Category: Second Life

SL23B: volunteer applications now open

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab

June 2026 will mark the 23rd anniversary of Second Life opening to public access – and as we’ve all come to expect, the month will mark the start of several weeks of events and celebrations running into July under the umbrella of the Second Life Birthday (SLB) otherwise know for this year as SL23B.

Dates and Theme

This year the SLB festivities will open on Friday, June 18th, 2026 and will run through until Sunday, July 19th, 2026. The theme for 2026 is The Golden Age of Hollywood, which the Lab describes thus:

Think classic cinema, red carpets, vintage glamour, and the magic of the silver screen. While the theme may inspire many builds and performances, exhibits are not required to follow the theme. We encourage you to share what makes your Second Life experience meaningful. Your interests. Your communities. Your creativity.

However, as has been the case over the last several birthday events, exhibitions are not confined to the theme itself, with the Lab additionally noting:

Every year, we celebrate because of the incredible Residents who bring this world to life. The birthday celebrations are an opportunity to showcase what inspires you and what keeps you coming back.

Volunteer Applications

On Tuesday, April 14th, 2026, Linden Lab announced that Volunteer applications have opened and remain so through until Monday, May 18th, 2026. As noted, exhibitor applications are now open. Key requirements for volunteers are noted below – however, for the full list of requirements, please refer the the exhibitor application form, via the link following these notes:

  • Volunteers are asked to commit to at least two hour shifts at a time, and to note that as SL23B spans 11 days, LL prioritise applicants who can participate across multiple days. Stage Crew are expected to contribute a minimum total of 8 hours.
  • Training sessions will be provided across multiple times. All volunteers are expected to complete a training session, regardless of whether they have been volunteers at previous Birthday events. Those failing to complete the required training will be removed from the Volunteer group.
  • These are volunteer positions, and as such, volunteers will not be paid. Additionally, volunteers cannot rez/wear tip jars or solicit for tips.
  • Stage Crew:
    • May not act as personal hosts for performers. You may only host if specifically scheduled as a Stage Host under the official guidelines.
    • Members should report any issues to their Stage Manager first. Stage Managers are responsible for assigning roles, tasks, and timing.
  • Greeters should report any issues in the Greeter group and a Mole or Coordinator will assist.

Volunteer Application Form.

Please note: All enquiries about hosting exhibitions, staging performances or volunteering at the event should be directed to Linden Lab, not this blog.

Related Links

2026 SL viewer release summaries week #15

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates from the week through to Sunday, April 5th, 2026

This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:

  • It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy.
  • This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
  • By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
  • Outside of the Official viewer, and as a rule, alpha / beta / nightly or release candidate viewer builds are not included; although on occasions, exceptions might be made.

Official LL Viewers

  • Default viewer  – One-Click Installer = 26.1.1.23806384790 – April 10 – NEW.
  • Second Life Project Viewers:

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V7-style

  • Kokua: 26.1.0.58180 (no RLV) and 26.1.0.61942 (RLV variants), April 6 – release notes.

V1-style

  • No Updates.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

2026 SL viewer release summaries week #14

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates from the week through to Sunday, April 5th, 2026

This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:

  • It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy.
  • This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
  • By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
  • Outside of the Official viewer, and as a rule, alpha / beta / nightly or release candidate viewer builds are not included; although on occasions, exceptions might be made.

Official LL Viewers

  • Default viewer  – Legacy search; WebRTC improvements; QoL improvements – 26.1.0.22641522367 – March 12 – no change.
  • Release Candidate viewer – one-click installer = 26.1.1.23806384790 – March 31 – NEW.
  • Second Life Project Viewers:

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V7-style

  • Kirstens Viewer S24 VETR V2 Build 3075 – April 5 – release notes.

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

Cica’s Happy Planet in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Cica Ghost, April 2026: Happy Planet

April 2026 is the month of Artemis 2 (well, at least the first ten days are!), which will see a crew of four pass around the Moon before returning to Earth In the process the crew will set a new record for the furthest any humans have travelled beyond Earth thus far – some 406,773 kilometres, just breaking the record of 397,848 kilometres set by Apollo 13 during its aborted mission to the Moon in April 1970,

As such, it is thoroughly appropriate that whether by accident or design, Cica Ghost is using April to take us on a trip into space and to her Happy Planet.

Cica Ghost, April 2026: Happy Planet

Set against the backdrop of night, from which a large Moon (or possibly a planetary twin) literally watches over everything via the circular (and eye-like) blue sea covering a far portion of its otherwise dull browny nearside, this is a place of fantastical wonder, backed by a truth from US cartoonist Lynda Barry:

We don’t create a fantasy world to escape reality. We create it to be able to stay.

