Remembering Latif Khalifa

Posted on by Inara Pey
Latif's profile, March 4th, 2016, as updated by his SL partner Kr
Latif’s profile, March 4th, 2016, as updated by his SL partner Krintina Deschanel

I’ve received word through Thoys Pan and Dahlia Trimble that Latif Khalifa has passed away after losing his battle against a long illness.

A software engineer by profession and known in Second Life and OpenSimulator as an enthusiastic technologist, content creator, and viewer developer, he was responsible for the popular Radegast open metaverse lightweight client, as well as contributing to third-party viewer development, notably through Singularity, from which he forked his own viewer, Replex, in 2014.

I first got to know Latif as a result of my growing interest in the viewer ecosystem within Second Life. In fact, it was partially through his encouragement and the conversations we had, that I started blogging about viewers in greater and more informed detail. We became better acquainted in 2011 as he was enhancing Radegast and preparing for the release of Radegast 2.0, and I was privileged to be able to preview the work on several occasions. We also enjoyed many discussions on a range of subjects inside and outside of Second Life, something which led Latif into inviting me to join his Advanced Worlds Group in SL.

Occasionally irascible in the heat of impassioned discussion, Latif more than compensated for this with a generous heart and supporting nature, always willing to offer a helping hand, words of encouragement and friendship.

Commenting on Google+ after hearing the news, Dahlia Trimble said:

I’m very sad to hear that we lost Latif Kalifa

Latif was a good friend and collaborator. He was very helpful when I was implementing mesh physics, materials support, and particle system enhancements in OpenSimulator and also contributed many other fixes and enhancements He was the primary maintainer for libopenmetaverse for the last several years. He was the primary developer of the Radegast viewer which, among other features, had many features for the visually impaired. He was also a major contributor to PHP. His passing is a huge loss to me and I’m sure it is for the field of virtual worlds as well.

Doubtless, many within the metaverse community, including myself, will feel the same way on hearing the news. My condolences to his family, Kristina and all those closest to him at this time.

Published by Inara Pey

Eclectic virtual world blogger with a focus on Second Life, VR, virtual environments and technology.

12 thoughts on “Remembering Latif Khalifa”

  1. Latif was always talkative and good company, I admired his commitment to accessibility and will miss the smile he could bring to even the driest of topics.

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  2. So very sorry to hear this. I use Radegast almost everyday – great little viewer when you need to double log for taking pics or adjusting animations. My sincere condolences to his family.

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  4. Thanks for blogging this. I didn’t know Latif other than by his considerable endeavours with viewers and related tech in SL and OpenSim. I can only repeat what others have already said; sincere condolences to his family and, yes, he will be missed.

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  6. I did not know him but always find it a sad reality when something like this happens. One of the RL things we are unable to escape from in SL. 😦

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  7. Latif’s virtual world techology contributions go beyond radegast and singularity. The free and open-licensed work he’s done to help with libopenmetaverse enables practically every mobile client, text client, bot client for all grids. Few are as gifted and as giving as Latif.

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  8. I met Latif years ago and got support to use Radegast for testing installmetns when I need more conurrent avatars online. Latif was very heplful and allowed me to use some of the pictures he was using. Then I lost contact and now its too late to thank him, sadly. I hope that someone will take the code he created and keep it running. Be well Latif.
    Art Blue

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  10. We didn’t “speak” (more like IM) together a lot, but when we did he always proved to be a kind and helpful person.
    He also was a very competent programmer and contributed a lot to SL and OpenSim.

    He will be sorely missed.

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  12. Do this day I still use his Radegast viewer. No other lightweight viewer comes close.
    I never met Latif, but I know him by the product he left for us all, and for that we’ve lost a great one.

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