Team Firestorm's Jessica Lyon Interviewed at SL11B

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On Thursday June 26, the head of Team Firestorm, Jessica Lyon gave a talk at the SL11B Auditorium about the concerns about the new Grid being developed by Linden Lab. Chakat Northspring recorded the discussion, "A talk at SL11B: The obvious fears and uncertainties currently circulating in SL as well as speculations 'for fun' on the new platform, its potential to succeed/fail and what we might expect. What is in store for us? What should we as residents do, think, how should we react to all this news?"

At first she wasn't sure whatEbbe meant, then he realised "a whole new platform," ... "This was a pretty big bomb to drop on everybody."

She felt Linden Lab "wants to make a whole new platform ... make you want to go to it."

Jessica compared the to a history program in which people remembered only one scene, where a witch was made to drown, "there ought to be a study" on why people seem so fixated on their view of one single event in a description.

Shefelt the panic could backfire by getting the lab to clam up again, saying this was "the first time since Philip we've had a CEO who's so open. One of the first things he did was to reverse the decision to keep Lindens from socializing ... I applaud him for being open."

While she hopes the Lab makes something so good it'll attract everyone from Second Life, she doubts they will.

Jessica stated she would be "Shocked" if they didn't at least allow Linden dollars to transfer over. She expected better tools for creating there, and guessed the new grid would most likely meshed based. So forget bringing prims over, even her signature ears and tail.

Did note Ebbe didn't say for sure there would be no content transfers ever, possibly some protocol for a content transfer system as time goes on.

Jessica saw SL being shutdown only of the new grid is so hugely popular, very, very, few residents are left, "As long as Second Life is popular, it makes no sense for them to shut it down."

One of her first questions to Ebbe was where was he putting his resources? The New Grid or SL. His answer was both.

Firestorm will continue to be developed, "As long as Second Life continues we're good."

Jessica noted "Second Life didn't start out as open source." It was a few years before it was. She guessed the Lab would be sure of the new grid before making it open source.

She had one suggestion to Ebbe - why was Firestorm so popular? The viewer was a byproduct of open community developlent, "we involve the community, we invite them to meetings" ask them for ideas, "it creates for the user a sense of ownership" "happy, proud, of the viewer ... created pride and a following." She felt the New Grid would not truly succeed, at least at first, because it was developed in private without any feedback from the public.

"I have very little worry about Second Life going anywhere. ... do what you always do, Second Life will be going for years to come."