.
January 9th, 2007 at 3:36 PM
Town Hall’s ~midway right now. Jeska’s being the “human firewall” and feeding the Q’s to Cory.
While Pooley’s very crowded, you can listen from afar in Second Life by joining the Linden Town Hall Closed Captioning group inworld; either use Search > Groups or you can find it via my profile.
See the earlier Town Hall post Jeska made for more context & info:
http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/01/08/town-hall-with-cory-linden-tomorrow/
January 9th, 2007 at 3:50 PM
Brocolli: “Was the client/server “security audit” carried out by the same team that investigated the password database ’security breach’ a few months back - who couldn’t even tell us what information was stored wherever was hacked, or even if it was hacked at all.”
It’s funny that you seem anti-open source while seeming annoyed that LL didn’t publically release information that could have potentially helped whoever was responsible for the mentioned attack assess how successful they were and where exactly they got.
People ignorant of IT security often go along with one or two loud voices in a mob demanding information be released, completely ignorant that the release of such information could actually aid the perps. Many attacks occur by perps working blindly, “feeling” out the system. If a company release public details of the attack, it can help give the perp greater insight into the system, removing their “blind spots” so to speak and set the company up for an even worse compromise.
There is a huge difference between releasing source code for a viewer, and releasing infrastructure details. Any compromise that occured in passwords and accounts, did not occur at the viewer level, but at the server level. And that’s a distinction that those who are scared about open source(aka: not tech savvy) don’t seem to grasp. The viewer is a viewer. It’s analoguous to a web browser. A bug in a web browser does not equal a security problem for a web server. They are two different pieces of software that talk to each other.
LL has not released the source for the server, which is where our personal information, including our account balances/passwords/personal data etc… reside. They do not reside in the viewer/client. Those pieces of information remain on the server, whose source code remains unavailble to the public, in the same manner as the details surrounding the security breach of the servers remain unavailable to the public.
Brocolli: “I’m sure I cannot be the only one who remains unconvinced that ‘open source’ really was a step forward.”
24 hours and one bug fix later and you remain unconvinced? Wow, you gave it a fair chance, just give up on it now.
January 9th, 2007 at 4:03 PM
Multi-core development finally confirmed! Fantastic, maybe SL will actually run better!
January 9th, 2007 at 4:05 PM
Transcript now up - http://sl.stratics.com, first again with the news.
Broccoli
January 9th, 2007 at 4:17 PM
“Philip Linden: And as to griefing, we just cant’ help with everything.”
??? backout on protecting our objects now this?
January 9th, 2007 at 5:58 PM
All you people griping about lack of IP protection just don’t get it. Look at the music industry (RIAA) or movie industry (MPAA) who have hundreds of millions of dollars to spend protecting their products - and have completely failed. Throwing DRM at digital media is not going to work, get used to it and whether or not the client is Open Source makes zero difference.
And give your customers some credit. So copybot is out there - I’ve never used it and none of my friends have either. I give money to vendors because they do good work and have something I want. Do you think the people that steal would have paid L$ for it if they couldn’t copy it? Highly doubtful.
January 9th, 2007 at 6:06 PM
“24 hours and one bug fix later and you remain unconvinced? Wow, you gave it a fair chance, just give up on it now.” - Gringo Star
Personally, you will never convince me the number of malcontents working on hacks and griefing tools with courtesy of LL provided source code will ever be worth a few trivial bug fixes. You know, I used to think Prokofy was an utter nut for the tekkie-wikki comments and saying LL served this type of person’s interests over the bulk of the players….now, I start to see Prok as being prophetic.
This whole abdication of resposibility by LL to the OSS fanatics serves the best interest of no one but LL (Free labor, who’d have thought anyone stupid enough to work for a corp for free?) and the techie types (oh boy, new toy!). Oh and griefer-types too (oh boy, easier to find ’splots!).
“‘Philip Linden: And as to griefing, we just cant’ help with everything.’ ??? backout on protecting our objects now this?” - Lightwave
Ayep. Free OSS meddlers are cheaper than offshoring the coders to India, and if it hoses the economy, who cares? LL’s still getting their big bucks from VC’s and from corps buying massive numbers of islands….neither groups providing real useful ingame content for players. Once again, content providers take it on the chin in favor of the basement-dwelling techie-types and their fixation with OSS.
January 9th, 2007 at 6:52 PM
Maklin Deckard Says:
* Once again, content providers take it on the chin in favor of the basement-dwelling techie-types and their fixation with OSS.
Once again I have to spend time reading the opinions of those who neither understand the technology they use, nor the process by which it is created, nor how to make points without resorting to childish insults.
It’s common for people to be scared of things they don’t understand, but many SLers seem to be elevating it to an art-form and wearing it as a badge of honour.
January 9th, 2007 at 6:58 PM
Maklin,
You can call us what you like. The fact is that we are the people that drive technology forward. If it wasn’t for the “basement-dwelling techie-types” battling with the “mainstream-marketing just-do-what-works-and-nothing-more” types, you would still be using a monochrome monitor to type your message into a FidoNet message board on your local BBS, and Second Life would be a door game (wow, memories of LORD just came rushing back).
Yes, content is king. But its time to up the stakes. If the Second Life community is capable of helping to create “an internet” from “a bulletin board,” then that time has finally come.
And just for the record, I’M IN!
January 9th, 2007 at 7:22 PM
Zoom out, look at the big picture, this is a ‘long run’ strategic move for the better. Of course, there is a possibility that some content creators may suffer, in the short term. Remember, this incarnation of the metaverse is in it’s infancy, it’s a frontier, and content creators, you need to factor that into your risk/reward analysis.
