ImpDev Meetups/2012-01-29

Summary
ImpDev Meetup for January 29, 2012.

This was a specially scheduled meeting, as opposed to our regular weekly meetings. The purpose of this meeting was to decide the fate and direction of the project going forward. The items discussed in this meeting have been hashed over during the last couple of week in the regular meetings and over the mailing lists. This meeting was a chance for everyone on the team to meet at once at a time that the most people were available to attend, as well as members of the public who wanted to listen in and offer thoughts.

At the conclusion of the meeting the following things were decided (These points match up rather closely to the agenda items further down the page)...


 * We will continue to develop Third Party Viewers and we have the manpower to do so
 * Possibly finalize Imprudence 1.4 (Perhaps with OTR), matter to be discussed further
 * Focus on Kokua using the Second Life v3.2 code base for future development
 * Continue to work with Firestorm as an ally but remain independent
 * Finalize switch to Hg for ease of import/export
 * Finalize name change from Imprudence to Kokua
 * A fresh start deserves an updated and simplified web presence (Blog/Forum/Wiki/Etc)
 * Focus on stability and cross Second Life/OpenSim support with some core features
 * Consider a new landing page with grid choices and/or tutorials (Down the line)
 * Focus on Nix 32, Nix 64 and Win 32 platforms initially (Try for Win 64 & Mac later)
 * Oz Linden has provided TPV user statistics
 * Continue weekly meetings on Wednesdays at 20:00 UTC, consider alternating days to increase attendance
 * Inform public of decisions made here via Blog, Mailing List and Wiki Meeting Log (This Page Here)
 * Statement on Privacy & Ethics
 * Consider accepting donations towards the project in the future
 * Emphasize use of mailing lists and IRC for communication (Not solely team meetings)

Introduction
We live in a very different environment from the one in which Imprudence was founded. According to our Manifesto Imprudence was to answer several key dilemmas being faced by Linden Lab and their official Second Life viewer. While these are only three of a host of issues that inspired Jacek and McCabe to create Imprudence; these are problems that could be argued Imprudence suffers from today. Since Imprudence was founded in 2008 we have seen the rise and fall and several Third Party Viewers, and for good or bad, significant changes to the official Second Life viewer. And yet even with such change the solutions now are the same as they were then. And I think now we can safely add a fourth item to our Manifesto, as while not originally stated it has become a core aspect of the purple sea. We’ve made some awesome viewers over the years and we can see how our work has impacted the world around us. We can still create inspiring code and a viewer that stands as the benchmark against which others will be judged. We just have to return to our core values and start fresh So let’s do something exciting, let’s do something fun. It’s time to bring back the vibrancy to our purple sea.
 * A lack of resources to make significant changes to the viewer
 * A burdensome QA that stifled whatever change was attempted by developers
 * A throng of customers who resisted any change and wanted to stick with the familiar
 * Focus on approachability and ease of use
 * Create an efficient workflow and codebase that allows flexible development
 * Make the user satisfying to use, not something the user has to fight with
 * Support and make it easy for users to explore Alternative Grids
 * Keep an open public management, involve the public in our decision making process like we’re doing here today and on the blog
 * Keep a pro-change atmosphere, don’t be afraid to try new things just because people are used to the old way
 * Keep the community involved, put out experimental viewers, get feedback, bring in non-technical volunteers to help provide support etc
 * Use a modern distributed development model that makes it easy for us to import and export patches from the LL code base
 * Use a scalable QA model that patches can get through in a reasonable amount of time, and don’t be afraid to try new things with experimental viewers

Agenda Items

 * 1) Irregardless of anything else do we as a team want to continue work and are there enough of us with enough time available to work on a viewer?
 * 2) If the answer is no, do we want to work on something else, such as a TPV code respository like Boroondas suggested?
 * 3) Assuming the the is yes, do we want to start fresh or continue on the old code base?
 * 4) Firestorm, how closely do we want to work with them, or even for them etc?
 * 5) Git or Hg, let's pick one and stick with it, so which shall it be (Git is familiar to many, but Hg is used by LL and it's easier to import LL patches to Hg)?
 * 6) Any new client will use the Kokua name, should the project name change to Kokua as well or stay Imprudence?
 * 7) Should a fresh start for the project mean a fresh start for the site as well? Perhaps an integration of the Blog and Forum using the new BBPress plugin. Do we want to stick with Media Wiki and Redmine or switch to something else? Further do we need to keep all the anscilliary sites like the Q&A site or focus on simplifying our web presence?
 * 8) What focus should the project take, features or stability? Second Life first and foremost or OpenSim/Aurora?
 * 9) What should the first thing people see when they load up the viewer be? An explanation of the various alternative grids and how to access them (Many TPV users never connect to an OpenSim grid). The site blog, or a simple tutorial section on the blog? What about a grid picker, and should there be a default grid and thus it's landing page showing upon first launching the program (And changed to last used upon subsequent launchings)?
 * 10) What platforms do we want to support? There is no longer a Mac developer, and 64 bit is becoming more mainstream. Should we support Linux and Windows 32bit initially, or try to do 32bit and 64bit on some of the platforms?
 * 11) User statistics, are there any we can get from LL? If not can we create an opt-in within the client for sending hardware stats such as CPU, RAM, OS etc? Would this help us in better developing the client for our audience?
 * 12) Future weekly meetings, do we wish to reschedule them or is Wednesday's at 20:00 working out for everyone?
 * 13) How do we inform the public about what we have decided here today?
 * 14) Statement: Privacy and Ethics should be our highest priority, protecting our users as best we can
 * 15) Consider taking donations and team payouts from donations based on works done
 * 16) Emphasize use of mailing lists and IRC for team communication between meetings