EOTB: Linden Lab Announces Oz Linden's Retirement Gift

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In February, Oz Linden retired from Linden Lab after 11 years of work. There's no record if he got a gold watch. But he did just receive a retirement gift from the Lab: a small bronze statue courtesy of Second Life artist Bryn Oh. The announcement was last Friday, September 24.

To celebrate Oz and his many contributions to the community, Linden Lab commissioned talented artist Bryn Oh to create a special bronze sculpture of his avatar as a retirement gift. Using an image of his avatar as a reference, Bryn created Oz in a very unique way -- the infamous Second Life “away” pose.

So why did Bryn Oh have Oz in that position? He would answer with this:

I felt it was nice to make Oz in "away" because maybe retirement its more of an adieu than a goodbye.  Or maybe I am just too sentimental.

The Newser first reported the news about the bronze statuette last month. It's not the first time Bryn worked with bronze. In 2017, she was making some based on her works in Second Life.

For the Linden blog post, Click Here.

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Artist Bryn Oh Makes Real-Life Statue of Oz Linden For Linden Lab

 

Second Life artis Bryn Oh has been known for various artistic displays in Second Life, such as her Rabbicorn. But she has also been doing some real life art, such as the bronze sculptures she made in 2017.  Recently in Facebook, Bryn announced she had been doing more bronze statue art. But this time, it was Linden Lab itself that requested the sculpture, in honor of Oz Linden, whom had retired in February this year after 11 years.

Several months ago I was approached by Linden Lab, the makers of the virtual world I use for my art,  to create a retirement gift for Oz Linden a long time and very well known Linden Lab employee.  They asked me to create a bronze sculpture of his avatar.

Bryn used a couple of images of Oz from the 2019 interview of him an April Linden (though mistook April as the one doing the interviewing). The resulting sculpture was 12 inches high, and was slumped forward in the style of an AFK avatar.

I created a 12 inch sculpture of Oz and it is being shipped to Linden Lab right now so yay.  When creating the pose for the sculpture I decided to make Oz in an "away" pose.   An away pose is unique to the virtual world in that when a person doesn't touch their keyboard for a while because they have gone to make tea or went to walk the dog.. their avatar will time out and be put in the "away" pose which is slumped over and asleep looking.

So why put Oz in this particular pose? Bryn would explain with the following:

I felt it was nice to make Oz in "away" because maybe retirement its more of an adieu than a goodbye.  Or maybe I am just too sentimental.

So the scuplture was made in a way that expressed a wish that Oz wasn't really gone, just having stepped away for a while to return later.

Images from Bryn Oh's Facebook page

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Reader Submitted: Farewell Party For Oz

 

 From Panterapolnocy. On Feb 23, a party was held at Simon Linden Land in Denby in honor of Oz Linden, whom retires from the Lab tomorrow. His last public appearance will be at the Lab Gab that day.

"Thank you for everything good you've done for the platform of Second Life and the residents that use it - making their lives fun and more interesting. "

Oz Linden's Last TPV Meeting

 

Panterapolnocy films the Third-Party Viewer Developer meetings. The last one on Friday February 19 would be distinguished by it being the last one. For those not wanting to sit through the whole thing, Inara Pey's report gives a rundown on what was discussed, notably the Project Jelly Viewer. But many would find the most important detail being Oz Linden's farewell talk near the beginning.

"I want to say that working with the third party viewer community has been  – I mean this is how it started for me, and it has been a theme throughout, and it has been a very great pleasure working with all of you. It’s really been terrific, and thank you. Thank you for making me look good, and thank you for all you contribute to this really impactful and fun product. It's even more fun to work on than it is to use."

Oz Linden's last appearance will be on Lab Gab, tomorrow at 11 AM SL time.

Oz Linden to Appear on Lab Gab Friday

 

On Thursday February 16, Oz Linden announced he would be soon be retiring, on Friday February 26. On Monday, it was announced he and Grumpity Linden would be on Lab Gab that day to be interviewed by Strawberry Linden.

