A very insightful person once told me to look at what people are doing rather than listening to what people are saying (which more or less is a variation of "actions speak louder than words").
I can't ignore any longer the gap between what I'm actually doing compared to what I've been planning to in regards to the SL™ viewer. If you look back over my last posts here, I said that I wanted to build something based on the 1.19 version, but if I look back what I actually did in over the last weeks, I see that I just didn't. Not that I didn't want to, it's just that I did not spend time on it after making an initial attempt with an 1.19.0 RC.
Today, after I heard through the blog comments here that 1.19.1 went gold, I wanted to give that a shot, but seeing that there isn't any up to date source and hearing that a couple of people had trouble getting it to run out of the box, was the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back. I just one time too often stumbled over LL™'s inability to support their open source in the most basic way.
I could write a nice little rant here, but the point is that I'm having too little time at the moment to do all the things I'd like to and when multiple ideas or projects are competing for time, the most attractive ones win.
What I am doing these days in my own business is quite thrilling ... and one of the most rewarding points about it, from a programmer's perspective, is that I don't have to deal with entropy or outright chaos originating from other people.
And I hate to admit, that despite the wealth of positive feedback which I'm still getting about my viewer builds, the idea of getting into the treadmill of bringing the official viewer up to speed once again is utterly appaling.
Working on the viewer always had had it's treadmill components, but they were outbalanced by rewarding parts, like the perspective of contributing to a larger project, making other people happy and last but not least scratching my own itches because I spent a lot of time inworld, so I fixed issues because I wanted them fixed and because I could.
When I started, I thought LL™ folks were just a bit overworked and with some outside help from a group of friendly open sourcers and code sorcerers the viewer would turn into a solid, stable and even sleek piece of software.
The realization took me some time, but eventually it did dawn even on the optimist which I am, that it was not going to happen. Not through the Linden™s themselves, and certainly not through contributions from the coding community, because the Linden™s were increasingly ignoring the contributions.
There was a time when code submissions were readily accepted, then they were more and more cherry picked and these days, as far as I can tell, they are ignored at large, even if they are addressing the most basic and obvious problems like crashes (and I am not at all speaking of GUI changes).
The way I see it now, the best I could hope to achieve here would be to build a fork (spawning an independent viewer) and trying to keep up with their server side changes. This would be a time intensive and tedious task, which would require inspiration and a vision.
If there is something that has changed over the last year, it is a loss of faith and a loss of the feeling of being inspired. Noting all the changes which happened to the platform on a meta level (governance™, management™ and the like) this 2nd™ experience got more and more trivial and in my view. It merely turned into a pixelated copy of the real world.
Is it just me or did they shrink the size of the "Your world. Your imaginantion" slogan on the web site over time? At the moment it's covering little less space than the text "IBM™ and Linden Lab™" and about one tenth of the space of "CSI:NY™". Is it just me or did the showcase images on the Second™ Life™ website got more and more meaningless over time, now essentially just showing ordinary people standing around or shopping?
Remembering the time when I started, I envy everybody who is still inspired by what SL™ is offering. I had a hell of a time there and I wish I could make it come back.
But these days when I look at the blog, or the Jira or when I occasionally browse over the mailing list, more often than not I'm irked or shaking my head in disbelief or both.
In technical terms, with the current state of the 2nd world, like daily outages on the server, new leaks in the viewer, other problems, it would be like starting all over and probably even worse because now the binary crash reporter is removed from the viewer (this was the tool which I used to locate 90% of the crashes I found).
*sighs*
Putting off this decision and hoping things would change again did work for some time, but eventually I can't ignore the facts. So let me be straight and say that they way things look now there won't be any new builds from me.
At the moment I simply don't have the time, but to be true to myself and you, probably even if I had, I'd be no longer willing to put up with Bullshit™ any more.
*sighs again*
I am grateful for all the feedback I have gotten and also that I had the honor to help you people out there to have a better time in this alternate experience. I guess many people will be disappointed and I'm truly sorry for that.
But things have changed a lot over the last few months and I want to move on. In fact I guess I alreay have ...
