Archive for the 'Status Updates' Category
February 13th, 2011 by McCabe Maxsted
How was your Christmas? Your New Years? Your Hanukkah? Your winter vacation? I feel like I’ve missed so much, I want to ask about them all!
As Jacek mentioned in her previous post, we’ve been kind of limping along over here for a while. Personally, this has been a pretty rough winter for me. I lost my grandmother to cancer on Christmas Eve after several weeks of fighting in the hospital (she was 74). We managed to have a good Christmas just the same, but the sudden loss affected all of us in my family quite deeply.
For most of January, I spent my time in bed sick with the flu, which left me vulnerable to a nasty strain of strep throat. (If you’re in the US and haven’t gotten your flu vaccine yet, I highly recommend you do so soon. This flu season is going to be a long one. I’m still coughing up bits of lung.)
Needless to say, Imprudence and Kokua have taken a backseat while I took care of myself and other responsibilities.
But, time heals. It’s exciting to compile the viewer and feel active again! I truly have missed everyone who’s taken an interest in this project along with us. It’s nice to reconnect with old friends in the community, all the while meeting new ones along the way. I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: you guys rock. Seriously 
Now then, specifics. I don’t have any timeline for when the next Imprudence Experimental will be out, but it’ll have Display Name support as well as more changes to the media system, and a few other goodies. I’m very eager to get it out, as it’ll mean we’re one step closer to finalizing 1.4. As far as Kokua goes, I’m not working on it at the moment so I can’t give more information than what’s already been said. Rest assured, when an alpha release is ready we’ll let you know.
In the meantime, I hope everyone has a pleasant Valentine’s Day tomorrow! If you forget to get your sweetheart flowers and want someone to blame, remember: it was all Chaucer’s fault. <3
February 8th, 2011 by Jacek Antonelli
I was waiting for some good news or progress to share with you guys, but unfortunately those things are in short supply lately. Simply put, we’re (still) struggling with low motivation, especially McCabe and me, and development is barely limping along.
So, rather than talk about the progress on the viewers (which isn’t much to speak of), I’ll tell you what has been going through my mind.
For the past several months, rather than writing code or contributing much to either viewer, I’ve been (or at least felt) bogged down with administrative duties. These are things that need to be done to keep the project afloat and sailing smoothly, but they do not provide any real forward momentum in and of themselves. Actually, they tend to sap my energy and dampen my enthusiasm to work on anything related to the project or viewers. And since I don’t have the energy to tackle these chores, they just keep piling up, sapping me more and more. It’s definitely not a good cycle to be stuck in!
The vacation in December provided a welcome reprieve, but didn’t solve the underlying problem. Somehow, I need to find a balance between administration and development, as well as a balance between Imprudence and Kokua, and a balance between this project and the rest of my life. I’m not sure yet how I’ll do that, but it’s something I’ll strive for.
I wrote in the January 21 status update that we were working on a bugfix release of Imprudence, version 1.3.1. I had hoped that we would be able to release it within a week. But, I decided that we ought to try updating to OpenJPEG 1.4, to see if it worked well enough that we could finally afford to disable LLKDU. Unfortunately, because of our motivational issues, we never got around to updating OpenJPEG, and that decision brought the release to a halt. I think we’ll have to postpone updating OpenJPEG until some later date, and just release what we have so far.
Imprudence 1.4 is in a similar state of limbo, due to the media system. Finishing and testing the VLC plugin is beyond our grasp at the moment, because of those same motivational issues. Instead, we’ll have to fall back on our old “friend”, GStreamer. But, at least it’s now a plugin, so it won’t crash the viewer when it breaks. Obviously, we’d prefer to have VLC, but getting Imprudence 1.4 finished and working (through whatever means) is vital to us regaining our momentum.
As for Kokua… yes, that’s also in limbo at the moment. It’s clear that our original plan to start releasing Experimentals in February isn’t going to happen. That plan was assuming we’d be able to release Imprudence 1.4 in December or January, which seemed realistic before the media system issues arose. I’ve often considered whether it would be better for the project to forget Imprudence 1.4 and just focus fully on Kokua. That’s certainly tempting, but currently we still intend to get the media sysem working and finish up 1.4.
So, that pretty much sums up the status of the project at the moment. It’s not all rainbows and lollipops, as you can see!
I’m sure many of you are wondering if this is the end for Imprudence/Kokua. I’ve wondered as much too, but I don’t think it is. I view this as simply a trial or crisis that forces us to take a look in the mirror and adjust how we do things. I’m confident that we’ll be able to learn a few lessons, get through this, and come out stronger than before.
