Claiming Staff Bias, Ex-Linden Karl Stiefvater No Longer Helping Linden Integrate Alignment Tool into SL Viewer

Karl "Qarl" Stiefvater has declined to work any further with Linden Lab on incorporating the code to his useful alignment tool into the official SL viewer. This comes last week after the Linden vet donated the code; since then, Linden Lab engineer Charlie "Charlar" Hite rejected it as is, writing on the company's feature management JIRA site, "It does not work for non-mod permission objects... [and is] usable for purely prim-based builders under specific circumstances. It's less useful for building with non-cube prims, mesh, sculpties." While not necessarily rejecting Charlar's technical points, Karl believes the move reflects a personal animus Linden Lab staffers have against Karl, whose contract was ended by the company in 2010 under disagreeable circumstances.

"He's not 'wrong' to reject the code," Karl tells me now. "His claim that it doesn't work on no-mod objects - if true - needs to be addressed. But issues like these have been overlooked time and time again in the past - the Lindens like to completely rewrite contributions when they receive them. So that, and the (crazy) dismissal of its usefulness, AND the abrasive language - tells me I'm getting special treatment."

Karl goes on:

"If they're going to deny their customers an extremely useful tool - if they're willing to undermine their stated business goal of getting their users to come back to the official viewer - because they don't like me? Is that the kind of people you want running your world?"

I make no personal judgments on how accurate this claim is, though I will say the alignment tool does seem highly useful, and worth integrating, even if Charlar's points are valid. In any case, Oz Linden is continuing to work on Karl's code (since it's open source), and asking for other non-Linden users for help. But alas it looks like Karl won't be among them.

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Comments

[Bettina Tizzy]

Qarl... I'm sorry. It seems Linden Lab will never learn.

[Metacam Oh]

Good for Karl. "Charlar" couldn't even refer to Karl by his name, instead using the term "submitter". It's a kick in the face, especially since the guy used to sit in that office with those same people, and just submitted a free feature to them.

Ungrateful? Spiteful? Or is this just a case that this tool doesn't help them milk their customers for more money.

Now if that tool aligned virtual crops for their farmville clone, maybe a different story :)

[Angie Mornington]

Um Charlie, Charlar, ChaCha whatever. How about you let the actual builders of Second Life decide whether or not the tool is useful? That tool is one of the main reasons why I use Firestorm.

This is why we can't have nice things.

[Stephen Venkman]

Sounds like the only tool around here is LL.

So what if it only works on prims? Not everyone builds with sculpts and mesh.

This is a tool that should have been created back in 2007.. not tossed to the dogs in 2012.

[Kim]

The Lindens are definitely jackasses for not integrating this feature. Shame on them.

But on the other hand, Karl needs to drop the victim complex, quick-style. It makes him sound as petty as LL.

[qarl]

heh... you should reread my response to Charlar - i'm not doing the victim thing. i had a pretty good idea they'd reject the align tool out of pettiness - and i knew they'd do it in a way that shines a light on the bad actors.

in the end all you can do is fight the bad - and hope that good returns in its place. to be crass - it's like spanking a dog.

look - i love SL. i was just telling someone about it today - how it's as big as a literal city and has every bit as much complexity (socially, economically) and it's magic. it's freakin incredible.

so, i'm not going anywhere. sorry LL.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

@qarl, thank you for your efforts...the code you wrote would have made my latest build--mostly old-timey prims--a lot easier.

We remaining SLeducators should award you an honorary PhD. You've been tinkled on as surely as we were a year ago by this company.

"Your world, your imagination"? Show us proof of that, Mr. CEO-Man.

[Ezra]

Its truly hard to care when a Linden can just brush aside things we find important so nonchalantly.

Not saying the world is going to end due to the prim alignment tool being rejected, but it sets tone and precedence when something that'd have only benefited the platform and done no ill is just rejected at one person's behest.

Be it the mesh deformer JIRA that was brushed off last Fall leading to Qarl's crowdfunding, or Charlar's inane reasons now for refusing the prim alignment tool, its proving insane how much power one guy has had this year in blemishing faith in Second Life as an evolving platform for creation.

And don't get me wrong, I know Charlar does a lot of great work. But these blunders are very, very discouraging. And it really doesn't seem like he's apologetic about 'em at all. Rod might preach "shared creativity" but actions speak louder than words, and Rod isn't the one managing the Jira or Snowstorm. Charlar is proving much, much more powerful than Rod when it comes to how I sit down, load the viewer, and make something.

In a perfect world, Charlar would ease up and bend to creators' wants a lot more, Rod would actually listen to us creators rather than talk at us when his developers' actions don't match his words.

In fact, Rod should consider rehiring Qarl so we don't have to hire him everytime something half-baked is pushed to us. That single thing would restore a ton of faith in the platform that was lost to no fault of Rod or Charlar.

How hard is it just to do the right thing?

[Moni Duettmann]

Just one more mosaic stone in Linden's ignorance picture of what's really important in SL.

[Cyberserenity]

Many great viewers out there. Put the code in one of them. LL viewer do not work anyway.

[Orca Flotta]

It doesn't work on no-mod objects?
In other words it doesn't allow us to mod no-mod objects?
In other words it's true to the SL permissions system?
In other words it's not against the SL TOS?

No wonder LL rejected it!

[foneco zuzu]

It can sound crazy, but We need You On So grid and Hypergrid!

[foneco zuzu]

Cause more and more are joining there and all is done by users, for users!
I know you cant afford to work for free, but just seeing you there would mean a lot!

[Adeon Writer]

@Orca The alignment tool works on whole objects. Even if an object is no-mod, you can still move it around. And that is what this tool does - it lines things up. It's pretty powerful and I use it all the time. I haven't run into the no-mod oversight, but I'm sure it's valid.

But the fact that it's been on all the major third party viewers for almost a year and no one has expressed that problem, and in fact some site the feature as the reason they prefer the viewer, only proves that there was really nothing wrong with the code.

[FunnyOne]

"If they're going to deny their customers an extremely useful tool - if they're willing to undermine their stated business goal of getting their users to come back to the official viewer - because they don't like me? Is that the kind of people you want running your world?"

They have for years Qarl! No backups, no prim alignment, and on and on. Hell, they couldn't keep a sim from eating prims for so long it was unreal.

Personally Qarl, I would have never offered them the code nor would I have allowed them to use it. You did good by offering that "Excellent" work to the open community working on clients. I would have left it there and not allowed the code to be used by Linden.

And by the way Qarl, this is why many have left SL. Including myself. They are more worried about their TOS than they are the customer. Your snap code gets used on open source sims and works just fine as is. If it were ever improved, it should be you that improves it and in my opinion, it would have been better to offer as you did previously with a nice snide remark to Linden about it. I would have done the same thing you did the first time and left it at that.

Just my 2 cents