Join our host, Strawberry Linden, as she speaks with our VP of Engineering, Oz Linden, and VP of Product, Grumpity Linden. Grumpity and Oz will give us an update on AWS! Oz will also speak about his years at Linden Lab.

Those with any questions for Oz or Grumpity were invited to send them via a Google form (here). 

The show, which will most likely be Oz's last public appearance (at least as a Linden) will air on Friday Feb 26 at 11 AM SL time. (link)

For more information, check the Linden blog.

Oz Linden to Retire

After over eleven years at Linden Lab, Oz Linden, the Lab's VP of Engineering, will soon be stepping down. He made his announcement in the Second Life forums earlier today. He would call his time with the Lab "one of the best career decisions I ever made," and he would not be taking another job but retiring.

About 11 years ago I was working for a big multinational that had acquired the startup where I'd been for several years, and decided I needed a job with more fun and more job satisfaction. I put out the word on my professional network and got a response from a colleague who was a Linden at the time. I interviewed with several people at the Lab (half my interviews were in-world using an account I'd had for some years), and after much thought I joined the Lab as the Director of Open Source. It turned out to be one of the best career decisions I ever made.

My job evolved over the years, but through it all I got to work with brilliant, passionate, and committed people and got to know many residents. I've never worked anywhere that was as much fun (a Linden who returned to SL after some time away said recently that he'd forgotten how often the SL team laughs in the course of a normal day). More importantly, I got to work on a product users really enjoy using and that makes a big difference in the lives of many of its users - for me there's no greater source of job satisfaction.

Some time ago, I reached the point that I could afford to think about retiring but decided to stay to finish moving SL to its new cloud platform. I can't imagine a better last act in my working life than ensuring that Second Life has this better platform for its future growth. Now that project is done (well, except for a few loose ends), and it's time for me to move on to the next phase of my life. 

I want to emphasize in the strongest possible terms: my decision has nothing at all to do with the change in ownership of the Lab; the timing really is a coincidence. If anything, I regret that I have overlapped with them for only a few weeks; in that time (and in the time leading up to the change) I have come to respect and appreciate the skills and energy they bring to the company.

There aren't many jobs that come with a new nickname; this got me one I'll always cherish, but it's time for me to set aside my Linden last name. I leave Second Life in great hands, and have every confidence that it has a great future. 

Oz would say his last day would be Friday February 26, 2021, the last weekday of the month.

There were a number of well wishes following his announcement,  "You'll be missed, Oz. Thank you for everything, and enjoy your retirement." "Thank you for everything you did for us." "He's done more than leave his mark on the grid. Oz has touched thousands of lives in ways he will never know. For that, we are all grateful. And for the ways he has touched my life that I am unaware of, I am grateful." "Just don't COMPLETELY leave us, okay?" "One expressed pessimism, "Not gonna sugarcoat it. This is 100% bad for SL. Oz is one of the good ones."

Jessica Lyon of Firestorm, "Oz! It has been a great honor and privilege to have worked with you the past 11 years. I remember you coming in as a liaison for third party viewers during a time of great chaos in the TPV space. You created order, structure and in doing so, kept the Open Source nature of Second Life alive. You will be missed by many! Enjoy your retirement! You have earned it."

Tonya Souther of Firestorm, "Thank you for being there, for advocating for open source, and for understanding even when we didn't agree. Best of luck wherever you go next, even if it's just a chair by your pond."

 Coyot Linden, "So long and thanks for the fish. It's been great working for you." 

Alexa Linden, "And now I'm crying again... Oz, I can't thank you enough for the mentorship, encouragement and friendship over the last 11 years.  I am so fortunate to consider you family and I am a better person for having worked with you.  I wish you all the best in your retirement!" 