January 9th, 2007 at 7:59 PM
Good choice on OSSecondLife. I approve and look forward in development. This is a real coder’s dream come true! Thanks guys
January 9th, 2007 at 11:59 PM
Well, I for one am happy about the OSS release (and allready pulled the source and successfully build the app to have a look at it some time). It’s definitely something that appeals to the inner geek here - and gives a bit of safety to me, as the more open a platform is, the more I actually control my content. It’s sad that so often the argument brought up is that you lose control of your content because it technically can be copied - it could allready before, but due to the closed nature of the grid, you can’t take your builds home with you, nor can you transfer builds to other formats or other platforms. Open sourcing the viewer is a first step to open up the grid to give ppl back the control of their content. And hey, if allready the first bugfix came in, that’s a good sign, too - like it or not, SL addresses many geeks and many of them will be tickled to go into the source and look for fixes for annoying bugs. Yes, some of them might produce griefer tools and stuff like that - in the same way as some produce dedicated tools to break websites and stuff like that. But the majority of ppl usually behaves well - it will be the same in the SL world.
January 10th, 2007 at 12:05 AM
If this helps me get multi-screen support (so I can put my HUDs, menus, and other adminiscrap on a second screen) then I’m all for it.
January 10th, 2007 at 6:37 AM
While I am not so tech minded, I would be interested in trying the open source ONLY, ONLY if it would make my SL experience much more enjoyable. This means that having to do with the earlier problems of lag, rezzing TPbissues and so on…..
January 10th, 2007 at 10:25 AM
Maklin Deckard wrote on January 9th, 2007 at 6:06 PM PST:
“Free OSS meddlers are cheaper than offshoring the coders to India, and if it hoses the economy, who cares?”
You’re entirely right. The economy and all existing money earners can be hosed without thinking twice about it, if they are standing in the way of progress.
The fact that your current business model is compromised by progress is not a problem with progress, but with your failure to adapt to change.
Rock on LL. Stagnant dinosaurs will perish of course (and good riddance), but they’re free to evolve if they wish. If their business model requires non-change, then they might as well have written their business plan on their tombstone.
Change is the ONLY thing that is guaranteed in the future.
January 10th, 2007 at 12:10 PM
[...] pre y TownHall con Cory Linden son también para no perder detalle de ellos. Creo que de un townhall, [...]
January 10th, 2007 at 12:30 PM
I am not a “techie type” — I’m a web content developer with a creative bent (in pre-internet terms a writer/graphics designer) who occasionally is forced to slog through some code and can edit a little php at the speed of a very slow, arthritic, snail.
But I can see an analogy here that might make sense to some people: Internet vs. AOL/Compuserve/Prodigy.
SL was, and still is, like the old online services: a self-contained little world with near total corporate control (though predominantly user created), available through subscription. My first online experience was as a Compuserve user, and I enjoyed my time in that little world, as I’m sure others enjoyed their worlds. But those worlds are all but gone now, with the sole remaining one surviving the last few years by marketing itself primarily as an Internet service provider.
Those worlds were replaced by an Internet with which they could not compete. The Internet has taken the idea of user created content to the extreme: it is an anarchy of every conceivable human expression that can be reduced to a stream of electrons, from academic papers to Aunt Rose’s vacation photos, from businesses to pranksters, from art ahead of its time to some pretty awful stuff whose time will thankfully never come, from breaking news to false rumors, and so on. In this creative anarchy you also find some bad guys — more bad guys, it sometimes seems, than used to inhabit online services (though I recall plenty of viruses and griefer-equivalents at Compuserve)– but you also find more extensive tools to keep the bad guys at bay.
The Internet won out over online services because it could provide more information better and cheaper than online services, and makes a better platform for the creativity of content creators. The Internet won irrespective of the actions of the online services. It’s simply not possible for limited proprietary systems to go head to head with the massed creativity of the rest of the world and win.
Right now I would guess more than one techie in a basement is thinking to himself “I can do better than Second Life”, and is cranking out code for a new 3-D world (which may or may not be interoperable with Second Life). Sooner or later one of these techies will come up with something that works and he or she will release it. Sooner or later others will expand on and enhance the original work, and sooner or later a product will emerge that I or anyone else can plunk down on our server(s) and that people will flock to, and the Internet will again kill off any 3-D equivalents of the online service.
Whether we like it or not, whether Linden Labs likes it or not, this is what will happen. It’s just not possible for a relatively small group of people working on proprietary products to compete with the countless creative and ambitious minds with time on their hands across the Internet.
Linden Labs is thinking ahead to the time when the “online service” model won’t work anymore. They’re trying to reposition themselves to be a something-else that *will* be around after the Internetification of Second Life. Those of us who are currently comfortable in our roles in the online service world, too, need to start repositioning ourselves for the day when Second Life is perhaps a protocol like the web and not an online service. Yes this means that some businesses that exist today won’t exist at some point in the future, and others will change dramatically — but that’s the way technology works. It’s change or die, and planting your feet and screaming “but I liked it better the old way” only means you’re going to go under that much faster.
January 11th, 2007 at 1:43 AM
As Joshua Linden said in one of my blogs ‘We (i.e. Linden Labs) are deeply committed to making Second Life usable by everyone.’
I have argued that SL has not been accessible to people wit a variety of disabilities.
The Open source client provides the opportunity to improve the existing client and develop specialised clients for specific disabilities. My blog suggests some enhancements and gives the opportunity for anyone to discuss further changes.
Joshua thanks for opening up this opportunity.
January 11th, 2007 at 7:53 AM
this is a prime example of a greedy company depending on it’s user base to provide temporary frills to a dying, lagging, breaking client, god bless there.com
April 16th, 2007 at 10:52 PM
[...] Had a great text-based Town Hall with Cory Linden today. Also, be sure to check out Cory’s Pre-Town Hall answers for even more technical answer [...]