Whither Second Life's Open Source Progress? A Linden Reaches Out To "The Mad Patcher"

Last week, a programmer known in Second Life as Nicholaz "The Mad Patcher" Beresford announced he was no longer contributing fixes to Linden Lab's viewer code. As an open source project, it's not uncommon for volunteer coders to come and go, but Nicholaz's declaration sent turmoil (as here or here) through SL's community.  Many Residents use the "Nicholaz Edition" of the Second Life viewer, and consider it less crash-prone than the official version.  Citing frustration with the Lindens' delays to implement fixes "even if they are addressing the most basic and obvious problems like crashes", and a general malaise (his blog's constant and ironic use of "™" suggesting annoyance with the company's confusing new trademark policy), he withdrew altogether. 

Since then, however, at least one Linden staffer has been trying to bring him back into the fold.

"A group of us at Linden Lab realize we've done a poor job here," senior developer Qarl Linden wrote on my blog last Friday, "and are beginning a new initiative next quarter to provide much improved support for our open source community."

Laudable words, though I suspect coders like Nicholaz will follow his suggestion to "look at what people are doing rather than listening to what people are saying" , and retain some skepticism.

As for Mr. Beresford, after some reluctance, he's working on another fix despite himself.  "Somehow one thing led to the other and before I knew I was looking at leak dumps," he reported yesterday.  "It seems that I still enjoy solving puzzles or I guess I'm just a pervert coder."

Comments

[Dedric Mauriac]

SL has a way of drawing different types of people into it. It's like you hate to love it sometimes, but you can't stay away. It is the most entertaining thing around and nothing else really compares against it for geeks like myself.

[Patou Dumont]

I was very disappointed when the news of Nicholaz stopping his patch versions hit the blogs. I still use his last patched version and plan on keep using it until something else as stable comes alone. Let's just say I want to enjoy my time in-world, not grow tired and angry every time the official client shuts down my whole computer.

[Christine]

I'm not holding my breath on Qarl's word there- I would die if I did.

[Cyde Weys]

It's important to consider at this point the difference between free (as in libre) software and software that merely has open source. I suspect Nicholaz got fed up and left because the Lindens weren't making the software client free enough in the free software sense.