In other words fantasy and our use of it is more about presenting us with opportunities to pause and renew our strengths and abilities in the face of a reality which can oftentimes be harsh or unpredictable – or both – in its daily nature, rather than being a simply a crutch for helping us cope – as the unimaginative in nature have often claimed.

Cica Ghost, April 2026: Happy Planet

And fantasy can be both wonderfully creative and fun – as Happy Planet, with its strange but in some cases familiar creatures and inhabitants. From cats with antennae to almost slug-like beings oddly mindful of Gru’s Minions, occupying the rocky landscape and possibly living in the rock formations which appear to have holes cut into them to form interior spaces complete with windows and chimneys, this is clearly a place born of a creative and fantasy-oriented mind, rich in strange flora.

Some of these semi-sluggy (if you will) locals are not confined to the ground, but zip around overhead in personal flying saucers, deftly missing asteroids which –  to unabashedly steal from Douglas Adams – hang in the air exactly the same way as bricks don’t. And you can join the flying locals; located in the setting is a free flying saucer giver. Simply claim one, add it from inventory and take flight.

Cica Ghost, April 2026: Happy Planet

For those who prefer the alien equivalent of terra firma, there are plenty of opportunities for ground (or slightly elevate, thanks to re various raised paths) exploration, which will also reveal interactive dance spots scattered around the setting. I didn’t find any sit points while mousing over things, but I may have missed them. Either way, there is no mistaking Happy Planet is a happy place to be.

SLurl Details

 

2026 week #14: SL Open Source (TPVD) meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Hippotropolis Theatre: home of the OSD/TPVD meeting
The following notes were taken from:

  • My chat log of the Open-Source Developer (OSD) meeting held on Friday, April 3rd, 2026, together with my chat log of that meeting.
  • Pantera’s video of the meeting (embedded at the end of this article) – my thanks to her for providing it.
Table of Contents

Meeting Purpose

  • The OSD meeting is a combining of the former Third Party Viewer Developer meeting and the Open Source Development meeting. It is open discussion of Second Life development, including but not limited to open source contributions, third-party viewer development and policy, and current open source programs.
    • This meeting is generally held twice a month on a Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre and is generally text chat only.
  • Dates and times of meetings are recorded in the SL Public Calendar.

Official Viewer Status

  • Default viewer  – Legacy search; WebRTC improvements; QoL improvements – 26.1.0.22641522367 – March 12.
  • Release Candidate viewer – one-click installer = 26.1.1.23806384790 – March 31 – NEW.
  • Second Life Project Viewers:

Viewer 2026.01.01 – One-Click Installer / Velopack

  • Now available as a RC viewer – see above.
  • This could be promoted as early as week #15, depending on how it performs (crash rates, etc.), over the next few days..

Other Viewers

  • 2026.02 – “Flat” UI and Splash Screen Refresh – this is due to have an Alpha update issued on April 3rd.
  • The Lua Alpha viewer is also due to have an update issued on April 3rd.
    • Note, LL are now officially dropping “SLua” (“SL Lua”) and just going with “Lua”.
Example of the upcoming flat UI. Via: Geenz Linden / Github #4681/2
  • The viewer formerly known as the Second Life Visual Polish viewer (SLVP) is now known as the Second Life  Second Life Graphics Care Package.
    • The hope is to get that into alpha soon – but only after we get the necessary server work done and get some regions up on ADITI.

WebRTC Deployment

  • The WebRTC deployment has hit a “hiccup”.
  • As a result the deployment has slowed, with WebRTC liable to remain only on the RC server channels (Le Tigre, BlueSteel, Magnum, etc.) and covering about14% of the Main grid until the problem is resolved.
  • Anyone experiencing Voice issues with WebRTC is asked to file a bug report.

