Day: October 21, 2010

Viewer 2: Finally starting to show promise

Posted on by Inara Pey

Viewer 2.2 is now out and available – and it is finally starting to look like something many people can live with.

The ability to customise the interface has long been a bugbear in all iterations of the Viewer; and while we still cannot reasonably expect to be able to fiddle with things to the Nth degree, the ability to re-order things like the on-screen buttons is a step forward. We don’t all work the same way, we don’t want to do the same things – we’re not all right-handed or left-handed, much less all left-, or right-brain dominant – so this is going to help many reorganise things into a way that they feel is more logical and easier to use when it comes to their needs. Kudos, at last.

Similarly, the ability to float options away from the sidebar is a good step forward – although it seems from comments that the sidebar still remains the focal-point of the “new” Viewer, and not the in-world view; so my personal pet peeve with the Viewer remains.

It’s also nice to see the promised two-way “dialogue” between TPV developers and LL start to yield fruit, with tools we’ve seen commonplace in several TPVS – texture alignment, Google-powered translation, etc., – finally entering into Viewer 2; may snowstorm result in much more of this – and in both directions.

It’s also nice to see some major idiocy in the Viewer finally disappear, seemingly despite LL’s repeated refusal to initially listen and then simply drag their heels after admitting the problem(s). That parcel icons are now on by default is welcome news so is the ability to turn off scripted lighting and particle generators. Given the amount of resistance shown by LL to do the former, I wonder who took Esbee or someone outside and gave them a firm talking-to?

The reaction to the new Viewer has, overall, been positive in the comments following Esbee’s post, and there have even been some very good suggestions put forward for future improvements. I would hazard a guess that, unless said suggestions find their way into a TPV from a third-party – such as Kirstenlee’sS20, which still outstrips Viewer 2 and offers a (largely) genuine pleasure of a Viewer experience – and thus potentially into Snowstorm, I seriously doubt that they’ll be taken anywhere by Esbee et al.

Are these change enough to get me to jump ship from 1.23.5? Well, to be honest, no, not quite yet. I am curious to see if Marine updates her initial cut of the RLV-enabled version of Viewer 2 she put out on the 10th Oct, and which appears to be based on the Viewer 2.2 code as it stood then; whether changes were made to the base code between the 10th and yesterday’s release is beyond me. If she does, I’ll give things another look; but I’m still very attached to Phoenix – not just because of RLV, but because it still offers capabilities that are extraordinarily handy when keeping an eye on sims and tenants. These far outweigh the bells and whistles offered by Viewer 2, such as media-on-a-prim (which itself seems to have fizzled out like a wet firework rather than illuminating Second Life like a night-time space shuttle launch). As to the really useful features of Viewer 2: Alpha Masks, Tattoo Layers – they are already in the majority of TPVs, and so are hardly an encouragement to make the jump elsewhere.

So where is my incentive to move? Multi-attach / multi-wear? Very nice, but not actually essential, given how long I’ve lived without them – and certainly not worth a trade-off with that bloody sidebar barging out onto my screen without me cluttering-up world-view real estate with minimised windows torn off from it. And then we have the biggie: does search actually work in Viewer 2 now? I’ve honestly lost track of that situation.

Which really means my personal analysis of the latest release is really, “Congratulations, LL on getting a new usable Viewer out there for people. Pity you opted to push the code through the door eight months premature; you’ve still left yourselves a big mountain to climb in the eyes of the more cynical as a result of that mistake. But – well done, all the same, for keeping to your promise vis Snowstorm”.

SL VI: The Search for a CEO

Posted on by Inara Pey

After about four months as interim CEO, working closely with Bob Komin, the management team, and the board, we’ve decided we are ready to start the search for a new CEO. I’ll be leaving day-to-day management of the company and continuing in my role on the board, including helping in the search to find a great CEO. I will also be continuing my work with my new company, LoveMachine. Bob will lead Linden Lab while we conduct the search. It’s been an intense few months of transition, and we all feel like we are in a better place now, with a clearer sense of direction and more focus, and are ready to bring someone new into the mix as a leader.

So sez Philip Rosedale today. I find this news interesting on two levels. Firstly, as Ciaran and others point out, it’s not surprising. Philip made it clear his return was an interim thing following the departure (voluntarily or otherwise) of one Mark “Target” Kingdon. Nor is it a surprise that Philip is “returning” to LoveMachine – the latter has been his first love for a goodly while, and one in some respects cannot fault him for wanting to “get back” to it.

And yet…the timing of the move is a little odd. In the general scheme of things, “interim” CEOs are brought in / step in to oversee a transitional period in a company – and it is very odd to see one depart when the transition is less than 50% done – and with a new CEO yet to be found, leave alone recruited, then it is more than fair to say the job is less than 50% done.

Indeed, it is also fair to say that the departure of an interim CEO during a transitional process can usually be taken as an indication that the CEO and the Board have had a difference of opinion and have reached an impasse of some form. Now, I’ve never been entirely sure that Philip’s original “departure” from the day-to-day running of Linden Research was as rosy as was portrayed at the time, coming as it did  at the time when other Board members were becoming ever more belligerent towards the user base as a whole (vis-a-vis Kapor’s “step aside” speech at SL5B). And while you can accuse Philip of many things, he’s never lost his respect for the SL user community as a whole; as such, his attitude could be said to be in sharp contrast of that of other board members at the time – and this contrast might have encouraged his “departure” from the CEO role. Could it be that the very same contrast has come up again, forcing his “premature” departure from the interim role?

Or could the reason be a lot simpler to explain: that he has in fact already “found” the next CEO of Linden Lab in the form of Bob Komin – but the Board have yet to accept / appreciate this?

Lets face it, Bob Komin has been effectively running the company alongside Rosedale since the latter “returned” so dramatically. It was Komin (apparently) that spearheaded the staff cuts and the realignment of much of LL’s satellite business (SLE, etc.).  He’s be brought out of the relative shadows for in-world meetings, and his name has been extensively linked with things like the “back to basics” campaign as much as Rosedale has hitched his own name to that particular wagon.

Now Komin is moving from a position of co-pilot alongside Rosedale to actually piloting the company on a day-to-day basis. Given this, I can’t help but wonder if he is not being given a chance (by Rosedale himself) to demonstrate to the Board that not only does he have the wherewithal to make the hard choices and drive through extensive cuts – he can also lead the company as a whole, managerially as well as fiscally.

Let’s face it; bringing-in a CEO from outside is fraught with risk – as the Kingdon Years demonstrate. Second Life – let alone the quirky nature of Linden Lab – is not the easiest thing for one to get one’s business head around; so bringing anyone in from outside is a massive gamble. This is where I differ in view to Ciaran and others: the risks in bringing-in someone from outside, to me, are far greater than the risks inherent in having someone like Komin take the helm “from within”, so to speak, full-time.

Right now, LL doesn’t need more upheaval. It needs a period of steady, considered management progress and stability. This is more likely to come from within, where the egos involved have already gone through the arc of putting down a stamp of authority on matters, than it is by bringing in a “big gun” (assuming one can even be found and hired) from outside who is going to put their need to exercise their own stamp and brand of leadership on things ahead of what actually needs to be done.

For that reason, I’m hoping that Philip’s oddly timed departure from the CEO seat is at least in part because they have a CEO-in-waiting in the form of Komin; that this move is, in fact, a canny means of allowing Komin to demonstrate this is fact to the Board, and the “search” will result in a further announcement in, say, a month, that he has been appointed to the role full-time.