Category: News-Opinion

Three in ten: a look back over Rod Humble’s tenure at LL

Posted on by Inara Pey

It’s been a great 3 years! All my thanks to my colleagues at Linden Lab and our wonderful customers I wish you the very best for the future and continued success! I am starting-up a company to make Art, Entertainment and unusual things! More on that in a few weeks!

With these words, and a few personal notes to the likes of Jo Yardley, who broke the news to the SL community as a whole, Rod Humble’s departure from Linden Lab entered the public domain.

Rod Humble, with a little reminder from his past
Rod Humble, with a little reminder from his past

Rod Humble officially joined the Lab as CEO in early January 2011, although according to BK Linden, he had been logging-in during the closing months of 2010, “exploring and experimenting in-world to familiarise himself with the pluses and minuses of our product and the successes and challenges faced by our Residents”.

Prior to his arrival, and under the much maligned Mark Kingdon, the Lab had been investing in hardware and infrastructure, with Frank (FJ Linden) Ambrose being recruited into the company to head-up the work. This continued through the first year of Humble’s tenure as CEO, paving the way for a series of large-scale overhauls to the platform in an attempt to improve performance, stability, reliability of server / viewer communications and boost the overall user experience.

Much of this work initially announced in 2012 as “Project Shining”.  It had been hoped within the Lab that the work would be completed within 12 months; however, so complex has it proven to be that even now, more that 18 months later, elements of core parts of it (viewer-side updates related to interest lists, the mesh-related HTTP work, final SSA updates) have yet to be fully deployed.

Even so, this work has led to significant improvements in the platform, many of which can be built upon (as with the HTTP updates paving the way for HTTP pipelining or the SSA work already generating core improvements to the inventory system’s robustness via the AIS v3 work).

SSBAsaw a complete overhaul over the avatar rendering process in order to eliminate the bane of users' lives: bake fail
SSA, aimed at eliminating the bane of users’ lives,  bake fail, was one of a number of projects aimed at benefiting the user experience

It might be argued that these aren’t really achievements on Humble’s part, but rather things the company should have been doing as a matter of course. True enough; but the fact is, prior to Humble’s arrival, the work wasn’t being done with anything like the focus we’ve seen under his leadership.

A philosophy he brought to the Lab was that of rapid development / deployment cycles, as he indicated at his first (and only, as it turned out) SLCC address in 2011. This saw the server release process overhauled and the three RC channels introduced, making it easier to deploy updates, patches, and fixes to address bugs, issues and exploits.

Humble referred to this as “putting the ‘Lab’ back into Linden Lab”, and in fairness, it didn’t always work as advertised, as with the initial experience tools deployment in June 2012, which resulted in a spate of grid-wide griefing. However, it is fair to say it has generally resulted in less grid-wide disruption and upset.

More recently, this approach has also been applied to the viewer release process, allowing the Lab to focus more sharply on issues arising within the viewer code as a result of changes or integrating new capabilities. This in turn has largely eliminated the risk of issues bringing viewer updates to a complete halt, as happened in the latter part of 2012.

One of the more (to many SL users and observers) controversial aspects of Humble’s tenure was the move to diversify the company’s product brief. When talking to Giant Bomb’s Patrick Klepek in October 2012, he candidly admitted his initial attraction to the post was born from the company being “ready-made to do a whole bunch of other products, which I wanted to do.” He’d also forewarned SL users than the company would be diversifying its product brief during his 2011 SLCC address.

Many objected to this on the grounds it was “taking away” time and effort which might be focused on Second Life while others felt that it was a misappropriation of “their” money, or that it signalled “the end” of SL. In terms of the latter, the reality was, and remains, far from the case. In fact, if it can be done wisely, diversification might even, over time, help SL by removing the huge pressure placed upon it as the company’s sole means of generating revenue.

Diversification isn't in itself a bad idea; the problem is ensuring that a company diversifies wisely. Some of LL's initial efforts under Humble's guidance mean the jury is still out on that matter
Diversification isn’t in itself a bad idea; the problem is ensuring that it’s done wisely. The jury’s still out in that regard with some of LL’s initial efforts

The problem is that the direction that has been taken by the Lab thus far doesn’t appear to be the most productive revenue-wise, at least in part. The apps market is both saturated and highly competitive (and even now, two of the products in that sector have yet to arrive on Android). Similarly, it might be argued that Desura could be more valuable as a marketable asset than as a long-term investment), and dio appears to be going nowhere. All of which leaves Patterns,  which in fairness does appear to be carving a niche for itself, and has yet to be officially launched. It will be interesting to see what, if any, appetite the Lab has for continuing with these efforts now that Humble has departed.