Dakota Linden, "Thank you, Oz, for everything you brought to Second Life and everything you have contributed to the platform. Your experience has been an excellent asset to Linden Lab and Second Life and you will be missed by a great many people. May your next adventure bring you as much satisfaction as this one has and may you always look back on this time with fond memories as we will remember you with the same. Be well, friend."

Perhaps Oz Linden will stick around in Second Life as a regular resident. Wherever he goes, hopefully it will go well.

Hat tip: Panterapolnocy

Bixyl Shuftan

"We Are Now In The Cloud"

 
It's been about a month since April Linden announced that the data from all the sims (aside from a few Linden ones) had been moved to Cloud servers. But there was still some work to be done. This week, there was some more news about the last stages of the move. On Tuesday, it was announced that "as part of our overall migration to the cloud, some of our web publishing tools ... may be unavailable for our internal editorial team." And so the Second Life Destination Guide was getting a temporary freeze on updates. Also on Tuesday, according to Inara Pey, at the Simulator User Group meeting April and Oz Linden had stated all Second Life systems and service were now running on Amazon Cloud Servers. So the Lab was clearing all of it's equipment from it's "former co-location facility in Arizona."

At the Wednesday Third Party Viewer Meeting, supposedly Oz Linden was more direct, "Actually, we disconnected the datacenter last night ... everything is now running in AWS."

It's not an announcement that's being celebrated by all. There's been a number of glitches on the Grid lately, and Inara Pey stated in the same article that the Lab was working to fix an issue on the map. While the move to the Cloud may be done, the job of taking care of the bugs and glitches as a result of the move remains.

Source: Modem World , SL forums 

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab: "We Apologize For Recent Service Disruptions"

Glitches are more or less a part of the Second Life experience. But if it seems they've been getting worse lately, it's not your imagination. And even Linden Lab is admitting things are buggier than usual. In the Tools and Technology blog on Friday October 16, Oz Linden stated in the "Uplift Update" that while there's been overall improvement in the Second Life infrastructure, "it’s the bumps in the road that are most noticeable to our residents. We apologize for recent service disruptions ..." He would point out several "rough spots."

Region Crossings
One of the first troubles we found was that region crossings were significantly worse between a cloud region and a datacenter region. We did a deep dive into the code for objects (boats, cars, planes, etc) and produced an improvement that made them significantly faster and more reliable even within the datacenter. This has been applied to all regions already and was a good step forward.

Group Chat stalls
Many users have reported that they are not able to get messages in some of their groups; we're very much aware of the problem. The start of those problems does coincide with when the chat service was uplifted; unfortunately the problems did not become clear until moving that service back to the datacenter was not an option. We haven’t been able to get that fixed as quickly as we would like, but the good news is that we have some changes nearly ready that we think may improve the service and will certainly provide us with better information to diagnose it if it isn't fixed. Those changes are live on the Beta grid now and should move to the main grid very soon.

Bake Failures
Wednesday and especially Thursday of this past week were bad days for avatar appearance, and we're very much aware of how important that is. The avatar bake service has actually been uplifted for some time - it wasn't moving it that caused the problem, but another change to a related service. The good news is that thanks to a great cross-team effort during those two days we were able to determine why an apparently unrelated simulator update triggered the problem and got a fix deployed Thursday night.

Increased Teleport Failures
We have seen a slight increase in the frequency of teleport failures. I know that if it's happened to you it probably doesn't feel like a "slight" problem, especially since it appears to be true that if it's happened to someone once, it tends to keep happening for a while. Measured over the entire grid, it's just under two percentage points, but even that is unacceptable. We're less sure of the specific causes for this (including whether or not it's Uplift related), but are improving our ability to collect data on it and are very much focused on finding and fixing the problem whatever it is.

Marketplace & Stipend Glitches
We've had some challenges related to uplift for both the Marketplace and the service that pays Premium Stipends. Marketplace had to be returned to the datacenter yesterday, but we'll correct the problems that required the rollback and get it done soon. The Stipends issues were both good and bad for users; there were some delays, but on the other hand we sent some users extra stipends (our fault, you win - we aren't taking them back); those problems are, we believe, solved now.

