CTO Cory Linden Leaving Linden Labs

A Linden leaving sl? SO?

Yes, that *should* be obvious.

But if you accept Court Goodman's opinion .......
"A brilliant engineer in the Bay Area doesnt have to worry about any kind of company loyalty, so people leaving isnt that common and not necessarily a sign of a bad thing. It means the company down the street offered better pay and options. Then, this person pulls a bunch of his freinds over to the new company as well. These engineers dont want to patch bugs, they want to buildd new things with the latest tools."

........
The software prima donnas might *know*, but do they *care*?
It's the job of management to provide clear goals and motivate. It sounds like the style in LL is to put a bunch of high-bred monkeys in a room, feed them expensive bananas, give them mirrors to preen themselves in, and hope that what comes out of the room is usable.

As we well know, some good stuff comes out of that room, but so does a lot of crap.
Someone needs to potty-train those monkeys.

I don't think that was it, Sooz. Everyone at LL knows that if they don't fix the engine along with adding shiny hood ornaments, SL will be headed for the junkyard.

A bit harsh...People work in SF and the Bay, and they work hard. Theres no one type of worker either. But reality and common sense show that if you get a better offer doing better work, one would be silly not to consider.

...I don't think it's the "let's fix what we have and worry about the dream later" camp that won.

On the other hand, if your dream is to be listed in the history books as the person/company that laid the groundwork for all future virtual worlds, you don't really care what happens to your creation after you made sure of that.

It's the job of management to provide clear goals and motivate.

You tell Philip that Active Worlds laid the groundwork. Not SL!.

Why does everybody forget about poor Active Worlds?

....... But .. some of it is due to countless down times, to losing inventory, and other technical problems. ......

Hey, Kitty!

You tell Philip that Active Worlds laid the groundwork. Not SL!.

Why does everybody forget about poor Active Worlds?

It still has lots of potential even now. I'm pretty sure I could still create a better looking world in Active Worlds than what's possible in SL. It just needs some nice new avatars and it could be a contender again.

Either way, they better find the middle. That it polarized this far has to be proof that there is blaming going on within.

IMO whoever was in agreement that they rushed to open up SL to unpaid accounts, is most responsible for the problems today. If they all agreed with this then they are all to blame. Rushing a business has killed many businesses and endeavors. Knowing the online audience is full of griefing monsters and bloodthirsty exploiters, should be findamental and common sense.

Whoever pushed the most for going to the extreme, with the idea of non-involvement with resident disputes, crooked dealings, avaricious business, or glitches, allowing scams to proliferate, is to blame for the issues today. One reason Blizzard is so successful, is that they right wrongs, reimburse victims and track down offenders to the ends of the earth and still aren't considered to be overly despotic.

Whoever pushed for Open Source the hardest is more guilty. Maybe they all are guilty. Either way, without extreme security as a backbone of SL, no sensible, REAL business or serious individual business people, will be comfortable with SL, when the security is so poor.

Second Life needs to be a fuzzy, warm place, not a real world jungle or wild west. it should NOT be like "the internet," which is a cesspool. Otherwise, all the work they have done to create SL, is doing nothing but creating a technology that will be ruled by scammers and exploiters, rather then the warm fuzzy kind of people.

Washing their hands of policing SL in the most basic ways, is idiotic IMO. It is lacking common sense, to imagine, that they can use Open Source in a real world as we have. It strikes me as very naive to think Open Source is smart and whoever most pushed for volunteer programmers to be part of the loop, is very guilty and very naive about the real world. Sandboxes can be fun, but to allow a sandbox mentality to dominate SL is absurd. It has to be roped off.

When dealing with "governing," SL, they have to find the middle, between the extremes. When dealing with the economic reality of SL, they have to find the middle. The Linden$ should be strictly for in-world virtual purchases, while real money should be the currencies for real world business in SL, and the exchange of Lindens for real currency should be entirely against the TOS and bannable. It is overeaching, naive and megamaniacal, to do otherwise.

Although I am nobody but a private resident, who dreamed of virtual 3D worlds all my waking life I am using this shakeup to voice my opinion.

Because I think the best thing about SL is the creative aspect of the 3D world itself, and the social aspect----- to protect the good, from the encrouching RL maze from hell, and the in-world scammers, the hackers, the compulsive anarchist children, the internet parasites and spammers, that see it as a scammers and/or griefer's paradise, the best move would be to make buying or selling Lindens against the TOS. Enforce the TOS with a severe banstick like Warcraft does.
I hope LL gets back to policing the world and protecting the normal residents and creators. Forget Open Source and Jira's forever. (Hire people) and instead make security and privacy paramount. Get rid of volunteer programmers and the elitist offshoots. Each account comes with one sim on the residents own computer so they can have a single player mode, with far more prims then we get now, to do their building and testing etc., on their own hard drives before signing onto the grid. If a person needs/wants more then one sim then the resident just adds another computer at their own location and makes a alt. till they use up their sensible Alt maximun.