There have been missteps along the way, to be sure. Humble’s tenure has been marked by a series of ongoing and quite major issues with the SL Marketplace which the company appeared to be completely unable to bring under control. These prompted me to wonder if “putting the ‘Lab’ back into Linden Lab” might actually work in all cases.  Worse, they led to a clear and continued erosion in customer trust where the Marketplace was concerned and quite possibly damaged Humble’s own reputation. Despite promises of “upping the tempo” with communications and updates, all merchants saw was the commerce team reduce communications to the bare minimum, and refused to hold in-world meetings which might otherwise have improved relationships.

Similarly, some projects were perhaps pushed through either too quickly or without real regard for how well they might be employed. Mesh was perhaps prematurely consigned to the “job done” basket, particularly given the loud and repeated calls for a deformation capability which were spectacularly ignored (and are only now being addressed, after much angst and upset in the interim, all of which could have been avoided).  Pathfinding has failed to live up to the Lab’s expectations and still appears to be something that could have been pushed down the road a little so that other work could carried out which might have left people more interested in given it a go.

Continue reading “Three in ten: a look back over Rod Humble’s tenure at LL” →

Rod Humble departs the Lab

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update January 26th: My own look back at Rod Humble’s time at Linden Lab.

Update January 25th: Gamesbeat has caught-up with the news.

Update: Games industry has covered the news as well.

Update: The message on Rod Humble’s Facebook page confirming his departure from the Lab reads: “Its been a great 3 years! All my thanks to my colleagues at Linden Lab and our wonderful customers I wish you the very best for the future and continued success! I am starting-up a company to make Art, Entertainment and unusual things! More on that in a few weeks!”

Jo Yardley has posted that Rod Humble has apparently left Linden Lab. In a blog post she states:

In a personal message to me via facebook send a few minutes ago, Rod Humble told me that he has left Linden Lab as CEO last week.

After 3 years of running Linden Lab and bringing a lot of improvements to Second Life he resigned and is going to start up his own company that will make art, entertainment and all sorts of wonderful stuff.

It is not yet clear who will replace him but I wish him lots of success with his new project.

This news comes as a bit of a surprise and shock and there is no official announcement yet.

As noted in Jo’s post, there is no official announcement on the matter, but I have contacted the Lab in an attempt to gain further verification. I’ll provide an update should any reply be forthcoming. Even if confirmation is given, and there is no reason to doubt the veracity of Jo’s post, it is unlikely the circumstances behind his departure will enter the public domain

Second Life tax requirements: form W-8BEN

Posted on by Inara Pey

As recently reported, in November, the Lab commenced e-mailing users meeting certain criteria to submit tax documentation to the Lab, which was subsequently expanded upon via a blog post on the matter.

In both the e-mail and blog post, reference was made to two IRS forms: W-9 (for U.S. residents) and Form W-8BEN (for non-U.S. residents), which must be completed and returned to Linden Lab within 30 days of any request for them being received in order to avoid having funds from accounts being withheld as stimplated by the US Internal Revenue Service (at the current rate of 28% of the gross amounts received).

With reference specifically to Form W-8BEN, concern has more recently be expressed at the fact it calls upon the person submitting it to provide either an Employer Identification Number (EIN) or an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), either of which must be obtained from the IRS. However, the EIN is not something everyone outside of the US may be in a position to obtain, while obtaining an ITIN can take from between four and six weeks (compared to the Lab’s stated requirement that the form and supporting documentation be submitted to them within 30 days of receipt of the request).

Confusion was further heightened when several people indicated that had supplied Form W-8BEN to the Lab without either an EIN or ITIN.

As a number of people contacted me on this matter, I dropped a line to Peter Gray, the Lab’s Director of Global Communications, asking of the Lab could provide further clarification as to whether Form W-8BEN must have either an EIN or an ITIN in order to be submitted to the Lab. He replied with the following:

Hi Inara,

The users whom we have asked to submit the W8-BEN need only complete the fields in Part I, #1-5 (which does not require an EIN nor an ITIN). 

We regret the confusion this form has recently caused for some users. To help avoid this confusion moving forward, we’ve uploaded a new version of the form that allows users to complete only the necessary fields and will update the messages sent to users when this information is requested.

