Hitomi Tiponi

I was answering this question of yours Joshua:
I am puzzled by your:
I wasn't aware that any permabanned hackers had worked on Firestorm - who are they? Or that it had its basis as a griefing viewer - are you confusing it with Phoenix/Emerald?

Latif Khalifa

I don't think this is going to affect me, if the "shared experience" clause is as Oz is explaining it in his clarifications. The only way Radegast could be affected if they start demanding that all viewers be capable of all things, and that does not appear to be the case.

Joshua Nightshade

Right afterward I specified that I was referring to things that would be affected by the policy change. I concede breast physics could fall under that category, though I might have to split hairs with you over whether or not I consider that innovation.

Firestorm is an extension of Phoenix, which is an extension of Emerald, which was an extension of a copybot/hacking viewer developed by people who had been repeatedly banned by LL, changed their names and pretended to turn over a new leaf under this different identity. Similar individuals have been involved on any combination of the three, and a number of people involved with Phoenix (especially during its early days) were there and present when Emerald was utilised by a couple of its script kiddies to DDoS a critic.

I'm not confusing anything; Tonya might wish to diverge it from its original roots however she wants — I certainly would too, if I were her — but it is what it is.

Even if it wasn't, she and Jessica have given me more than enough reason to avoid it. That's evidently why Tonya feels she can dismiss any criticism of her behaviour — her critics aren't important because they don't use "her" viewer.

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Joshua Nightshade

I've never used it so correct me if I'm wrong but I thought it was originally a scripted HUD that required the "slave" wear a scripted collar to function. I was under the impression that RLV has been around for ages and before the viewer was open sourced, or at least before third party viewers became commonplace.

In fact if my memory is correct it was some of those early third party viewers (I wanna say Boy's?) which started rolling up parts of the HUD functionality into their viewer so you didn't need to wear one anymore to interface with scripted attachments.

I could be wrong, but I thought it preceded viewer-specific code by like years. But (as I said) I've never used it so I may be completely off the mark. But that's why I said I wouldn't put it under that innovation category, as I thought it was a product that predated being added to a viewer, and showing up in a viewer was an extension of that functionality.

In either event this is the type of UI functionality which won't be affected by the policy change, so it isn't what I was curious about.

Misty Harley

Phoenix (or was it firestorm? I always get the two mixed up) was Emerald re-branded after the Emerald fiasco. Apparently, they left things in from Emerald per Jessica's treet.tv discussion yesterday where she specifically said the true on line status was a hack done in Emerald where the dev's weren't concerned and didn't care about privacy then simply left in there when the re-brand occurred (but no real explanation as to why was ever given or it was and I missed it which is possible).

Because it has it's basis in Emerald, I won't use it either, especially not now considering the above information.

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Hitomi Tiponi

Firestorm is a completely seperate viewer forked from LL's viewer 2 code. I am sure that you have seen Arrehn who carried out much of the early development work sometimes posting on here. I repeat who are these "permabanned hackers" that are working on it? I wouldn't want to be associated with such people so please tell me.

Joshua Nightshade

I didn't say they are working on it. I said they were affiliated with it. It's not a "completely separate viewer." There are shared developers between Phoenix and Firestorm, Firestorm is Phoenix with Viewer 2 code underlying it, and Phoenix is Emerald renamed. Et cetera, et cetera. If it makes you feel more comfortable about using it by pretending that Phoenix and Firestorm have nothing to do with one another you're certainly welcome to cling to that fiction.

Whisper

if josh posts a reply and no-one sees it, is he still wrong?

Hitomi Tiponi

They do share developers between the two viewers but you did say that:
which indicates that it was developed from a griefing viewer by permabanned hackers - so what you meant to say was that some of the people who worked on Emerald/Phoenix were permabanned hackers and some of the Phoenix devs have worked on Firestorm. So I ask again have any of the "permabanned hackers" from Emerald/Phoenix worked on Firestorm to your knowledge and if so whom - I think this is an important question?