Nick
PS: Leave me an occasional comment here if you like, or if you are a coder, then use the comments it to advertise your viewer builds.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
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73 comments:
As a great man once wrote.....
"so long, and thanks for all the fish"
Thank you for the time and effort, the enthusiasm and skill with which you have approached your builds Nicholaz, I wish you well in all your endeavours.
Good luck.
Damen Gorilla
Thanks for all the work you did for us, nicholaz.
I have to admit, that this makes me really sad. Sad becaus LL reacts so stupid and sad because this means, I will not be able to have a client I can use without crashing all the time as soon as the last nicholaz version cannot be used any longer.
I hope your other projects run with better feedback.
Bibi
*sniffle*
I guess you're right...
...but I won't give up hope, yet.
Fare thee well, Master Nicholaz!
I am so very sorry to hear this as your viewer helped keep me "sane" during the days of that awful GUI change when voice was introduced. I swear by your viewer and will use it as long as possible. (And the way things are going, when it is no longer possible, I may not wish to stay in SL anyway.)
Thank you for all your hard work for the community.
Oh, man. I am so sorry to hear this, as the BE was the most stable viewer I have used in many, many months. I experimented with the various official and First Look viewers, as well as the OnRez viewer, but always came back to the Nicholaz.
Best wishes in whatever the future holds for you, Nicholas.
P2
Thanks for all your work and a stable viewer (1.18.5.3 BE-v) for aslong as it can connect!
tbh, starting to really wonder why i keep trying to get something done...
Lindens word... starting to believe it`s like a fairy tale, stabe sl, stable grid, stable client *oops transactions down again*
Bullshit™ is an understatement, LR are a complete Joke™, my syphaties to what ever idiot that buys their shares in their ipo heh
Best of luck with your new projects!
Alicia Sautereau
Disappointed, yes, but you have nothing at all to be sorry about. You were fighting an up hill battle that finally became not worth it.
Perhaps your work inspired someone else to carry the torch from here. If so then that alone should make you proud.
Thank you for your efforts and good luck with your current and future projects.
Nicholaz,
While I am truly sad to hear this, I understand and agree with all that you say. You are right that things have changed drastically with the Company Which Shall Not Be Named, and there is no longer that sense of "we're all in this together to make it the best it can be." I was so excited to see what you could do to give us a stable client that incorporated Windlight. But alas, it is not to be. And I do understand why.
I am just sad, as I watch my heroes and mentors, who in same cases have become my friends too, pull back, drop back, drop out, because they are creatively sucked dry, and have become cogs in a creaky wheel, instead of the visionaries they truly are. Something about hitting the roughly just past one year mark brings it on, it seems like. I've lost Highbee Protagonist and the Virtual Parks and Recreation Service, Morris Vig and the Oyster Bay Sculpture Garden, and now you.
And I have another friend who is rapidly burning out on her vision, too. As am I myself. And we are both at about the 15-month mark. I have had to walk away from one Second Life®, and begin another. It was the only way to stop being an administrator (something I never wanted) and become once more an artistic creator.
So, I guess if I want to see the beauty that is Windlight in my photography, I will have to quietly set aside BE-v, and become one of the masses, stuck with the "official" 1.19 viewer. I will have to come up with a proper ceremony. Perhaps a burial at sea, deep in the ocean lands that I own.
So long indeed, and thanks for the fish you gave us!
Please drop by and post once and a while so we can see all the cool new creative things you do!
Princess Ivory
OMG... This news is a REALLY bad news :-(
The SL French Community of Nicholaz Addicts will be affected by your decision. It's like a "part of the SL world" was falling down today.
A part that LL could never considers, because they just don't care about SL users.
Therefore, we perfectly understand why you decide to stop. I hope someone will have your skill and your motivation to continue to help to make SL "a better virtual world". Many people like me would have stopped "playing" SL without your fantastic work.
Keep in mind people will never forget what you've done for the community :-)
Shaka
Thank you. I am still on your version of the client, and have helped others "open grade" to it after trying 1.19 and finding it.... wanting.
Sad, but not overly shocked to hear this.
