At Home With AT HOME WITH Arrehn Oberlander
Written by Brendan Macarthur Tuesday, 12 July 2011 14:46
Welcome to another edition of "At Home With". Today I have the great honor to visit the home of Arrehn Oberlander another talented resident of Costa Rica Sims. For those of you who are not familiar with his name, Arrehn is part of the team behind the Phoenix Viewer and the lead developer for the upcoming Firestorm Viewer.
Hi Arrehn! Thank you for welcoming me to your home. As a resident on Second Life for a little over three years, I’m sure you have witnessed the rise and fall of several 3rd party viewers including the controversial Emerald Viewer. I would like to start by asking you, what are your thoughts about the Emerald Viewer problems and how they were handled?
Hi Brendan! Thanks for the interest!
I can start by saying I wasn't involved with the Emerald viewer, but I was affected by what happened with Emerald, as many of us were. I would say that it affected me strongly at the time. Emerald's collapse and removal from LL's list of registered community viewers appeared to be due to inexperienced individuals in positions of power exercising poor judgment. I think Emerald let a lot of people down-- its users, its innocent developers caught in the crossfire, and the community as a whole. In a way we're still feeling the fallout-- there's a number of top, reputable developers who were turned off from SL viewer development because of that fiasco. If there's one good thing that came out of it, it is that SL viewer projects now are held to a higher standard, both by the community and their developer membership. Emerald's collapse also may have spurred new developers to get involved with viewer development, and for viewer projects to adopt greater transparency and internal systems of checks and balances.
I have spoken with many of my friends who switched to the official Second Life Viewer 2, and the general consensus is that although Viewer 2 has several great features, the new interface is not as “user friendly”, which made it a less popular choice among all viewer options. What do you think of Second Life Viewer 2? Do you agree that the interface is not “user friendly”?
I clearly remember the first time I used Viewer2. It was a very frustrating experience for me. Technologically it was frustrating because it seemed to be designed by someone who had a very different idea of how to use SL than what many people were already doing. Viewer2 removed a lot of flexibility and features previously available to a user. Aside from the technological limitations, from a human angle Viewer2 was frustrating because LL wasn't listening to feedback at the time. There was a great deal of community feedback that appeared to be disregarded. I think this more than anything else created a perception that Viewer2 was not user friendly. People will forgive a lot as long as they believe their feedback is being valued.
I'll go on a little more on this question, because I feel it needs to be said. Viewer2, and LL's initial reluctance to listen to design criticism paralyzed SL viewer development for about a year. The majority of SL users did not adopt it, and many community viewer development teams didn't feel like their viewer ideas were welcome in viewer2, so they avoided it for a long time.
Its taken projects like Firestorm to demonstrate that yes, we can have the benefits of Viewer2, while still giving users greater flexibility for how they handle instant messages, popup windows, notifications, context menus, and many other types of interactions with the virtual world.
The Phoenix Viewer has become the most popular 3rd party viewer that is currently available. As part of the team behind the the development of the Phoenix viewer, what do you think has attributed to its success? "
Phoenix is not just the most popular community developed viewer; it is the most popular viewer for SL, period. It's a tremendous achievement that offers a number of insights. Firstly Phoenix is aware of, and listens to requests from various sub-communities within SL, and the Phoenix developers are not against throwing in extra options if asked. As a result Phoenix offers a level of high degree of customization. Phoenix also has critical support for SL power-users that server as role models to others. Content creators have far richer creation tools in Phoenix than in the stock viewers. Land owners have far more management abilities in Phoenix than in the stock viewers. Performers have far more inventory and communication control than in the stock viewers. When users find a role model in SL, chances are that role model is using a rich community-developed viewer like Phoenix. We're currently bringing these rich features into Firestorm, so that users can have the best of LL's breaking technology along with all the power tools they are used to.
Finally, Phoenix also has a large, well-staffed in-world support structure. It's such a simple thing but LL doesn't offer you an easy place to go and get interactive help using the viewer in world. Phoenix does. It makes a big difference.
I am interested to learn more about the Firestorm Viewer. You have previously stated that the Firestorm Viewer will have all the features of the Second Life Viewer 2, as well as some features from the Phoenix Viewer. Could you please tell us about the Firestorm Viewer and what inspired you to create it?
When I first started using Viewer2 I was disappointed that LL did not express an interest in making the UI interface more flexible, but I thought to myself, "That doesn't look too hard...", so I experimented a little improving Viewer2 on my own, with some moderate success. However, it became clear that one person working alone and part time could only do so much. I started asking around to see if anyone else was interested in helping, and Jessica Lyon invited me to start up the Firestorm viewer project. Once I had the basic project up and running and some improvements as examples, many of the Phoenix developers were eager to help out. Once a team of people was working on Firestorm, we were able to make great improvements quickly.