Thank you for your patience, understanding, and support as we navigate these rough waters.
January 22nd, 2011 by Jacek Antonelli
It’s time for another Imprudence/Kokua status update. This update is brought to you by the letter “i” and the color purple. 
If you’re a Second Life user, you may have heard that Linden Lab recently raised the group limit from 25 to 42. We’ve received some questions about whether current versions of Imprudence support the new limit. The answer is: partly. You can join up to 42 groups, by opening the group info window and clicking Join (if they are open enrollment). However, being invited to a group will not work if you are already in 25 or more groups. Also, the Groups window will say “You belong to __ groups (of 25 maximum)”. The “25 maximum” part is incorrect, and you can just ignore it.
We’re preparing a new “patch release” of the 1.3-series viewer, version 1.3.1. Imprudence 1.3.1 fixes the group limit, as well as a few other nasty bugs, like being unable to interact with the world after taking a freeze-frame snapshot. It also includes the font customization features from the Experimentals, and a few tweaks to bring the viewer into compliance with the latest SL policy revisions. It will most likely be available sometime in the next week.
Progress on Imprudence 1.4 and Kokua is a bit slow lately. For the most part, we’re taking care of other business while weighing our options for how to proceed with the media system. If you’ve never been involved in a project like this, you might not realize how much more work goes into it, even beyond just writing the code. But, we’re steadily chipping away at it, and we’ll keep you guys up to date.
January 12th, 2011 by Jacek Antonelli
Hi ho, Imprudence/Kokua fans! We’ve been gearing up again after our vacation, so it’s time for another status update.
First, though, I’d like to introduce a new team member, Boroondas Gupte. Boroondas has been working on the Kokua source since mid-November, but we’ve been so busy I forgot to announce it! Welcome, Boroondas!
Now then, the news on Imprudence. I wrote last month that we were going to try to release a 1.4 beta in mid-December. As it turns out, that was very wishful thinking on my part. We were so tired that we pretty much collapsed into full vacation mode right away!
The biggest thing left to do on 1.4 is getting a working plugin for streaming media and audio on Mac and Windows. As I wrote before, we were hoping to use a new VLC plugin created by Robin Cornelius. Unfortunately, Robin has been busy with holiday stuff, and now with her RL work. So, we’ll either need to try to pick up where she left off, or get the GStreamer plugin working with Mac and Windows, and save VLC for Kokua.
Speaking of Kokua, there has been some gradual progress on that. Over the break, Armin has been working on many parts of the code for fun, such as reimplementing colored client tags, song titles for music streams, preview animation uploads on your own avatar, private Point At and Look At targets, new minimap teleport code (including teleport-to-ground functionality), and the most important feature of all: purple clouds for unloaded avatars! 
Armin has also done some UI work, including making the sidebar optional (although we still need to add alternative ways to access some of the features there), making the movement and camera control windows more similar to the old ones, and changing the main menu to the familiar File, Edit, View, etc. layout. In the future, we plan to offer a choice between this “classic” menu layout, and a new layout we’ll be creating later.
Meanwhile, I’ve spent some time revamping the build scripts to improve the way the viewer version is defined, and to make packaging the compiled viewer a fully automated process. Both of these improvements just reduce the amount of “chore” work for us, making our lives as developers a little bit easier, and letting us spend our energy on more interesting things.
I’m reluctant to make any predictions about when either Imprudence 1.4 or Kokua will be ready, since so much is uncertain. But, we are alive and working on them, and we’ll keep you guys in the loop. Thanks for your patience.
December 7th, 2010 by Jacek Antonelli
Hiyo, Imprudence fans! I know things have been pretty quiet around here lately, so I wanted to give you guys an update about what’s happening with Imprudence and Kokua.
A Brief Intermission
Unfortunately, McCabe and I are pretty burnt out and exhausted from all the work on Imprudence 1.4, planning Kokua, non-working plugins, and licensing headaches. We badly need a rest, so I’ve decided to put the Experimentals and our in-world developer meetups on pause for December. This will give us a chance to relax and recharge, and enjoy the holidays. We’ll still be around in the forums, IRC, and the mailing list, but we’ll be taking it easy.
We had been aiming to release Imprudence 1.4 by late November/early December, but that schedule isn’t realistic anymore, both because of the burnout, and because of unexpected difficulties with the new media system (the code used to play streaming video and audio). We hope to release a 1.4 beta version in mid-December, then take a break from Imprudence work until January.