Also have you looked at the Firestorm code - yes there are bits of the Phoenix code ported into it on top and lots of new changed stuff - but 90% is the LL's Viewer 2 root?

Innula Zenovka

For the sake of accuracy, while I agree RLV isn't affected by these changes, it is, and always has been, a special viewer API that accepts instructions from scripts (in the form of llOwnerSay("@something or other");) to remove items of clothing, stop you tp-ing and so on. Because the messages are all llOwnerSay (for security reasons), you need to wear a hud or something with scripts that will pick up messages from items that don't belong to you and turn them into llOwnerSay messages, so that you can play with RLV cages and stuff, but the relay (in a hud or a collar) can't do anything unless you're using a viewer that understands RLV commands.

As I recall, the sequence was that, first, Marine started making her own viewer, which was, then, simply the official viewer with RLV added, then Henri put RLV into Cool when it was Linux and Mac only, and then Boy put it into the Windows version of Cool while she and Henri were still collaborating. Meanwhile Kitty Barnett produced her implementation, RLVa, which I think first appeared in either Imprudence or whatever that viewer was called that Skills made before Emerald appeared (Gemini?).

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Joshua Nightshade

I meant to say what I said, and what you think that indicates is your own misreading of the post.

You were around here and posting when the Emerald DDoS happened and you know very well the sequence of events, so I am at a loss for why you're suddenly feigning an inability to remember.

Nevertheless, because you're trying very hard to rope me into some word game, I will be explicit:

- Emerald was a rebranding of a griefer viewer developed in part by Jcool/Fractured Crystal and Ph0x, who were themselves new avatars previously banned from SL.

- Phoenix, whose project lead at the time was Jessica Lyon, was a rebranding of Emerald forked when they ousted Fractured Crystal from the dev team after his DDoS.

- Firestorm, who has Jessica Lyon in some leadership role presently, is an extension of Phoenix based on Viewer 2.

The fact that there are shared developers between Phoenix and Firestorm, including developers who were there working alongside Fractured Crystal when he was increasingly using the popularity of his viewer to attack critics — specifically critics raising the alarm about his past history as a permabanned resident — taints the project for me irreparably. It's disingenuous to say they're completely different things whether or not they share any code. The problem is not the shared code, it's the shared people.

Joshua Nightshade

Okay, I got that wrong then. I thought it was a scripted product first and got implemented as a viewer much later on. But I've never known much about BDSM in Second Life. O:

Trinity Dejavu

RLV is a script viewer interface. It has always required a special viewer.

An LSL script can issue a number of RLV commands via llOwnerSay, those commands affect what happens in the users viewer. The simplest example use would be be an attachment that someone locks using RLV onto your avatar. Once locked you are unable to detach the attachment and should it get knocked off, RLV will automatically replace it.

The scope of commands effects the entire range of a users personal interaction with SL and the client.

BDSM, collars and such existed in SL long before RLV, RLV just gave such toys actual power over there user experience.

For a very short history, the original RLV specification and viewer was written by Marine Kelley and tied in with a range of products she sold in world. The specification was published and an entire industry was born. RLVa (for RLV alternative) was written later Kitty Barnett and was picked up by emerald. RLVa is now the majority standard implantation of the specification that Marine still maintains.

Any huds, relays and toys that you are familiar with being RLV are in fact all dependant on the user having opted to enable the RLV functionality.

Marine still publishes her own implementation in the RestrainedLove Viewer.
Kitty and I publish the RLVa implementation via the Catznip Viewer.

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Catznip Viewer : www.catznip.com

Hitomi Tiponi

You specifically said:
So you are saying that Firestorm had its basis as a griefing viewer - and I am still waiting for some evidence on that. I am not talking about the people who may have worked alongside "permabanned hackers" - you made a specific statement about the roots for Firestorm. Firestorm is not a rebranding of Phoenix - it has some code from Phoenix where it was sensible to use it I believe, but it was built from a fresh start and a fresh code root. I fail to see how it can be seen as an extension of Phoenix just because some of the same people worked on it. No one says that Viewer 2 is an extension of Viewer 1 and it shares a lot more code with it's predecessor, it's a seperate product.