Things have been going downhill at Linden Lab® for quite some time now. I can only stipulate there is some kind of management problem as ignorance on this level couldn't be intentional.
Making the SL™ viewer open source was supposed to be a turning point. Instead the hard work from yourself and others has gone largely unused and ignored.
The Lindens™ might not recognise the effort you've put in, but we have. Thank you for all you've done to improve the viewer, your time and effort helped make SL™ a worthwhile experience for us all.
I can only hope this isn't final and perhaps eventually when LL® can get their act together, we'll see another Nicholaz viewer. I hope so anyway because I can't stand the official GUI.
Good luck with your RL projects,
Kaia.
Thank you for all the work you put in correcting bugs and providing us with a viewer that was not only workable, but actually incorporated all the things that a great number of SL users wanted.
I will miss your viewers, and like many others once it no longer connects to the grid will most likely be forced to leave SL after 3.5 years here.
It is not even a question of just getting a better system any more. LL's attitude toward customers and their complete lack of any form of willingness to try to improve the user experience that has so drastically declined over the last year (fixing bugs, caring about IP, the now daily asset server issues, the list goes on) is driving away even the most stalwart of users (unless they are making a seriously good RL income from SL).
Good luck with all your future undertakings, and again thank you for a year of pleasure in using your viewers (and reading your blog).
Ama
I'm sorry to hear this too but I can't say I don't understand. I'm only amazed that you hung in this long.
Thank you so much for your contribution to the SL community. I know of many residents who will continue to use your viewer until LL forces it out of our defiant clutches.
Be well Nic, and good luck in all you do. Let us know how you're doing every now and then.
Solanghe Sarlo
Another very sorry resident, and thankful for everything you've done. No one blames you for giving up, Nicholaz. It really was just a matter of time, I guess.
I too will be using BE-v as long as I can. I rue the day I have to go back to the official viewer.
Nicholaz, thank you for making the grid a better place for so many residents, with such incredible motivation and for such a long time.
You helped greatly, got so many of us from 'here to there' and in that way, your legacy lives on independent of code.
I envied those who could run your viewers greatly... I desperately wanted to - little did you know! (With my account being so critical to so many others, I've been stuck with official viewers only due to potential liability issues.) I felt practically left behind... but glad others had you there.
You matter greatly to all of us - even if you never code again. I have no doubt you have saved more than one resident from overwhelming technical issues, and those are the most valuable components in the whole network: people.
I salute you.
Desmond Shang
Independent State of Caledon
Thanks Nicholaz, you've saved my sanity and patience with your viewers -- don't know what I'll do now that no versions are forthcoming from you! When I first learned about you via the SL Forum, it was just as that huge chat box came out -- can't even remember the version now... but I still remember how relieved and delighted I was when I downloaded yours. Do hope at some point you'll come back and do your thing again. My best to you Nicholaz -- thank you again.
Nicholaz, I'll add my thanks for your great builds and to those who graciously packaged them for us Mac users. Have you considered getting involved with the RealXtend (Rex) viewer? It is aimed toward the OpenSim community, and a build is currently offered at Openlifegrid.com. I haven't gotten to use it since I run a Macbook, but I've heard good things, except that it is still very buggy. Whatever you do, I wish you the best! Aviana Pacem
Sniff. Wahhh!! I have been using your viewer for about 6 months (1/2 my SL lifetime) and it has always been more stable and much more efficient than whatever LL has current. I can't help but wonder who's driving the bus at LL?
I still use your build most of the time - the new "gold" build is more like horse manure, with spinning beach ball of death each time I try to change between IM windows or between IM windows and chat windows. Any time I go somewhere busy my framerates might be high, but I get massive rubberbanding and high framerates thanks to the textures, and even the prims not loading. It's awful pretty (except for the interface), but most of the time that's not what I need, I need stability and the ability to walk!
Sad to hear they've driven you to this. You were the best.
Nicholaz,
Thank you so much for the builds. I have been using it since a few months after joining SL, and never looked back. I love the stability, the GUI, everything about it. It was interesting, a few days ago, being one of the few people able to build, texture and teleport and have all my attachments in their proper places while people around me griped and complained and were unable to do much.
