As of January 1st, 2013, the Phoenix Firestorm team ceased support of the Phoenix viewer, bring a close to all further work on that viewer on their part.
While this signals the end-of-line for Phoenix where Second Life is concerned, it appears that efforts are underway to attempt to continue Phoenix development for the OpenSim / Aurora environment, under new leadership and a new brand name.
In a blog post dated 29th December, 2012, Virtual Reaility, the new developers for Phoenix state:
Over the past week the Jessica Lyon, Project Manager of the The Phoenix Firestorm Project, Inc. made an announcement that on Saturday, December 15, the Phoenix development team would no longer support the V1-based Phoenix virtual worlds viewer that has had a significant following of users in virtual worlds such as Second Life and OS Grid. Ms. Lyon stated that support for the viewer will be dropped to provide development and support focus on their Phoenix-Firestorm viewer.
Though this may seem like a dark day for people who use and enjoy the Phoenix viewer, this cloud has a silver lining. Virtual Reality is pleased to announce that it will continue development, maintenance, and improvement of the Phoenix V1 viewer, which will be re-branded as the Virtual Reality Viewer. “I am excited to have the opportunity to fork this highly popular viewer for virtual worlds users who use it and desire to continue to use it.”, said, Virtual Reality owner and CEO, Sonic Boom Drillion. “The Virtual Reality viewer will continue to work within OpenSim and Aurora based grids, however we hope to update the viewer to address a number of technical advancements that are presently happening in virtual worlds. We are eager to embrace this code base and develop it to support these changes.”
The post goes on to state that as of the 29th December, work was underway to move the Phoenix code to Virtual Reality’s own systems, however the work will not include porting outstanding / open JIRA relating to Phoenix, as these are related to Second Life, which will not be the target environment for the rebranded viewer.
Virtual Reality is an OpenSim hosting company focused on Aurora Sim side of OpenSim, and provides customers with grid space through its own Virtual Reality grid, as well supplying private grids to customers.
Within the blog post / announcement is a request that any developer wishing to work on the rebranded viewer should contact Virtual Reality at virtualrealitygrid-at-gmail.com.
While this does not help those who have used Phoenix specifically with OpenSim, it does mean that potentially, the Phoenix legacy will live on, albeit under new management and a new name, on OpenSim.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
My comment on this is on my blog at http://secondden.blogspot.com/2013/01/go-ahead-fork-phoenix.html .
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On the personal side, that’s been something of my view. Hence the caution in the title of the this piece – which given it’s under my “news” category, I’ve stepped by from biasing with personal opinion.
Have added a link to your thoughts to the piece under Related Links.
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From what you’ve mentioned, it seems that the Phoenix project is going to be quite a challenge for whomever continues it to work on. And I can’t say I’m surprised by this, since 1.x-based viewers try to patch in (“backport”) newer features that perhaps need newer pieces of code thrown in. At the very least, you people will have more time to dedicate to Firestorm. As for those who will (try to) continue the Phoenix project, I wish them good luck.
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We shall have to see how it works out, but the Lindens have become so awkward about TPV development that the difference in licences between 1.x and the 2+ series of Viewers is going to be rather significant.
Will somebody on the OpenSim side produce a Linden-free viewer, and what options might that open? It isn’t going to be quick or easy, that’s for sure.
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There have been a couple of calls within the OpenSim community for a complete break, code-wise from the LL baseline, but I’m no longer watching things there as closely as perhaps I once was, and I’ve no idea if anyone has taken up the challenge.
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It looks as if Virtual Reality has pulled their annoucement which probably means they abandoned the project in record time…
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Thanks, Cinders.
I’ve been meaning to follow-up and will go take a peek at their site as soon as time allows :).
ETA: Having looked at the site, it’s hard to judge what is happening. They’ve clearly changed their site design (and software?), and it appears all blog posts from 2012 have gone. As such, it may be that the site simply hasn’t been updated following any blog / forum software cut-over which may have occurred. Will attempt to find out more.
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