On Saturday April 12th 2014, the Firestorm team hosted a meeting and Q and A session to discuss a number of issues, including the OpenSSL issue and how it affects SL / Firestorm, Firestorm blocking, the next Firestorm release and more, and answer audience questions.
While the meeting was recorded, the Firestorm team are aware that many of their users have hearing difficulties, and / or prefer to read text, so this transcript has been supplied on their behalf.
When reading, please remember:
- This is not a word-for-word transcript of the entire meeting. While all quotes given are as they are spoken in the video, to assist in readability and maintain the flow of conversation, not all asides, jokes, interruptions, etc., have been included in the text presented here
- In the interests of readability, topics in the transcript are not necessarily presented chronologically compared to the video. For example: specific topics of interest raised in the Q&A session, and which are self-contained, are presented under their own heading outside of the Q&A section.
- If there are any sizeable gaps in comments from a speaker which resulted from asides, repetition, questions to others etc,, these are indicated by the use of “…”
- Timestamps are provided as guidance should anyone wish to hear the comments in full from any speaker on the video
- Questions / comments were made in chat while speakers were talking. This inevitably meant that replies to questions would lag well behind when they were originally asked. To provide context between questions and answers, questions in the transcript are given (in italics) at the point at which each is addressed by a member of the Firestorm team, either in voice or via chat.
Please note: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. I am not an official member of the Firestorm team, and technical or support issues relating to Firestorm cannot easily be addressed through these pages. Such requests for assistance should be made through the in-world Firestorm Support groups or at the Firestorm support region.
With thanks, as always, to North for the video.
The TL;DR Summary
The following is a brief summary of topics discussed. Timestamps in braces refer to times in the video where the relevant commentary can be heard. All sections are expanded upon in the main transcript – click on the timestamp to go to them.
- 0:00:15 Ebbe Linden – a review of Ebbe Linden’s (LL CEO Ebbe Altberg) presentation and Q&A at the VWBPE conference on Friday April 11th (video and transcript)
- 0:05:15 Firestorm 64-bit download: an issue with the certificate for the 64-bit Firestorm expiring meant the download had to be temporarily pulled. It has now been restored.
- 0:08:22 Firestorm DUI: the dynamic User Interface is very proof of concept and requires a lot of work and if it is developed, will possibly require as much as a year before it is remotely usable, and this with the collaboration of over TPVs and developers. Right now, it doesn’t require bug reports.
- 0:23:04 The Heartbleed SSL bug: a error in versions of an OpenSSL extension called Heartbeat can be used to expose server-side information to attackers. The SL servers are safe, the Firestorm server is safe, however, people can be at risk when connecting to external sites using MOAP or the built-in web browser. Firestorm 4.5.1 and 4.6.1 use OpenSSL, but the chances of them being vulnerable are negligible, and because of the log-in hash, users names and passwords are secure. The very, very small risk will be removed in the next release.
- 0:39:21 Firestorm blocking: older versions of Firestorm are blocked to try to encourage users to keep reasonable pace with the latest updates and capabilities in the viewer, and to meet with LL’s requirement that as many users as possible are on up-to-date viewers. It is not a Trojan, backdoor, spyware or malware. Log-in IDs, etc., are not compromised, nothing is passed to the FS server. Period.
- 0:56:19: Why Firestorm doesn’t use an auto-update process and the pain of clean installs
- 1:02:00: Due to a coding error, Firestorm 4.4.2, 4.5.1, 4.6.1 will be blocked from accessing OpenSim when the time comes to block them. This is not deliberate; it is the result of the code required to limit blocking to Second Life not making it into the viewer, which will be rectified with the next release. Firestorm remains committed to support OpenSim.
- 1:09:30 Due to the use of automatically-generated SLurls with images uploaded to Facebook accounts using SL Share to Facebook, the snapshot upload capability was blocked by Facebook. This situation has now been resolved between the Lab and Facebook, and photo uploads work once more.
- 1:14:05: The Next Firestorm release hopefully will be available in early May, and will include updates, fixes and new features, including some Mac updates, the new Vivox files, etc.
- 1:31:36: bugs don’t get fixed in either Firestorm or the LL viewer without people filing bug reports via the JIRA. Please help in making Firestorm, the SL viewer and SL better
- 1:36:25 Oculus Rift is coming, but it’s coming via Linden Lab. If you want to have a play, join the closed LL beta, or try CtrlAltStudio (just make sure you have a headset!)
- 2:02:02 a look at the SL Share 2 capabilities, and why they won’t be in the next release of Firestorm
- 1:51:06 Ed’s reminder about Firestorm Classes
- 1:28:36 Start of the Q&A seesion
Continue reading “April 12th Firestorm meeting: video, transcript and notes”
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