Thank you again for the time and effort and all the work and everything that you put into your viewer. You will be missed!
- Reghan.
Man I really hate you won't continue w/ your viewer work, but I, who can argue w/ "The Moment of Truth".
You know we wish you well and really appreciated all your efforts.
Thanks for all your hard work in helping make SL a better place for all of us. I've enjoyed your viewers and I'm going to miss those Nicholaz updates. *cheers* to you, Nicholaz!
Thank you ty ty, Nicholaz! For months I had to use SL on a tiny laptop with Intel graphics, and I wouldn't have been SL at all if it weren't for you.
I know some people will be pointing out to the new CEO the folly of LL's arrogance toward the open sourcers and other volunteers who've insisted on helping LL so much.
And if that doesn't help the situation ... well, perhaps you and Sidewinder can put together a team to create a new virtual client/server platform someday!
Peace.
Sorry to hear, but totally understandable. Lindenlab borked every single aspect of working an open source project and more or less killed any actual involvement - sure, some of the coders are still there and still fight for inclusion of their patches, but look at what fights the Linux coders have to do just to get a minimaly working client - had Lindenlab worked more actively with the community, I bet the linux client could be up to speed feaeture-wise with the other platforms by now.
As a mainly avatar builder, your asstachment fix is still the main thing to look to for me - if you make prims and attach them allmost constantly when inworld, the official viewer is just plain ridiculous. One would think a bug with several hundred votes on it and a _working_ and _proven_ patch would get addressed by the Lindens, but well, one would think such a bunch of people would be competent, too.
Guess we all overestimated them. They worry more about bullshit bingo and stupid trademark wars against the very same people who actually carry the last bit of positive image they have, instead of getting their stuff together. Oh well ...
And another great mind ends the donation of their time and talent because of poor decision making and short-sided thinking.
No one can fault you. All we can do is thank you. And mutter "Shame on you, Linden Lab" one more time.
Thank you Nicholaz!
I have been using your viewer for the majority of my SecondLife (TM)(C)(whatever) and i am deeply saddened that you have decided to quit this apparently unwinnable battle for stability and performance.
I will continue to use your viever as long as the LabMonkies(TM) allow me to. I wish you all the best for your RL(TM) projects and can only hope that you somehow, sometime find the time and motivation to take up the fight again, for a better SL(you know the drill)for all of us.
Riddle
I have to add my thanks and support for all your great work. The BE-v viewer has saved me endless crashes, ass-tachments and needless 'upgrades' over the past months. Your tireless efforts will be sorely missed, and I'll mourn the day when the grid-monkeys kill off BE-v's compatibility.
My very best wishes for your future endeavours.
:,,,,,,,,,,,-(
I understand, and thank you.
Farewell Nicholaz - may the future be bright for you whereever it takes you.
Deira Llanfair
I'm still using Be-v and will be sad to see it go. Good luck in your endeavors.
Can only add my thanks and salutes to what others have already said. Your contributions and enthusiasm should have been an inspiration to the powers that be at LL. I wish you well in your endeavours and will keep my fingers crossed that BE-v will continue to fool the fools for as long as possible. Thank you and fare thee well indeed!
Sally
I think this is symptomatic of why SL will become a "first to market curiosity" in virtual worlds, rather than a serious contender for the future.
LL has been the first on the scene with SL, and used the technology available at the time to create a fantastic environment. But, as so often with the first to market, they now have to live with some dreadful design choices which cause pain.
The capacity constraints on an individual sim come down to an early "good enough" design choice about sharding. The avatar UVs, in hindsight, are badly thought out (the positioning of joins, and the different scaling of different parts). The approach to content creation has resulted in the gargantuan asset database, which is now such a bottleneck. And the muddled approach to the Linden Dollar has resulted in people treating it as currency, while the systems are so far below trading standard.
Nicholaz, your efforts with BE-v have been much appreciated, and I will use it as long as I can: relief from shoe-up-arse syndrome has been welcome. But your decision is right - your viewer should never have become a code fork, it should have been a test bed for patches which were integrated back into the "reference viewer implementation".
