Dear Linden Lab…

Dear Lindenlab,

I read the news today, oh boy.

I wonder at why you think your re-defining of the word ‘transparency’ is such a good thing, as it certainly has nothing to do with honesty or integrity. It is a muddy flim of half truths, conniving and deception. I wonder why you have not told the users of Secondlife (50% of whom were Emerald users, by your own statistics) that the new approved TPVs are created by former griefers that you hounded out of secondlife, lock, stock and barrel.

I wonder why you have not announced that Ascent is simply a new name for Interia + nano, two viewers designed to steal passwords and make content theft so much easier. I wonder why you are happy for the devs to be on that team, when you specifically named them to us as not trustworthy and to never be on the Emerald Team. This was during the time you felt you had the right to dictate who should be on TPV teams. Obviously you have self corrupted your own publicly announced standards.

I am also curious as to why you think the so-called ‘lead dev’ on the Phoenix team is trustworthy, when you know damned well she made her own viewer based on emerald but with permission checks removed. Oh wait – that was only distributed to friends so was ok. But she lied. Your two targets on the Emerald Team never lied about what they had done, either to you or the public.

And I assume with your all knowing abilities that you are perfectly aware of the relationship of the 3rd-class devs on the Emergence team with the group you mass banned some months back. Check who funds them.

You know full well that the very same people who hacked into emerald webservers and wrote griefer viewers are listed as compliant and in the newly announced TPVD. So much for your worthless standard of ethics. You are also fully aware that the last emerald release, 2600 was FULLY compliant with the TPV set standards – emkdu is NOT in violation with the GPL and we removed the encoding as required. We did however have the correct distribution licensing from the owner of KDU, something that lindenlab forgot to get themselves. Two of your chosen targets on the dev team left, the 3rd was not “voted off” (do you really think this is some sort of a game??) yet you still say the most popular viewer on the grid is non compliant. You lie. This is nothing but an ego battle.

I truly wonder at your assumption that your users are stupid and underserving of your respect. It still may surprise you to know that people get mightily offended by your dictatorial attitude, even for a pond sized american company.

I also wonder why you still have people like Joe and Soft employed, when you know as well as I do that their own personal failings caused the ‘breaches’ that you now choose to pin on Emerald. You know these two sanctioned everything that was done, specially at the rather unique LL/Emerald in world meetings.

Given all this, there is one thing I do know about you. I know that you could never understand why a small team of 12 dedicated voluntary devs WOULD NOT vote off the most crucial member of the Emerald Team, just because you said. I do know that you have zero understanding of what a team really is, so I will enlighten you.

A team is a group who work with each other on good days and bad. A team will bounce ideas around, acknowledge the brilliance of its members in their own abilities, support each other in times of crisis, defend its members to the hilt when attacked by outsiders and enjoy the cameraderie that blossoms. A team will always have the back of each of its members, so that any outside bullying will be deflected that more strongly.

Once upon a time, I had great hopes and aspirations for what Secondlife could be as it grew and developed. I saw it as an incredibly creative means of communication which if guided right, could far outstrip the many other social networks cropping up. I saw that it could be a perfect method of a remote working environment, allowing companies to flourish around the world with this much lower overhead. I saw it as an amazing way to continue education, with in world facilities for me personally to choose wherever I wanted to have extended education. I also saw it as this wonderful place where people from all over the world could gather together and form lasting bonds with others they would have never met otherwise.

Now, this is what I see. I see a Secondlife future of a backwater virtual environment operated by scrabbling inward-looking managers, governed by mediocre directors who have used age old methods of undermining, backstabbing and incompetence to get where they are. I see an ever-shrinking group of managers scared silly of true intelligence, more interested in chopping it out of their world of blandness and deceit, than fostering, funding and nurturing. I hear your managers screech to me “Yes, lindenlab wants your numbers!” and then deliver an ultimatum we as a team would not fulfill. Because there was only one requirement that was not fulfilled, and you as a bully wanted your ego to reign supreme. But hey, employ yet another PR person to cover up your shambles style management. Sure beats having honest, dedicated and talented staff like those you sacked a few months back. I see now, a puddle rapidly filling with pond scum. Who knows, they may evolve one day. At least you can manipulate them until then though.

So – numbers of users logging in with the official viewer had fallen dramatically , so a VP came up with a plan (or perhaps an ex CEO dragged back) – “let’s block Emerald, add a few really dodgy TPVs and people will have little choice. They will HAVE to use 2.0″. Someone probably got a bonus for this (a LL bonus is worth about $US3.00), or more likely ‘luv’ from the luv machine.

To be perfectly honest with you, lately I’ve been more interested with my own RL tragedies and RL earthquake to take anything that you say or do with any seriousness, let alone give it any credibility. As I write this I look around my city and see smashed buildings, small family businesses devastated, billions of dollars damage to a city of good people. I am watching my next door neighbor’s 80 year old house being pulled down after sustaining too much damage last Saturday night. I’m so glad I live on the other side of the planet to you, Lindenlab. Less chance of me being contaminated and corrupted by your dodgy business practices. How about that VAT scam eh?

At last week’s meeting with Oz when he threatened all the team with ‘never being employed by a real company or a government agency’ I knew you had lost the plot entirely. Who the hell do you think you are, you dunderheaded buffoons? You might not realise this, but the world and its governments are not dictated to by the likes of you. Not everything is virtual scamming and bullying you know. Poor little Oz, how awful to be a puppet. I guess this is why he couldn’t even keep his promise to us to email the final lindenlab decision, as it would be the ethical the thing to do (he said). I imagine it is easier to thrust a blade into the back of your perceived enemy without any notice huh.

To the users of Emerald Viewer, I am truly sorry that lindenlab has chosen to do this to you. Good luck! I will not be using any of the new TPV announced today – I guess I know too much of their history, I’d rather my accounts were safe :). And at least my integrity is intact.

Yours sincerely,

Arabella Steadham
Communications Manager
Emerald Viewer

Rezz date 23rd August 2006

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~ by Virtual Evangelical on September 7, 2010.