Quicktime and VLC
One of our main goals for Imprudence 1.4 has been to replace the flakey old media system with a more stable one based on the media plugins from Snowglobe/Viewer 2. Since the plugins run as separate programs from the viewer, stream problems won’t crash the viewer any more, and it gives us more licensing options in terms of the libraries we can use. For example, it’s now possible to use Quicktime or VLC, neither of which could be used before due to licensing conflicts.
Our initial plan was to use the Quicktime plugin on Mac and Windows, since it has fairly good support for the most popular media formats, and the plugin code already existed. Plus, it would require less packaging/maintenance effort on our part, because we wouldn’t have to prepare or distribute the actual libraries, like we do with the old GStreamer-based system. However, we had erroneously assumed that the Quicktime plugin could handle both streaming video and streaming audio, but it turns out that it only handles video.
Since the Quicktime plugin was going to require a significant amount of work after all, we decided to put that effort into finding a better alternative. In the past, we have considered the idea of using VLC, but we never had the time or energy to devote to that. Thankfully, Robin Cornelius has stepped up and made it happen! (Thank you so much, Robin! Words cannot adequately express how grateful we are for that.)
Licensing Frustrations
The VLC plugin is pretty much done, but we ran into a licensing snag that took a while to untangle, and has created some extra work. The details of the snag are both confusing and boring, but I’ll try to summarize. The plugin currently depends on three pieces of software with different licenses: APR, VLC, and part of the viewer code. Because of the terms of the licenses, the viewer code can co-exist with either APR or with VLC, but not both at the same time. Likewise, VLC can co-exist with either APR or the viewer code, but not both at the same time. It’s a bit like a sadistic lawyer’s version of the old puzzle of the farmer carrying a fox, a goose, and a bag of beans across a river.
As you can imagine, it has been a headache even to understand this situation, let alone find a solution that respects all the licenses involved. Speaking for myself, these kinds of software licensing issues are the single most frustrating and demoralizing part of working on an open source project like Imprudence. Not only is it difficult to figure out what we can and cannot do, but often honoring the software licenses puts us at a significant disadvantage in terms of stability and functionality, and often creates a lot of extra work (e.g. finding or creating replacement software).
Why We Care About Licensing
It would be very convenient if we could just ignore the licenses, but we don’t. Why not? Of course, there are the obvious legal issues, but realistically there’s very little risk of any legal action stronger than a cease-and-desist letter. Much more important than the legal issues, are the moral ones. Each library’s license reflects the creator’s wishes about how their work should be used. By using the libraries, we are making a promise to respect those wishes, and we take that promise seriously.
We’re currently working on a solution that involves replacing both the viewer code and APR with code that has a compatible license. It has taken some elbow grease, but Robin is making great progress on it. Hopefully, we will be able to release an Imprudence 1.4 beta in mid-December with the VLC plugin for Windows, and perhaps even for Mac as well.
A Brief Update About Kokua
Finally, a brief update about the status of Kokua. Our focus has been mostly on Imprudence 1.4, but there has been a bit of activity on Kokua over the past month. The main source repository is available on GitHub (although currently the code there is identical to Viewer 2.2), and there are already several forked repositories with some interesting commits popping up (especially in Armin’s repository). And, I’m sure several of us will be playing with the Kokua source for fun while we recharge.
So, happy holidays, and we’ll see you around!
November 21st, 2010 by Jacek Antonelli
It took a bit longer than expected, but today’s scheduled website maintenance is now complete. All major parts of our website, including the blog, forums, wiki, and issue tracker, have been migrated to our new domain name: kokuaviewer.org. This new domain will host both the Imprudence Viewer and the upcoming Kokua Viewer.
If you visit the old domain, you should be redirected to the corresponding location on the new domain. However, we encourage you to update your bookmarks, links, RSS feeds, etc. The new locations for each part of the site are:
As well as migrating to the new domain name, the software running those four parts of the site have been updated to the latest versions. Other than the new domain name and site titles, you won’t notice much difference in the appearance of the site yet*. We will be switching to new styles in the near future, after the dust has settled on the domain name transition.
*The wiki has a new default skin, which is visible now. If you prefer the old skin, you can log in and visit your preferences page, then select the “MonoBook” skin in the “Appearance” tab.
There are a few parts of our site which are still hosted at the old domain, such as the client tag list, grids list, and spellchecking dictionaries that are fetched by the viewer. These will be migrated to the new domain later this evening.