Good luck with whatever you do next, and use this blog to keep us informed.
Nicolaz,
You and your contributions will be sorely missed, but this is not a real surprise to anyone I think. I too am feeling the same way about the Game That Must Not Be Named. At one time I was very caught up in it. But after 3 years, and ever increasing issues with asset loss, unstable viewers, and grid outages I'm about done.
As the others before me have said. So long, and thanks for the fish.
Nicholaz,
Thanks for all your hard work, and I'm sorry to see you cease work especially on the JIRA, because there are few thoughtful contributors and sane voices there.
Since you have made your decision public, I'm afraid you have to expect that not all the public can give you a fanboyz' comment here about the larger issues, even while appreciating your hard work and insights on the whole SL adventure.
1. Isn't this an indictment of the opensource movement? You decide freely to work on a project, but then decide just as freely not to work on it. It's fine that you come and go -- nobody needs martyrs -- but it does point up an obvious problem, that volunteer work on something this complex only leads to burnout in the end.
2. Is there a reason you can't take your work to OpenSim and develop it there? Or is that not practical.
3. It seems to me that you have to suppose three reasons for the Lindens not doing just what you want:
a) they have other fish to fry -- other things that they are doing not involving the viewer which they simply find more compelling for them and more necessary as a business and as a time allocation. That's hard to take if you are working on the viewer, but there it is. They are not required to tell you their priorities because it's a proprietary company literally surrounded by hostile competitors.
b) they plan a completely different viewer based on some completely different principle, so that it makes no sense to keep bug-fixing this one, but they can't tell you, as it is proprietary.
c) they are lazy bastards and mired in chaos and confusion. But I found your concept of "entropy" here repugnant, and I didn't realize you, too, were another one of these Extroprians, or at least using their nasty terminology -- I think it's pretty high-handed to accuse another group of humans, about whom you can't know everything, that they are mired in "entropy".
It is a proprietary group that isn't showing its hand.
Whatever the reason, the world didn't revolve around you, just like it didn't revolve around Wayfinder Wishbringer or Starax (who wound up coming back with an even more lucrative second career).
Will you knock it off with the victimology? The front page long, long ago was commercialized, even in the days of Lindenor. Aimee Weber was also promoted as a mascot. For a time they alternated a child-like young woman in wings with men in armour fighting, before they realized both those images were part of the reason they had so many kids and griefers in SL, and retired them, and changed to these shoppers.
If there is any tinier fonts it's because the real-estate space of the front page now has to accommodate this concept of the SL Grid which is something accommodating in fact people like you with your visions of opensourcing and hosting your own.
Your revulsion over commerce and advertising even of the mildest sort in this very hippie company is typical and predictable, but who did you think would pay for it? The time of a lot of nonpaid bug-hunters? But who pays them to live?
I'm glad you found projects that pay you (hopefully) -- people need to be paid for such hard work, and not just rely on voluntarism. It burns them out; it makes projects unstable; it creates a false impression that everything is free and is a giant hippie commune, which isn't the case.
Ultimately, you have not persuaded me that somehow opensourcing and crowdsourcing people's labour for free is preferable to proprietary code managed by companies that take into account many other considerations than whether you find something interesting.
Prokofy
Thanx for making SL playable in the dark times I hope you find faith again soon.
Thank you for all your hard work, Nicholaz. I recommended your client to anyone who would listen, and of course I use it myself. I hope someone will take up the torch now that you're moving on.
The end of an era :(
Good luck with your RL and thank you for everything, that you've done for the 'Second Life' of so many people!
Have faith, Nic... please.
Well you hit the nail on the head. Sadly to say but it is the truth. Guess LL™ will be bought in some time by IBM™ and then ... It is very sad to see that you stopped doing the Nicholaz builds, but fully understandable. It even makes for myself no sense any longer to put bugs into jira, they are just ignored or even closed with more info needed. I hope this hybris and ignorance of LL™ will have a price to pay someday.
The new viewer is a mess and we have to live now with that crap, without good people trying to fix it, guess sooner or later more will give up.
