Don't forget that a large part of what makes Firestorm as amazing as it is is the participation of folks not just in developing, but in supporting and QAing and the gateway team that helps people learn about SL and gives them a place to start getting involved. That goes for the remainder of the team, as well. Most of the developers live in various countries in Europe I may be the only current developer in the US, as a matter of fact. I think it would be a great place to work, even if I would have to give up my connection with the Firestorm team.Īnd that points to the main problem with hiring the Firestorm team: we're spread out not just across the US, but internationally. But I'm not the tiniest bit interested in living in either California or Massachusetts, and while they are now open once more to hiring remote employees (they weren't for several years), they do not as yet hire in Minnesota where I live. We see ourselves providing a better experience for 80-90% of the user population, rather than supporting a for-profit company without gains."įirestorm hasn't even attempted to monetize its efforts, she adds:ĭisclaimer: I'm speaking only for myself, not the Firestorm team. "But is a matter of perspective how one looks at it. "It's a rather unique situation for sure," Jessica agrees. Which like I said, is pretty unprecedented. In other words, an unpaid volunteer development team is providing the software for nearly the entire userbase of a highly profitable company.
I've no idea what that metric is like today but I suspect it's higher now as many third party viewers around back then have dissolved." By a conservative estimate, 80-90% of SL users now use Firestorm. Two years ago, project head Jessica Lyon tells me, "Firestorm was carrying somewhere around 72% of SL users. So popular, in fact, that any update Linden Lab makes to its platform is effectively irrelevant unless it's supported by Firestorm. How popular? Far more popular than the official SL viewer put out by Linden Lab the company. Firestorm, updated and debugged by dedicated team of volunteer SL users - has become the most popular.
It's probably the strangest symbiotic relationship in Silicon Valley: Linden Lab, the startup that's highly profitable from Second Life, open sourced its SL viewer software 12 years ago, and over time, various open source viewers have increased in popularity, among Second Life's user base.
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