In 2 Weeks, Nearly $4000 Pledged to Hire Ex-Linden to Fix Second Life Mesh -- Future Trend for SL Development?

Maybe the future of Second Life development will be crowdfunded: That's what I thought after checking the progress of a campaign to raise $5400 to hire ex-Linden developer Karl Stiefvater to fix problems with SL mesh now that Linden Lab has so far punted on. In the two weeks since the crowdfunder was launched, it's raised nearly $4000, with over 100 funders so far, 11 of whom have pledged $100 or more -- several of them, $200 or more. Clearly there's many SL content creators who want these improvements, and are willing to invest serious cash to get them fixed now. (Kirsten's Viewer crowdfunder, by the way, has raised about USD$3500 in just 3 days.) And as I noted in the original post, over 100 Linden Lab staffers have been laid off in the last 12 months, many of whom are still looking for work. So maybe the lesson here is this: Tired of waiting for Linden Lab to fix a problem in the JIRA queue? Hire an ex-Linden to fix it ASAP!

Comments

[Ciaran Laval]

Coffee & Power should be all over this.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I'd think it'd be a little humbling for a company to lay somebody off, only to have that person continue to solve the problems that you can't at the behest of your customers.

But we are talking about Linden Lab. Humility isn't in the cards.

[Ezra]

Thanks for keeping tabs on both those efforts Hamlet.