The End

This is the end, beautiful friend
This is the end, my only friend, the end
It hurts to set you free
But you’ll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of night we tried to die
This is the end

United we stand and divided we fall. Thus ends the final days of the Emerald Project.

Approximately 10 days ago I and a number of devs came together to reform the Emerald Team in the anxious hope of continuing the most popular TPV in Second Life. The incredible driving passion, flair for innovation, endless energy and camaraderie were all still there. Because of this, I was sure we could make this work.

Alas this was not  to be. Linden Lab has made demands of the team that are impossible to meet. Among the demands not listed publicly elsewhere was to publicly release an RC without any ability to load the emkdu or llkdu files. This was do-able. The final demand was to ‘delete’ 3 key members of our team. While making this demand, Linden Lab was quite aware that this was effectively the guillotine to the project.

This is the opportunity for a fork project to develop and create a TPV version of snowstorm, which is what Linden Lab really wants. I am aware of a number of small projects underway now, and I wish them the best, the very best in their endeavors.

For you, the user, what this  means is that there will not be any further releases of the Emerald Viewer after today. The existing releases will continue to operate until Linden Lab decides to terminate their access and end Emerald once and for all.

There will be one final version of the Emerald Viewer released here later today; that is, the viewer we’ve been working on for the past six months. It would be a shame to let the efforts of the developers who put so many unpaid hours into this project go to waste.

Edit: The final version has been released, you can get it at http://emeraldviewer.net/downloads.shtml

This virtual world is ever changing and must be, otherwise it will stagnate. This incredible environment will continue.

Arabella Steadham
Communications Manager,
Emerald Project

CLARIFICATIONS

- Because there was no consensus amongst the developers about whether or not to comply with Linden Lab’s requirement to remove three core developers, Lonely Bluebird offered to leave the Emerald project only if the team voted for this. Rather than wait for any kind of vote, a hostile takeover was attempted by a portion of the Dev Team trying to gain unauthorized access to the emerald servers without knowledge of the others (including me, the server owner).

- the vote eventually took place, with a minority even voting. This few that voted did not all vote in favour of removing Lonely Bluebird. The vote took place after the takeover failed, for forms sake

- Linden Lab has made it abundantly clear and in fact stated quite bluntly that they want Emerald numbers, which at this point in time number around 50% of total Second Life logins. These have been the stats for some months now.

- The primary issue that resulted in the demise of Emerald was the attempted and failed takeover of the project, far in advance of any requirements deadline set by Lindenlab. This hostile takeover was initiated by Jessica Lyon.

***UPDATE***

As at 2.00pm SLT today, an attempt was made to pervert the in world open Emerald viewer group by a known griefer using the account Greenlife Emerald. As a consequence of this, I tried to close the group down. Unfortunately, I could not do this in time, so many will now no doubt read disturbing notices put out by Greenlife Emerald. I suggest you read this blog for any information on Emerald.

Please note, no other group has the legal right to use the name Emerald or Emerald Viewer.

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~ by Virtual Evangelical on September 1, 2010.