Best,

Peter

[My emphasis in the above.]

Hopefully, this will resolve any confusion where this particular matter is concerned.

Also, and purely as a point of reference:

Deirdre Young pointed me towards Kat Fetisov’s attempts to unravel W-8BEN, which have also been referred to by Ciaran Laval.

Kat’s circumstances, being what is effectively a UK-based Sole Trader, are such that she was able to get an EIN directly from the IRS, with the form-filling taking place over the ‘phone.  Those who are in a similar situation as Kat may want to consider approaching the IRS to obtain an EIN for future reference. Should this be the case, please refer to Kat’s blog, where she has provided clear guidance on doing so based on her experience.

Related Links

Raising the roof: HTTP gets a blog post

Posted on by Inara Pey

Those who read this blog know I try to report on the various LL projects which are on the go, both server-side and viewer side and – in some cases – both.

Monty Linden: sdpearheading the HTTP work
Monty Linden: spearheading the HTTP work

One of the latter is the HTTP project work, which has been in progress over the last couple of years and spearheaded by Monty Linden, who has been slowly but surely making dramatic changes to SL’s sometimes creaky communications mechanisms. This work started with texture fetching, way back in 2012, and has steadily progressed from there,  with changes being made both server-side and within the viewer.

Much of this work has gone unsung among the greater populace of SL as a whole, which is a shame, as Monty is perhaps one of the great heroes of SL and the Lab for taking-on this work and developing a project and roadmap which not only massively improves viewer / server communications and their overall robustness, but which is also having beneficial impact elsewhere (such as Monty rebuilding third-party libraries critical to the viewer and putting in place mechanisms to ensure they are properly maintained going forward) and also preparing the ground  for HTTP pipelining.

Monty's HTTP work encompasses viewer / server communications
An early phase of Monty’s HTTP work from 2013

Most recently, Monty’s work has involved overhauling the way in which mesh is handled between the viewer and the server (both uploads and – in particular – downloads), something which has been an issue since mesh was first introduced, due to the manner in which it effective “shotguns” the network, and also because – to a degree – people don’t fully understand the impact certain debug settings have on viewer / server communications.

The fruits of this labour have already been released server-side, and now the viewer changes are reaching a point where they will soon be filtering into viewers of all flavours, the code having now moved from a project viewer to a release candidate viewer.

(This viewer should also address the DNS problems many users have experienced and eliminate the need to use the Google DNS workaround for those who have been affected.)

The HTTP project has improved "under the hood" performance in SL in a number of areas, starting with texture fetching, anf through greater robustness of connections through the use of keepalives
The initial HTTP work raised the request rate ceiling within the viewer for texture and mesh data from A up to the blue line of C. Future work will hopefully raise it still further

The blog post is a careful and clear explanation of the work which has gone on to date, covering all aspects of the project, the positives and some of the negatives, while touching on some of the complexities of viewer / server communications which are outside of the Lab’s direct control, but which these changes may well still help alleviate to some degree. The piece also looks to the future and what also might be folded-in to the work, allowing for management decisions, staffing, and other priorities as well. While the look ahead is somewhat speculative at this point in time, it does point towards some intriguing options, such as updates to HTTP services such as inventory operations…

All-in-all, the post is a worthwhile read for anyone with any interest whatsoever in the work the Lab is putting into trying to improve Second Life and improve the experience for all of us who use it.

The Drax Files Radio Hour: Osprey remembered and the future of VR

Posted on by Inara Pey

The second broadcast from the attic studios of The Drax Files Radio hour kicks-off with an introduction by Strawberry Singh, before launching into a wide-ranging segment which covers news from SL and beyond, further feedback on the inaugural broadcast, including more on the Oculus Rift, some discussion on SL’s status as a niche product and the more, and a tribute to Osprey Therian.

Osprey Therian

Vivian Kendall - Osprey Therian in Second Life, who passed away in RL in 2013, but her legacy lives on in SL
Vivian Kendall – Osprey Therian in Second Life, who passed away in RL in 2013, but her legacy lives on in SL

It is with the tribute to Osprey that I’m choosing to start this piece, as it is the core of this episode – and rightly so.

Osprey Therian (Vivian Kendall in RL), artist, long-term SL resident and both a friend and inspiration to many, passed away in December 2013, much to the sadness of all who knew her. Her legacy is not just physical through her work in SL and RL, but also emotional, because she did touch so many and in many different ways.