One of the pitfalls of using a 3rd party viewer is the possible threat to security of user data, including credit card information. As someone who would be interested in using Firestorm once it is officially released, what can users expect with regard to the security of your viewer?
One important thing is that the viewer itself does not see the details of your finances, credit card numbers, or private information on file. That data is stored completely at Linden Labs and the viewer cannot not access it.
For the rest, we address this by being transparent, and documenting ourselves the same way commercial companies do. Our team operates as a legally registered non-profit organization. We pay for validated, code signing certificates so that users can prove which applications came directly from us and not some other source. All of our developers have their personal information on file with LL's legal team, as part of LL's community technology partnership rules. Our releases are checked for viruses and malware prior to release. Finally, all of the source code we modify from stock LL defaults is available for inspection and auditing. Ultimately it is up to the user to decide whether to trust Phoenix-Firestorm, Linden Labs, or any other application they download, but we feel we've made our case as compelling as any.
While researching information about the Firestorm Viewer, I found your in-world group called "Phoenix-Firestorm Preview Group". What does this group offer and how can users join it if interested?
The "Phoenix-Firestorm Preview group" is an old group used for Firestorm-related questions before Firestorm was released to the public. Now that Firestorm is released, this group has been dropped.
If you're looking for Firestorm support, join "Phoenix-Firestorm Viewer Support".
This is our main support group, with almost 12,000 members. If you join this group you'll get notices when new releases are available and when classes begin. The group chat itself can get busy, but most of the time it is staffed by multiple volunteers with quick access to a number of common answers to questions and troubleshooting resources. If you have a question about Phoenix or Firestorm, and can't find it on the wiki hosted at http://www.phoenixviewer.com, it’s the best place to go.
On a final note with regard to the Firestorm Viewer, do you have a tentative release date set?
We consider ourselves released right now! Yes, technically the releases do say "Beta" next to them, but don't let this scare you off. These releases are as stable as any other viewer and offer far, far more than the LL Viewer2 client with all of the same advantages such as multiple clothing layers, a favorites bar, notifications that are saved from session to session, and other V2 features.
We'll drop the "Beta" tag when we feel like Firestorm has every major feature than Phoenix has. We're already very close to this. The "Beta" tag is more a statement of feature port completion than stability. There is no date set for when we'll remove it but every public release brings us closer.
Your profile reads, “I'm an independent adventurer on the electronic frontier, known to explore, obsess on technical projects, and create new possibilities”. Do you have any other projects, concepts, or ideas in development?
I run a casual group for the appreciation and practice of imaginative art in SL. The group is called "MetaHarpers Cabal" and if you're interested in keeping up with unusual/surreal art forms in SL, or just building fictional harp instruments to wear on your back, please join in! It's an open group with low traffic. Firestorm development has taken up a lot of my time, but before I did this I created some highly advanced combined couples/solo dance machines, hover board vehicles, interactive art displays, and other various scripted projects. Technology is a fun toy!
I'm hoping to get back to some of this soon, along with helping some friends with musical expo event hosting, and improving my perpetually unfinished project sim "Chasm Deep".
We are honored to have you as an “adventurer” and resident of Costa Rica Sims. How did you discover Costa Rica Sims and why did you decide to call it your virtual home?
I actually discovered Costa Rica Sims during my first month in SL. I was looking for a place to try surfboarding and a CRS resident set me up with a board and set me loose to explore the unbroken expanse of natural-themed shorelines. Ever since then I've been meaning to come back more permanently. For me the navigable waterways, open spaces, and strong natural theme make it a pleasant place to relax when I'm looking for quiet time to myself scripting, testing, or chatting with a friend away from the social scenes.
I know that you have not lived in Costa Rica Sims too long, but as an “adventurer” is there anything you would like to see added to the community to enhance it?
My favorite places are the natural park areas. I like going to a quiet part of the natural parks, finding a place out of view of a manmade structure, and rezzing a blanket or something similar. A few years ago there was a pair of uninhabited CRS islands with some fantastic rock shelves right on the waterline. I hope more things like this are possible, although I understand LL's pricing doesn't make it easy. I've spent a lot of time in natural parks in various countries, so it feels very comfortable to me to be able to do this in SL while computing from my house.
Thank you so much for you time!
Thank you Brendan!