It's sad to see you go, sir, but you've fought the good fight. I'd like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the effort you put into making our world a little easier to enjoy.
Best,
Argent Bury
Thank you for all of your previous efforts. Sorry to see you go.
I guess I'm lucky. I used 1.19 for a few days, quickly found it untenable and then ignored it until LL made it mandatory. Then after an evening of crashing every 5 min or so while dancing, I read about you on Lillie Yifu's blog. She generously and kindly spent an hour (perhaps more) helping me untangle myself from 1.19 and adding your patch to 1.18.
Nich of time, so to speak. I suspect your patch will have a long tail as greater numbers of users - the ones who don't fall away in frustration - find their way to you.
I don't know what's going on with LL but it feels as if we - the great mass of us who pay or don't pay the Lab directly - are not their primary constituents/audience/residents.
They are going for the gold. The IBMs. I will not be surprised to learn that corporate clients will have their own client, and their own gated SL. I'll continue to follow the story here:
http://sexsecond.blogspot.com/
Thank you for your good heart and your good work.
Thanks for all the great work!
I will miss your viewer bad, but agreed it isn' t worth the time anymore.
'Your World Your Imagination' vanishes as they want consumers and no creatives in theit virtual world that can't be named.
See you somewhere in an other corner of the metaverse sometimes.
Tommy Brouwer
Dear Nicholaz,
Maybe time has come to consider real open source alternatives ?
Before to leave, please, oh please, just have a look on the OpenViewer, the initiative definitely deserves a glance.
And of course, I would like to thank you once more for all your builds which made my SL happier despite of my crappy laptop :)
Nic OpenLifeGrid.com and CentralGrid.com both are open grids and both listen to thier residents!
They could use and be really thankful for help on their worlds.
I do agree SL has died its no longer a utippan it was its not even close and not going back to being a great place to be.
There are other places that ARE tho ;-) but they do need help
Thanks for the great work you did on the SL client.
I started with your client just for camping but even when I stopped with camping your client still made my SL experience a better one.
Thank you again
Oracolo Janus
"Remembering the time when I started, I envy everybody who is still inspired by what SL™ is offering."
It's like you read my mind when you said that. The fact of the mater is truly there.. Second Life™ is alot like Real Life; When you are a child (a noob if you will) life is fun, there is so much to do and you are so eager to do it all. But as you grow, you do it all and life seems to just be the same day over and over again...
I have met friends that haven't quite been in Second life™ as long as I have, but still play it and get that fun from it - and I envy it!
I wish you luck
-Joker
*Bows head quietly, in the utmost respect and understanding*
I am sad to see you step down. I am sad that the fight is too long and has become increasingly wearing for you. You are a good person, who has done great things for very many people. It never should have got to this stage for you.
It's your time now. Sit back, relax, put your feet up a while, and be happy. Re-ignite your passions, your dreams, and love of things again, and be at peace, knowing you did everything you could do for us.
You served us well, good Sir. You will be remembered and your assistance will be greatly missed, by the masses.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Be strong, and most importantly, be happy.
I wish you much deserved success, in all your future projects.
Best wishes and grateful thanks
Jinnywitha Cleanslate
What can I say? My loss and many users' loss, your loss (in frustration, resources, and time), LindenLab's loss (though I guess they don't care or know what they are offered but don't utilize), and 100thousands of other user's loss (though they will never know it without these patches incorporated by LindenLabs).
A sincere heartfelt "Thanks!" and wishes for success, recognition, and happiness in your endevours.
sad sad and angry cause i cant use sl
anymore without nicholaz client
but ty fot let us use it since now i hope really you change yur decision cause your viewer is the best yet
Oh, and Nick-the offer for translations still stands! If you ever need help... you can reach me at velten -at- uni-mainz.de
Thanks Nick, for all your hard work, as well as your vision. Just like the others, I've used your viewer for many months now, and its saved me from countless frustrations.
Also, after reading Prokofy Neva's rambling diatribe, I begin to understand why he's so disliked by so many. Ugh.