Through a number of interviews and discussions, Draxtor reflects on the lives – real and virtual – of someone who, while she would doubtless be embarrassed at being called such – was very much an iconic figure where Second Life is concerned, and in so many different ways.

Through the words of Marianne McCann, Jim Purbrick (formerly Babbage Linden) and Salazar Jack (Justin Esparza in RL), Drax presents an engaging, uplifting portrait of Osprey and her approach to life, virtual reality, health and more. It is a piece which touches upon many different areas of the real and virtual, all of which Osprey herself no doubt would applaud and, were she able to, add her voice to the comments and the broader discussions which could so easily arise from the subjects touched upon. As a tribute, this is a beautifully handled segment, and full kudos to Drax as both interviewer and producer, for the overall scope of the piece.

Is SL nothing without Controversy?

Controversy is hard to avoid in Second Life, and not long after the initial episode of TDFRH was broadcast, the show was tangentially caught in some controversy over the interview with Ash Qin on the subject of the NSA and eavesdropping, etc., on virtual worlds (and the Internet as a whole), which prompted a response from Ash himself. This prompted Drax to point out that the show is “not the BBC”, and the intent is not to undertake investigative journalism, but to provide general news and commentary on the metaverse as a whole. Which is a fair point.

However – and while I certainly don’t expect either Drax nor Jo to have their finger on the pulse of absolutely everything that has happened in SL, past or present, a show such as TDFRH can only be enhanced by demonstrating aware of past history, where it is relevant. This is not to say I find the critique levelled at the inclusion of the interview with Ash Qin to be valid in and of itself, but I do applaud both Drax’s and Jo’s response to the criticism and their openness and willingness to seek support from people in ensuring critical bases are covered.

Did the FBI try to get LL to "block" OTR IMs server-side?
Did the FBI try to get LL to “block” OTR IMs server-side?

As an extension of this, episode 2 makes mention of OTR and its use (most notably within the v1-style Phoenix viewer) and how, apparently, there was pressure within the Lab to have the capability for OTR-encrypted person-to-person messaging “blocked” on the server-side, with the intimation that the overall pressure for this was coming from a government agency (the FBI being specifically mentioned).

The story comes via a former Linden Lab employee and makes interesting  – indeed, curious – reading; particularly given that the OTR system itself, as members of the Phoenix (now Firestorm) team have stated, was apparently deeply flawed in terms of how well “protected” IM conversations really were / are.

Continue reading “The Drax Files Radio Hour: Osprey remembered and the future of VR” →

Lab issues Required Account Documentation notice

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeIn November, the Lab commenced e-mail users meeting certain criteria to submit tax documentation to the Lab. The requests were met with a certain amount of confusion, which the Lab attempted to clarify later that month via a blog post on the matter.

On Tuesday January 14th 2014, the Lab issued a new blog post indicating that they would once more be contacting users who again meet certain criteria with a request they provide required account documentation required by the Lab to fulfil its legal obligations.

The blog post, which appeared in the Commerce section of the SL blog (and thus avoided appearing on users’ dashboards), reads in full:

In addition to required tax documentation (which we blogged about in November 2013), US law separately requires that institutions such as Linden Lab obtain, verify, and record information confirming the identification of account holders who submit a certain volume and/or amount of Process Credit Requests.

We have recently begun emailing users who need to submit this information. If you receive such a notice from us, you will need to follow the instructions and provide the required documentation within thirty (30) days.

These emails are being sent through our Support system. If you are among those individuals who need to provide this information, you can verify the request in your Case History in the Support Portal and reply to the Case if you have any related questions.

There has already been some consternation on Plurk on the matter of required documentation, noticeably among merchants requesting to upgrade the Business Level of their account, only to find their ability to cash-out frozen while they supply the required information and who have yet to receive any e-mail from the Lab forewarning them of these requirements.  While perhaps a matter of unfortunate timing on terms of such requests being made and e-mail being sent out, it does also perhaps suggest that (again) the Lab need to rethink their approach to handling what might be regarded as critical communications with their users.

This could be handled simply by the Lab ensuring such announcements appear on the dashboard of people’s accounts (regardless as to how widely or not LL believe the dashboard might be used) and, given they have an “official” presence on both Plurk and Twitter, actually Plurked and Tweeted, particularly given the information given in such blog posts is of far more import to people than pointers to the Pic of the Day, at least until the supporting e-mail arrives in their in-box.