Businesses and corporations can sell their own real life products using fully secure, existing, real life methods. Lindens only for in-world purchases.

Paid accounts only and actually service the residents. Strict third party, Real life (not online), in-person, age verification to enter mature grid. (i.e, Like notarys, bank officers or affidavits) that require nothing but but age verification.

Tie all alts to the master account and limit them. Each alt can have a sim and is played on a different box. Period. Prohibit second accounts for the same person. The Linden market will go underground just as Warcraft gold does, for those individual who wish to risk a ban.

Fight the third party Linden sellers/buyers as best as possible, just as Warcraft goes after gold sellers and buyers. Totally prohibit bots. Enforce clear and detailed anti-harrasment, anti griefing with Immediate support and investigations, with suspensions and bans, as Warcraft does. Make up losses residents suffer from theft of Lindens or items due to cheats, crooks or technical glitches. It really isn't brain surgery.

The creators will then be able to create, the socializers will be able to socialize and even fictional gambling would then be just fictional monopoly money. Strictly enforce laws, regarding those committing illegal behaviors, with full investigation and lifetime bans for offenders as well as providing evidence to RL police. Do not tie it to Google or anyone else.

Among some of the weak criticisms of this will be:

"It will cost to much we don't have the money to change all that--we'll go broke!".....fine get better investors--with a secure way for companies to sell their real life products, off their own local sims, they own. Those people will fall all over themselves to invest.

"But we will have to shut down Second Life, to redo it."---fine do it. So what. Better to do this then wait till it explodes in your face with RL legal problems.

"Big landowners will complain, I have so much land I own, I will go broke. i'll lose everything---"--so buy back the exisitng land with Lindens for when the grand re-opening happens two years from now and of course save all objects for transfer into residents own property on their own computer(s). Master Accounts will be on hold. People can start new alts or tie their old ones to their master account.

"How do we take sides in reisdent disputes and reports?"---its not brain surgery, use log files and investigations. Harrassment and griefing is not that hard to spot. Spell it out. if Warcraft can do it so can SL. Earn your darn money will you! respond to all reports immediatly and solve it immediatly if possible or in the case of complex investigations--take 2 weeks at the most.

"oh but this is all too hard to do" --"security is impossible"----so what, you are supposed to be such visionary geniuses--saying "it's impossible" or "I can't" or "we can't," just means you aren't such visionary geniuses afterall. Earn your darn money will you! Hire a TON of ethical business and technical people. Partner with real, more mature tech companies, MS and Apple. Strictly support Intellectual property and suspend or ban all offenders,

So let it be written, so let it be done.

Hey, Kitty!

You tell Philip that Active Worlds laid the groundwork. Not SL!.

Why does everybody forget about poor Active Worlds?

It still has lots of potential even now. I'm pretty sure I could still create a better looking world in Active Worlds than what's possible in SL. It just needs some nice new avatars and it could be a contender again.

And the south pole could burst into flames too.

I think that Cory was asked to resign (ie let go) because Coke went to There. Coke had a virtual world, arrived here first and spent a year here. Had SL been stable enough, their world moved here.
Instead they moved to There which is crap techinally and visually but is stable and handles IP correctly.

Which Direction? Well we can`t get any worse then we are now. It has to be for the better right?! Lets hope so

Hey, Kitty!

You tell Philip that Active Worlds laid the groundwork. Not SL!.

Why does everybody forget about poor Active Worlds?

It still has lots of potential even now. I'm pretty sure I could still create a better looking world in Active Worlds than what's possible in SL. It just needs some nice new avatars and it could be a contender again.

And the south pole could burst into flames too.

I think that Cory was asked to resign (ie let go) because Coke went to There. Coke had a virtual world, arrived here first and spent a year here. Had SL been stable enough, their world moved here.
Instead they moved to There which is crap techinally and visually but is stable and handles IP correctly.

And the south pole could burst into flames too.

I think that Cory was asked to resign (ie let go) because Coke went to There. Coke had a virtual world, arrived here first and spent a year here. Had SL been stable enough, their world moved here.
Instead they moved to There which is crap techinally and visually but is stable and handles IP correctly.

Another career destroyed by coke...

I'll be sad to see Cory go, but maybe his replacement will be better(or so we hope).

With groundwork I meant defining an open protocol that will be used as the de facto standard for how end-users (or rather the proggies they'll run) will communicate with different (future) virtual worlds and how those virtual worlds will interoperate with one another.

Personally, I'm hoping that instead of getting a shiny new CTO, LL gets a VP engineering. Someone who can really incentivise, protect and drive their developers in a professional manner. Someone young enough to 'get' open source, and old enough to stand up to Philip Rosedale.

Someone who listens to QA because s/he wants to know what's wrong, in addition to knowing what's terrific.

Someone who relies on REAL performance evaluations and achievements, instead of Love Points.