Well, digging around a bit more about Emeraldgate... it appears the one now running the official Emerald website was one of the three LL specifically wanted removed from the project, with one of the other three kinda sorta still involved even though supposedly not involved, and the more respectable devs have bailed.

It is interesting that there seem to be about 40 different clones of Emerald (well, 40 different sets of sources of them) at Google Code:

http://code.google.com/p/emeraldviewer/source/clones

I suspect one of those will become the dominant version, or another one separate from that, with all of the good and non-troublemaking members of the old devs rallying to it, and with all the "suspicious stuff" removed, but appearing under a new name... and the ones now left in charge at the current, official emerald website, who apparently are keeping the rights to the name... will be left holding an empty sack.

One thing I can't tell from here is.... what became of the SL2.x-enabled version of Emerald that was in the works for months, and if that code is included somewhere at Google Code. I hope it is there, and/or that the respectable members of the dev team that were developing it still have enough of those sources that they can be cobbled back together again if not, so that that line of Emerald can be continued in a fork.

In any event, for the time being at least, more out of inertia than anything else, I'm continuing with the latest Emerald release until some independent offshoot of it comes along (probably not Emergence, since that's not being continued either and is from a slightly older version of the sources) or until LL blocks it, whichever comes first.

I've used Imprudence as well, though, and currently use it on other grids... and might wind up using that on SL if the current Emerald gets blocked. But at the same time I am actively watching for an Emerald offshoot that IS being maintained and DOESN'T have anyone or anything potentially suspicious included.

  ¶ 3:24 PM

  Well, I've been following the recent so-called Emeraldgate events with a certain... dark dread, and a certain detached fascination.

A handful of people involved in the creation and maintaining of the famous Emerald SL viewer... behaved irresponsibly and... things started getting very, very ugly in cyberspace.... coming from people who frankly had way too much time on their hands, and at the same time... genuinely had NO real stake in the matter beyond the deeply held, emotional need to tear someone down.

Eventually, those responsible (or maybe I should say, those irresponsible?) were removed from the project, and a whole new team was started from scratch after what amounted to a hostile takeover. I consider this brand new, from scratch group as a completely separate entity from the one before that. In short -- and let me be frakking blunt here -- anything before that is irrelevant! And anyone that talks with contempt about Emerald due to what happened before the new team... I am sorry, but you are a DAMN FOOL, for reasons I will describe below.

And yes, certain ones from before the new group came along.... deserved to be expelled from the project.

In any event, the new system being put in place there, under the new group, was designed such that no one would ever be able to do damage to anything ever again... since any such things wouldn't even be able to GO IN PLACE without it being caught and stopped before it could ever make it to a released version of the program.

And yet, despite all that, the Emerald project still went down. Today.

Frankly... I am very, very disturbed about what happened this morning when certain additional people that LL, mere days ago, demanded be removed -- and don't get me wrong: I have no objection to them being removed! -- couldn't be expelled fast enough... but probably could have, given a few more hours. And a difference of a few hours, or even a couple of days, would have made absolutely no difference at all in the rehabbing of Emerald, or in the nature and state of TPVs in general!

They were already heading irrevocably down the road toward a place where the Emerald project could never have been misused again, LL and others had only to let the remaining events take their course.

But even then... Hell! They could theoretically have gone through and replaced every cotton pickin' person in the team so long as it allowed the project to go forward, and I would sooner have THAT then what actually happened today... bearing in mind that the system that was already being put in place was such that no nefarious stuff could have ever made it to a release version of the program ever again -- assuming there ever was anything truly nefarious in there to begin with -- and any that might have still been there was already in the process of being removed, and that by definition it was probably impossible for anything nefarious to ever be put back in again, either.

I am sorry, but I have VERY little respect for short-term thinkers in high places. They are an abomination!

I am now.... frankly.... pissed off that the new Emerald project was never really given a chance to succeed. Yes, I am aware LL demanded the removal of certain key individuals from the group, and that one of those three entrenched themselves and refused to go quietly -- and to be honest, I don't know enough about why they were asked to be removed, and I strongly suspect the majority out there don't know either... and at the same time, for the reasons I outlined above, I don't think it would have really mattered that much if they'd all three been let stay in place, either -- ...but given a bit more time, they likely would have been able to pry that one loose and the remaining team be able to regain control of things. They should have been given that time.

I put to you that there is no possible security, technical, or technological harm that could have been done to Second Life or to the Emerald project had the Emerald people been given a few more hours, or even a couple more days, do deal with these ones that refused to leave the project! The then soon to be released new version of Emerald would not have changed one jot in its content, would not have become more or less secure or "troublesome" to people, with these three team members gone or not gone, because anything nefarious was already largely or even fully removed... because, in fact, the entire rest of the team had been running themselves ragged removing anything potentially nefarious from the program, and because all possibility of abuse had already been removed... simply from the fact that, with every cotton pickin' nincompoop watching their every move minutely, no one could have AVOIDED being spotted TRYING to do anything even the SLIGHTEST bit suspicious without being lynch-mobbed by the bloggers and run out of cyberspace on a rail! And none of them would have dared doing so anyway because the future of every damn one of them was dependent on not screwing up now!

And bear in mind, the removal of these three team members was the ONE and ONLY remaining issue that could not be resolved on the list of demands LL made to the Emerald team for being returned to their good graces. And one that could not be resolved only because some double-damned chair-warmer ran out of patience when he should not have!

I say again that anyone who despises the new Emerald, based on what may or may not have happened before the new group came along, is worthy of nothing but contempt.

Labels: Emerald viewer, Emeraldgate, second life, third party viewer, TPV

  ¶ 11:24 PM