Thank you Nicholaz. I too am sorry to see you go, but fully understand your reasons for not continuing.
I'll keep using BE-v w/1.18.5(3) until it no longer functions. Then if I'm forced to use the official viewer and it hasn't reached the level of your viewer... well...
As I read in another blog. "I'm not out of here yet, but I have my coat on."
I'm sure that I can easily find someplace else to spend my entertainment budget.
Best to you in your current and future endeavours.
Take care,
TomasG
I, for one, am sad they've disenchanted you to such an extent, and so many others; but that's also due to the choices they're making. I'm hoping they come back, but also realizing I may be jumping ship when the next stable world comes along.
In the meantime, I'll limp along as long as I can under BE-v; it still works, I can't use Windlight anyway, so I'm good--and the one fix I desperately wanted in the 'official' releases--the ability to separate History/Near Me and IM windows--they've (sort of) done.
Sooner or later I'll have to change; but there may be an OpenSource viewer that works nearly as well at that point, or I'll find ways to adapt...or I'll have found something else entirely.
You were a *great* guide along the way, though. Be well and happy. You helped many of us stay sane. :)
OMFG! ;-)
Thank you all for your comments and I especially appreciate the understanding and acceptance of my decision.
Your comments here, each and every one of them, mean a lot to me ...
Thank you I hope for you that the BE-v version will remain functional as long as you need it.
Here are answers to some questions:
Getting involved with other projects isn't an option currently. OpenSim uses a different license (the BSD folks at OpenSim don't want to get involved with GPL and I'm not good at 3D graphical programming anyway). But the main issues remain to be the lack of time and vision (... the last time I looked, OpenSim still wasn't too closely following OtherVita's model of shaping a 3D world).
Emily: You can undock the History window in my viewer too (just click the little undocking icon at the upper right when then window is embedded in the communicator).
Prokofy: You hardly ever fail to inspire me to write some longish text :-). You raise some very valid questions and in fact we are in agreement in a couple of points (not that I agree with all points, but that's to be expected). I'll probably address your comment in a separate post.
Desmond: It's a pity you could never use my viewer, but I understand the reasons, which is, btw. why I was fighting to get patches and fixes into the official viewer. In an ideal open source project (commercial or not) as Demelza said in his/her comment, my viewer builds would have been a beta test bed for patches.
Barney: Btw, thanks for all the support from you. I've never compiled a Mac version but used yours a couple of times. I read your blog and you're a guy to my liking ... kudos to whatever you do and did. The Mac crowd certainly owes you a beer or two :-)
Hi Nick,
Thanks for all you have done for making SL a better place. I completely understand you and sadly as it is, I'm sure you made the right decision. We will not let your work die, you were the one who really started all the open source work with the viewer. Without you, nothing would have happend as it did, and we all can only say Thank You!!!
Hugs,
Boy
Sad to see yet another casualty of Linden Labs community mismanagement and misunderstanding of what it means to collaborate with your users (and how there is tremendous value in this).
In my view you are one of the people that everyone talks about when we mention the 2.0 buzzwords - but in truth are a 'few good men' - the truly passionate about improving a community, and working for the benefit of many.
Best of luck with the next/other projects, and I hope -looking back- you think it was worth it while it lasted :)
- Roy Cassini
http://digado.nl
You are so dead on the money, Nicholaz, and no one can blame you for pulling out.
Thanks for all the great work you have done over the many months.
RA.
I can understand you fully although I hope ofcoure you'll change your mind :)
But what a pitty your knowledge about the viewer will go away with this.
Is it maybe an idea to get you enthousiastic again if your viewer could be combined with the compettitors coming. With this I mean the opensimulator project.
We have over 125 sims in our SL estate and we are very interested in alternative platforms as we are very convinced that this is the future of internet. That this future is not (only) on the Linden platform is obvious.
Thanks for all your work Nicholaz.
This is so sad :(
I second Boy, you are the one who made us want to go further in butch---improving the regular viewer to make adapt it to our needs (and not the opposite), and on a more personal note you are the one who helped me most when I started publishing my own.