So why all of the glitches and bugs? Oz called the Uplift to move Second Life's data to cloud servers "a massive, complicated project that I've previously compared to converting a steam-driven railroad to a maglev monorail -- without ever stopping the train." He would later try to reasure the residents, "While this week in particular has seen some bumps in the road, it's actually going well overall. Lots of the infrastructure you don't interact with directly, and some you do, has been uplifted and has worked smoothly." He would go on to say almost all of the Beta Grid's sims were in the Cloud, and "we've uplifted around a hundred regions on the main grid. Performance of those regions has been very very good, and stability has been excellent." He would go on to say more sims would be uplifted over the weekend and that "Uplift of the Release Candidate regions, which will bring the count into the thousands, will begin soon."

Oz would say the Uplift to the Cloud should be completed, or at least be close to it, by the end of the year.

To read the blog entry in full, Click Here.

Bixyl Shuftan

"Meet The Lindens" - Oz Linden Today

Number three of of this week's "Meet the Lindens" will be at the Second Life Birthday today. For Wednesday, the Linden being interviewed is Patch Linden.

Meet Linden Lab VP of Engineering Oz Linden on June 24 at 2 p.m. (Pacific). Oz is responsible for Second Life Engineering and is proud to be working on a product that means so much to so many people.

The event will be hosted by Saffia Widdershins, and takes place at 2 PM SL time.

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SL17B%20Awesome/32/227/23/

RFL Press Release: Relaystock and Bid the Lindens Bald Return for Relay for Life 2020

(Arinultra Cay) The enormously popular annual ‘Gathering of the Tribes’ at RelayStock will return for the seventh year. Teams of the Relay For Life will hoist their banners above tents and campers as they come together for ‘3 Days of Peace, Love and Hope’, at the annual event hosted by the Relay Rockers.

The event which will run May 15th through the 17th highlights entertainment and camaraderie throughout the weekend. The main stage will be shared by entertainers from the various teams, as well as SL headliners Maxamillion Kleene, Turner Harbrough and, Todd Rumsford. The entertainment wraps up on Sunday evening with the Finals of the Celebrate Remember Fight Back Top DJ Competition, followed by T1Radio's Time Machine and a Flash Mob dance with The Roos With a Dream.

VW vans and tents will once again be supplied by the Rockers for registered RFL teams to use as ‘team-sites. The event is organized by Relay Rockers Co-Captain Arizona Ballnger. When asked about the success of the event she said, “RelayStock remains one of the most awaited events of the Relay season and offers teams a chance to hangout, listen to good tunes and dance in the mud. It’s a fun event for everyone and the Rockers love to see all the teams come together and take a breather before the sprint to the season finish.”

FOURTH ANNUAL BID THE LINDENS BALD
In addition to RelayStock, the Rockers are once again hosting Bid The Lindens Bald. For the 4th year, teams made up from employees of Linden Lab will compete to see who can raise the most donations to Relay For Life, with the last place team going bald. The event will start on May 13th and wrap up on the 20th. The team losing its hair promises to go bald in Second Life until the opening of Relay weekend on morning of June 6th. Since 2017 Bid The Lindens Bald has raised more than L$ 2.5 million to support the Relay For Life of Second Life.

Linden Lab has provided a listing of the teams competing in this year’s event

Team 1:  Darcy, Jet, Oz, Spots, Volo
Team 2: Derrick, Kit, Patsy, TJ, Wendi
Team 3: Dottie, Kristin, Rocko, Vanessa, Whitney
Team 4: Izzy, Madori, Patch, Roran, Vix

Voting for Bid The Lindens Bald is done by donation to Relay For Life kiosks, located at the barn in the RelayStock2020 region, and is open to ALL Second Life residents. (For a SLURL please visit
relayrockers.org.

Teams wishing to take part in RelayStock 2020 can apply online for team-sites. To find out more and to register for team-site please visit www.relayrockers.org/relaystock.