General Discussion

  • There is an increasing issue of AI driven pull requests.
    • This appears to be a case of people trying to make claims via the bounty programme for code submissions without actually putting any effort into the work.
    • Commenting on the matter, Geenz Linden noted:
If you’re using LLMs to submit pull requests, that’s not an automatic no. However, blatantly vibe coded submissions, submissions that are effectively taking stuff from other viewers without any kind of attribution or permission and so on, and anything that just generally reads as super low effort just to claim a bounty is likely to be closed without comment in a worst case, or otherwise scrutinized in order to ascertain the individual’s understanding of what that code actually does vs. how much is just prompting to see if they can land something. We don’t want to shut down utilizing AI in people’s processes, but certain things are gonna get PRs shut down or scrutinized more heavily. So please keep this in mind.
    • This called into question the value of the bounty programme, with the fair point being made that TPV developers have spent years developing code for their viewers and submitting much of it to LL without any thought of reward other than improving people’s SL experience.
    • Geenz further noted the the bounty programme is due to get reviewed “sooner [rather]than later”, although it is likely “some form” of it will be kept, as it has also led to useful code contributions – such as those for getting the Linux viewer back into the frame (due to surface with the Lua viewer) and the viewer vcpkg work.
    • The suggestion was made that a contract programme – whereby an external coder is contracted to produce work – might be more beneficial than the current bounty programme. Again, this was pretty much the case for Linux and vcpkg.
    • A further suggestion was made to offer general bug / feature request bounties in L$ only – potentially making them less attractive to those trying to bend the system and earn US $ using AI LLMs.
  • The question was asked if Leviathan Linden’s work on server-viewer messaging would be surfacing in one (or an) Alpha viewer soon – the reply was that discussions on where and when to place this work are still ongoing, in order to ensure the viewer work and server work appear pretty much together.
  • Suzanna’s excellent write-up on the latest Lua release gained a further shout-out. On this (again):
    • This release will be deployed to Aditi (the Beta grid) first for testing.
    • It requires all Lua scripts to be recompiled in order to keep working.
  • Tis last 10 minutes of the meeting was spent discussion whether “SLua” should be retained as the name for the Lua project, or if “Lua” was better (certainly more widely recognised) given it is an implementation of Luau.

Next Meeting

Cherishville’s Spring for 2026 in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Cherishville Spring 2026 – click any images for full size

Spring has come to Lam Erin’s Cherishville for 2026, and with it the region has evolved into a new setting for visitors to enjoy.

With this iteration of the region we are offered a truly pastoral location; a place of farming, outbuildings, a meandering stream, gently rolling hills crowned by trees and flowers, and a scattering of animals together with little touches of humour for those with a keen eye..

Cherishville Spring 2026

The Landing Point sits to the north-west of the region, in the lee of an aged, bent-backed tree. This tree appears to suggest that strong winds can at times visit themselves across the island, although the upright poise of the other trees across the setting appear to say otherwise, and suggest the curved nature of this tree’s back is perhaps due to some other factor.

Sitting on a stubby headland, the Landing Point looks both east and south over the region, the eastern view encompassing the tall form of what might be taken to be a lighthouse on the far horizon when first seen, but which is in fact a clock tower, its belfry sitting in place of any lamp room.  Between these stubby headlands is a sweep of beach which is separated from the clock tower by the mouth of the region’s stream.

Cherishville Spring 2026

Southwards, the landing point overlooks a rutted track leading inland, a small stretch of shingle shoreline and a further trail passing some old vehicles on its way south. This rutted track forms a junction with the one leading inland from the Landing Point whilst also pointing east, where it becomes sandwiched between the beach and a pair of Tuscany-style outhouses, one of which has been turned into a patisserie and the other a residence-come-coffeehouse.

With outside seating, a large rectangular pond that has become the home of water lilies and swans and a separate fountain, the coffeehouse makes for a pleasant place to stop, itself sitting between track and the sharp curve of the stream behind it which leave it and the patisserie effectively sitting on a finger of land.  The patisserie offers more limited seating, but is still a pleasant visit and also holds an element of the humour I alluded to earlier.

Cherishville Spring 2026

To the south of the setting and sitting on a hill is a large farmhouse, in the grounds of which chickens squawk and cluck among the flowers – fortunately leaving the vegetable garden at the front of the house alone; a goose watching over her brood as they learn to swim, and a family of birds has taken over the mailbox – the property sitting, appropriately, on Bird Lane. With lavender and fruit trees being cultivated to one side of the house, with the lavender extending to encompass two more sides, the farmhouse is welcoming in a shabby-chic kind of look.

The best way to reach this farmhouse is to follow the track down the west side of the region from the Landing Point. This takes people past the old vehicles, one of which – an old truck – has become something of an apiary, with hives established outside its blocky form, and more hives apparently mounted along either side of its rear chassis.

Cherishville Spring 2026

A second vehicle has been turned into someone of a psychedelic piece of graffiti art as it sits at the side of the track. Beyond this, the track then rises up a slope to pass another outbuilding / shack where horses and sheep graze, to meet the stone built bridge spanning the region’s stream. The track then curls along the slope of the farmhouse hill before passing between the fencing surrounding the farmhouse. As it does so, it passes a signboard explaining the art of trail blazing and referencing the Slovene cartographer and trail blazer, Alojz Knafelc.

High photogenic, calming and rich in colour, sound and with an ideal EEP setting, Cherishville Spring is another excellent design by Lam Erin.

SLurl Details