So
Thank you again for all you've done for us and for LL, and most of your work still lives inside the latest viewers (plural).
Take care, don't feel bad and best wishes for your business,
Marine
Was waiting for your next build, and am *very* disappointed to see it won't happen.
:(
You were recommended to me by a fellow user.....and I couldn't say enough to others, how your viewer made SL much more enjoyable.
Good Luck to you....Mina
Has anyone tried the www.armyof4.com/Kirstenlee/ viewer?
Well first off, thank you Nicholaz for all the time you spent working on this project. I am sad to learn that you plan to stop working on it... this has been my viewer of choice for a long time and I will miss it when it won't connect to the grid anymore. Maybe you could still make versions that will connect to the grid when your older versions won't anymore, without ameliorating the code since the basic protocol is mostly the same from version to version, and your latest version is very stable. I think this could be done easily by tweaking a few parts of the code, like sending a fake version number to the server or something like that...
Much sadness. :( You shall be missed, St. Nicholas.
Sweet Primrose
Shorah Nicholaz,
I never directly used your viewer (as I am a Windows person), but instead went out and grabbed the latest WinXP viewer that did incorporate your patches. It works relatively well, and allows me to have Windlight while switching to the 'official' viewers now and then to get used to its new GUI.
Though I understand your reasoning behind stepping away (I have done that multiple times with SL, and even with Uru's invocations for that matter), I think your work will continue to live on. The sheer number of comments clearly attest to that, and I'll be keeping my eyes open for whomever tries to continue the Windows-side projects.
That's the core of getting involved with a good community online - you'll find others who can help, or even take over and not let the overall project die. I can definitely see this happening here.
Best of luck to you,
--Timothy Kimball
aka Alan Kiesler
Nicholaz,
If SL ever comes back and they post a transcript of the new viewer office hours from today - which went at lest two hours longer then scheduled - you'll find a ruckus I started over the way they've treated you and your work. Brent Linden was there spouting some of the silliest nonsense I've ever heard. There were a _LOT_ of people very upset about them ignoring your work and driving you away. I'm sure it won't do any good, but it least it gave them an unpleasant afternoon. I know they got very sick of the constant drumming on "Fix the leaks! Fix the leaks!".
And they have the _gall_ to talk about the increaseed stability of their viewer. I will hang on to BE-v for dear life and will miss your work and working with you.
(Sniff)
Olli
Timothy: My viewers were for Windows (but probably you wanted to say you're not a Windows user)
Marine: It's been a pleasure to help you get started. Helping people was always the most satisfying part of the journey.
Ollipeist: I did hear about the meeting. Someone dropped me a not to look at the blog two days ago (I hardly go there anymore because of the constant spin doctoring). Anyway, I'm sure the meeting went as it should. You can fool some people some of the time, but not all people all of the time :-)
They have poseted the transcript at http://static-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/community/transcript/WindLight_Office_Hours_2008-04-10.txt
My question happens at 13:50, though I start to get a little exicted a bit earlier.
Olli
Ollipeist: Thanks for the update, I'll give it a look (but I guess I'll need some tranquilizer, I've already seen a comment on the blog about it which sent my blood pressure through the roof (comment #81)). If that's correct summary how they see things, I'm glad I quit ...
I just read the relevant part of the transcript. wow. That's insane. Basically, your fix isn't supposed to work, so a) they don't ask you and b) they don't use it.
Brilliant.
Cristalle: It's even better. They *have* used the asstachment patch (in a slightly modified form) in 1.19.1. with a comment in the source code saying: "Rather hacky, but no-one can think of something better to do for this case."
(well, they also forgot to mention it in the release notes and also don't mention it on the contributor list ... but what did I expect?)
That's rich. But I'm so glad you're back, Nicholaz :)
Thank you So Much Nick for the help you gave me and thousands of others with your viewer. When my machine couldnt cope with the memory leaks you made it possible for me to continue in SL.
If they ever build a monument to all the residents that *made* SL a great experience, at great cost and effort to themselves and at NO cost to others, you will be Top of the Tree...
Thanks and all the best
Imogen Saltair.
Thanks...
Caltel
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