Oz And April Linden Summary, Last Names And Other Questions

Of the "Meet the Lindens" events last week at the Second Life Birthday, perhaps the most anticipated aside from the one where Linden Lab's CEO spoke was the one featuring Oz and April Linden. As they cover the more technical aspects of how the virtual world works, they would know the most about certain issues such as the moving of Second Life's data to "The Cloud" and when might new last names once again be an option for those with the surname Resident. They had much to say about those issues, such as the plan being to allow residents to have the option to change first names as well, and more.

Read the summary in Design.

SL Video: "Meet The Lindens: April and Oz Linden"

(Click here if the video fails to play)

On Tuesday at 2PM, Saffia Widdershins interviewed Oz and April Linden, followed by a Q and A session with residents. Video was made available after the event.

Editor's Note: For those who want a summary, one will be provided later today

"Meet The Lindens" Oz and April Linden

"Meet The Lindens" continues today, with Oz and April Linden.

* * * * *

Today, don’t miss a Q&A with Senior Director of SL Engineering Oz Linden and System Engineering Manager April Linden.
 

ABOUT OZ LINDEN
Senior Director, Second Life Engineering

Prior to joining Second Life, Oz spent many years developing all sorts of networking code -- eventually including contributions to the development of HTTP and from there to open source SIP (voice over IP). Internet Telephony turned into something of a corporate nightmare, so he looked around for something more fun. A friend who was working at the Lab recruited Oz to help with the open source program. Since he had already played a little with Second Life, he thought that it certainly met the "fun" criteria but he had no idea just how much fun. Nine years later, Oz is responsible for Second Life Engineering and having the time of his life. He is proud to be working on a product that means so much to so many people.
 
ABOUT APRIL LINDEN
Systems Engineering Manager, Operations
Before joining the dark side and going into management, April was an operations engineer herself for over 20 years. It’s the operations team that handles the care and feeding of the computers that power Second Life.
April has been a Resident of Second Life since 2006, and a Linden since 2013. She adores Second Life and the power that it has to change lives by providing people a safe place to explore themselves, and giving them the courage to change their lives in positive ways.

2PM at the SLB Auditorium
https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SL16B%20Dazzle/7/202/23 

Linden Town Hall, Last Names Date Pushed Back To Spring 2019

Yesterday, November 15 at 10 AM, was the time of the Town Hall. Oz, Patch, and Grumpity Linden were joined by Xiola on stage as they talked to the residents in the audience. They answered a number of questions that had been posted in the forums. At the end was a short Q and A taking some additional questions from the crowd.

There were a number of question answered. Will there be resident to resident auctions? Not until next year. Will Premium residents have some choice in their style of Linden Home? Yes. What does the SSP in the new mystery continent stand for? "Super Secret Project."

On the issue of bringing back last names as an option for new residents and allowing those who don't have them to get one, "As with many things in Second Life, it's complicated. A lot of things in the background we need to upgrade." They stated that it was looking like last names would not be back until sometime in " the second quarter of next year" at least. As for how much the fee would be, one stated, "on the order of a few months of premium membership" or close to $30 USD, "not impossible, but not throwaway money."



The Newser will try to have more about the Town Hall later. For now, here's a video of the event courtesy of Luca.

Bixyl Shuftan

Addition: I've been hearing from others that getting a last name or changing one's last name for an account may be limited to Premium Residents. So for a free player looking to get a last name could be spending about $40 USD.

Announcement: Linden Town Hall Today At 10AM

Another Linden Lab Town Hall, this time with Director of Product Grumpity Linden, Technical Director Oz Linden, and Senior Director of Product Operations Patch Linden.