Joshua Nightshade

I've already addressed you and your misrepresentation of what I said.

Kara Spengler

So length of time on a site has exactly what to do with trollishness and trolling exactly?

Sometimes I agree with you, sometimes not. By asking a question you full well knew the answer to (and have seen quite a few holy wars over in your time here) you were doing nothing but trolling though.

Even if you knew nothing about TPVs you could assume they add features/fix things. What else would they be doing? Showing off mad hacker skillz that they knew how to compile the source code as-is?

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Misty Harley

I'm not a viewer dev but doesn't/didn't both phoenix and firestorm have 'true on line status' that was originally put in Emerald?

Phoenix was brought on from Emerald (which was brought on from the viewer that I can't remember the name either) and led to Firestorm when V2 came around but many of the liked features in Phoenix/Emerald were also put in Firestorm so how could Firestorm have been built from scratch with no relation to Phoenix/Emerald?

Joshua Nightshade

Last I checked you aren't psychic, so you don't know what I know "full well," or knew that I was asking a question to troll. I asked a question because I still fail to see the appeal of third party viewers, and given the fact that everyone seems upset they won't be able to "innovate" anymore, I asked for examples of previous innovations that would be harmed by the new policy.

If the best you have in response to this question is to bitch about trolling, you should probably wait until you come up with something more relevant.

Do you have an example of viewer innovations that will be impacted by this new policy, Kara?

Hitomi Tiponi

No you haven't - you keep side-stepping it.

You specifically said that Firestorm had its basis as a griefing viewer, yet I see no evidence for that and you have also offerred none.

Joshua Nightshade

No it didn't, they floated a survey asking if they should add it to Firestorm but as it turns out they evidently never intended to and it was Tonya drumming up drama.

Joshua Nightshade

Yes, because it's an extension of Phoenix which was an extension of Emerald which was an extension of a griefing viewer. You're a smart girl, the logic is not hard to follow. Viewer 1 and Viewer 2 are developed by some of the same Lindens, pretending they have no relationship to one another because they have different code is simply dishonest.

At no point did I ever say that Firestorm was developed by hackers, that was a false comment that you made up to play semantic word games.

Hitomi Tiponi

Please note that I am not a Firestorm dev but this is what I know of it.

'True on line status' was never ported to Firestorm.

Firestorm was built from a trunk off Viewer 2 not off the Phoenix code which is what I am trying to point out to Joshua.
Many of the popular features were ported across to Firestorm but none of the privacy invasive ones (unless you count viewer tagging). Much of the
code to add the features from Phoenix into Firestorm would have had to have been rewritten at least in part because Viewer 2/3 works very differently in some areas and there are new features more relevant to Viewer 2/3 that have been added.

Hitomi Tiponi

You did say

certainly gives the impression that Firestorm was developed as a griefing viewer, which I'm sure you would agree is, at best, misleading.

miranda

Honnestly ?

The answer can be different ,of course , about what we are looking for in second life .

When i have started Second life i was agree with the things of features thare are in TPV viewer . i wa liking for instance the "radar" of emerald
But after some experience , i realized they have nothing done to increase the degree of virtual life .
I realized than i had some other things to live in second life more important than to use a radar.
I realized than TPV viewers has attacked the wrong problems and giving some fake and wrong solutions .
An instance between many : The align tool ? A solution ? Come on... it s not a solution , it s an inneficiant and bugged in 95% of user cases ....and where the solution offered to users had been created by scripts severeal months before .


In my own opinion , the TPV have zero results of innovating .
They are only "gadgets" , none innovation .

Adeon Writer

Phoenix has True Online Status. The viewer itself is a fork of Emerald.

Firestorm is a new viewer by the creators of Phoenix; it is not linked to Emerald in any way other than the Phoenix Devs work on it. It does not contain true online status.