If you notice any broken links, error messages, or other problems with the site, please leave a comment or email jacek at kokuaviewer.org. Thanks for you patience during the migration process.
November 21st, 2010 by Jacek Antonelli
As I posted earlier, the Imprudence website will be down for scheduled maintenance as we migrate to our new domain name. Aside from the new domain name and site titles, you won’t notice much difference in the appearance of the site, yet. We will be switching to new styles in the near future, after the dust has settled on the domain name transition.
Maintenance will begin approximately 45 minutes from now (at 20:00 UTC/12:00 Noon PST), and is expected to last for no more than 2 hours. During that time, the blog, wiki, and forums will be read-only, and the issue tracker will be offline for part of that time. Our download mirror, source code repositories, and developer mailing list will still be fully online.
After the migration is complete, visiting any page on the old domain (imprudenceviewer.org) will redirect you to the corresponding page on the new domain. Your login information for the wiki, forums, and issue tracker will still be the same, but you will need to login again because the old browser cookies will not be valid with the new domain. All the blog posts, forum posts, wiki pages, and other content will be carried over to the new domain. Existing bookmarks, links, RSS feeds, etc. should continue to work (thanks to the redirects), but we still encourage you to update them to the new domain once it is up.
I will post another update on the new domain once the migration is complete. Thank you for your patience.
November 19th, 2010 by Jacek Antonelli
This coming Sunday, November 21, the Imprudence website will be down for scheduled maintenance as we migrate to our new domain name. The new site will be used for both Imprudence and Kokua from then on.
Maintenance will begin at 20:00 UTC (12:00 Noon PST) and is expected to last for no more than 2 hours. During that time, the blog, wiki, and forums will be read-only, and the issue tracker will be offline for part of that time. Our download mirror, source code repositories, and developer mailing list will still be fully online.
After the migration is complete, visiting any page on the old domain (imprudenceviewer.org) will redirect you to the corresponding page on the new domain. Your login information for the wiki, forums, and issue tracker will still be the same, but you will need to login again because the old browser cookies will not be valid with the new domain. All the blog posts, forum posts, wiki pages, and other content will be carried over to the new domain. Existing bookmarks, links, RSS feeds, etc. should continue to work (thanks to the redirects), but we still encourage you to update them to the new domain once it is up.
I’ll post a reminder again on Sunday an hour or two before the maintenance starts, and then again on the new domain once everything is moved over. In the meantime, enjoy your weekend.
October 10th, 2010 by McCabe Maxsted
We tend to use this blog for more official postings, but I just wanted to express my personal gratitude to everyone who donated this week to help me get a new development machine. In under 24 hours, the money was raised, and I’m both awed and humbled by your support. From the bottom of my heart, it’s appreciated.
The new computer–which I’ve nicknamed “Impy”–should arrive Monday afternoon, and I’ll be sure to post pictures once it does! (Sadly, I couldn’t find one in purple.) Until then, thanks again. You guys are the reason we do this
McCabe Maxsted
October 6th, 2010 by Jacek Antonelli
McCabe’s computer is on the verge of dying, and desperately needs to be replaced. We need your financial support to make that happen!
Over the past two years, McCabe has been using an ancient, crumbling laptop to develop Imprudence and compile the Windows builds. It takes him several hours to compile Imprudence from scratch, and even if he makes a single change to the source code, it takes over a half hour merely to link the viewer again, the final step of compiling. Obviously, such a long compile time makes it very tedious to test out new changes, which makes the development process difficult.
But, what used to be a nuisance, is now becoming an immediate hazard to Imprudence development. The hard drive on McCabe’s laptop is showing signs of failing, and it could die completely any day now. If that happens, McCabe would be totally out of commission, which would significantly disrupt Imprudence development. McCabe is in charge of compiling the Windows builds, as well as coordinating and assembling the weekly Experimental releases.
We have been reluctant to ask for donations in the past, because we’re not in this for personal gain. But, this is an emergency: we need your financial support to replace McCabe’s computer and keep Imprudence development running smoothly!
You can donate with a credit card or Paypal account using the button below, or send L$ to McCabe Maxsted in Second Life. Any amount you can spare would be a great help. Thank you!
Update: Thanks to our mind-bogglingly generous users, we have already met and exceeded our target amount several times over, in just a single day of fundraising! We no longer need more funds to replace McCabe’s computer, but if you still feel like donating, we will find other ways to use the money to support Imprudence development.