THURS Nov 15, 10am SLT

Arrive early for good seating:

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Town%20Hall%20Island1/239/14/30

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Town%20Hall%20Island2/7/23/30

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Town%20Hall%20Island3/234/248/30

Picture from Destinations Guide

Reminder: Town Hall With Oz, Grumpity, and Patch Linden Tomorrow

Just a reminder, the Town Hall with Oz Linden, Grumpity Linden, and Patch Linden is tomorrow, November 15. As of the writing of this brief, Linden Lab has yet to give the location of the Town Hall, but they have given a time: 10 AM to 11 AM SL time.

Keep an eye on the Linden Blog for where it will be.

Town Hall With Oz, Patch, and Grumpity Linden on November 15

About two months following their Town Hall event with CEO Ebbe Altberg/Ebbe Linden, Linden Lab will be having another. On the official Second Life blog a few days ago, it was announced that there would be a Town Hall event on Thursday November 15. It will take place 10 AM to 11 AM SL time. Speaking will be Oz Linden (who is called Linden Lab's "Director of Product"), Grumpity Linden (Senior Director of Engineering), and Patch Linden (Senior Director of Product Operations).

Collectively, these three have over 28 (!) years of experience working on Second Life and work closely with all the Second Life teams to continue to improve this platform that we’ve all come to love. 

They are some of the biggest stakeholders in the direction of the product development roadmap each year, and know the product inside and out!

People with questions they would like answered by these three are invited to post them in the Town Hall Meeting forum thread, and do so before November 9. The Lab will chose which of these questions to answer during the event.

To see the post in it's entirety: Click Here.

"Meet The Lindens" This Week At The SL15B Auditorium

For the past few years at the Second Life Birthday, the residents have had a chance to hear from the Lindens themselves. And this year, they can at the "Meet The Lindens" events in the Auditorium. From Monday to Friday 2-4PM SL time, Saffia Widdershins will be conducting interviews with various Lindens.

Monday: Xiola Linden
Tuesday: Keira and Patch Linden
Wednesday: Ebbe Linden (the CEO)
Thursday: Oz and Grumpity Liden
Friday: Brett Linden

The Auditorium is just north of https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SL15B%20Enchant/25/119/23

Scenes From Bid the Lindens Bald

For five days earlier this month, people could donated to three kiosks in the "Bid the Lindens Bald" fundraiser. On Wednesday May 9, the totals were finalized and the loosing team had to lose their hair for an amount of time determined by how much the winning team raised. So who kept their hair and whom ended up with a shinny scalp?

Read the story in Events.

Press Release: Bid The Lindens Bald - 2018

The Relay Rockers are pleased to announce that Bid The Lindens Bald will make its triumphant return to the Relay For Life of Second Life April 30th thru May 9th! Bid Me Bald is an event, created by the Relay Rockers in 2007 to honor those who lose their hair to cancer treatments.  Participants agree to go bald 1 day for each L$5000 raised.

In 2017 3 Teams of Lindens competed in a Bid Me Bald Challenge and raised L$1,478,599 ($5686 USD) and the Concierge Team went bald for a total of 297 days.

This year's teams are from Product Operations, Support Leaders and Support Agents

The event is a challenge and the team which raises the least will once again go bald for the amount of days equal to the total of the 1st Place team.   The days will be shared among the team members.

New this year, Bid The Lindens Bald will be held in conjunction with the Rocker's signature multiteam event "RELAYSTOCK".  RelayStock runs Friday May 4th, through Sunday May 6th and will feature entertainment provided by individual Relay For Life teams and featuring live performances by Nina Bing, Dimi von Ludwig, Keeba Tammas and the Tiny Maniacs and Maximillion Kleene.  The event will be held on is own region 'RelayStock' and is open to the entire Second Life community.

The teams of Lindens are comprised as follows:

Product Ops:
Alexa Linden
Ekim
Grumpity
Oz
Patch

Support Leaders:
Ami
Garry
Keira
Tommy

Support Agents:
Corky
Evie
Ginger
izzy
Kristin
Madori
Sparky
TJ
Vix
Vanessa

For more information contact Trader1 Whiplash in world or visit www.relayrockers.org