Second Life Viewers and the Third-Party Viewer Directory

For the Official Experience from Linden Lab
The Official Second Life Viewer

We at Linden Lab have optimized this viewer to help you have a safe, stable, and enjoyable experience in Second Life supported by our Customer Relations team.

The Snowglobe Viewer

We also support the Snowglobe viewer, which typically has new features not yet available in the official Second Life viewer. Developed jointly by Linden Lab and the open source community, this viewer may be somewhat less stable than the official Second Life viewer.

For a More Experimental Experience with a Third-Party Viewer

You may connect to Second Life using software released by a third-party developer. We have a Policy on Third-Party Viewers to help promote a positive and predictable experience for all Second Life Residents. However, because third-party viewers are not our viewers, we cannot guarantee that they will follow our rules. You are responsible for evaluating whether you want to use and share information with them.

The Third-Party Viewer Directory

To be listed in the Viewer Directory, a software developer must self-certify that it complies with Linden Lab policies. Beware of third-party viewers that are not in the Viewer Directory – they have either declined to self-certify or been refused for noncompliance with our policies.

The Third-Party Viewer Directory

Viewer Name - Developer Name
Emerald Viewer - Modular Systems
Kirstens Viewer - KirstenLee Cinquetti
METAbolt - Legolas Luke
Mobile Grid Client - Kurz Socke
omvviewer project - Robin Cornelius
Pocket Metaverse - Pocket Metaverse
Sparkle IM - Genkii KK

For Developers: How To Apply for the Viewer Directory

1. Your Second Life accounts must be in good standing, must not be suspended, and must not have been permanently banned or terminated.
2. You must have valid payment information on file with us or have been age verified by us.
3. Review our Policy on Third-Party Viewers and the Second Life Terms of Service.
4. Make sure you and your third-party viewer are in compliance with our policies.
5. Complete the application form and certify your compliance.

Disclaimer: Linden Lab makes no representations or warranties regarding any of the listed viewers or developers. These third-party viewers are not affiliated with or overseen by Linden Lab. Please take reasonable precautions, including virus scanning, before installing and using any of the listed viewers.

To view the blog page: Click Here, page from a link at the bottom of the Download page.

New Third Party Viewer Policy Runs Into Backlash

At the same time as the Beta of it’s new viewer, Linden Labs also announced a new policy concerning the use of “third-party viewers in general,” such as the Emerald viewer. The Lindens say they are willing to accept the use of these viewers, though a number are raising questions about the wording of the policy.

The policy was a long list of legalese that this blue collar worker in real-life found hard to understand. Going through the Linden blog, readers expressed similar confusion. Some thought things looked fishy.

Well, not one single instance or version of the 3rd-party clients that I have ever seen or used can meet a strict interpretation of the new rules for an "approved" client, So you have, despite all your noise to the contrary, effectively banned ALL 3rd party clients, as they exist today. At least, banned their use by anyone that plays by the rules. The thieves will still use fake tags and pretend to be an LL-approved copy of Snowglobe and have a field day.

And you know what? LL's OWN CLIENTS can't pass those restrictions!

One of my friends came to me. He thought that the Lindens were making the use of a third party viewer punishable by suspension or ban, and pointed out an entry in the “Boy Lane” blog. Boy Lane called herself one of the people behind one of the 3rd party viewers, and had this to say:

What happened now however is going way too far beyond a reasonable policy. Besides making some clear statements about content "backup" LL also introduced some funny terms they could not legally enforce previously. Such as not using the generic term "life" which one has to explicitly agree upon by signing LL's new policy.

But unfortunately not all can be labeled "funny". To come to the (at least in my opinion) main point. LL introduced one killer clause:

7. Your Responsibility for Third-Party Viewers
If you are a user or Developer of Third-Party Viewers:

a. You are responsible for all uses you make of Third-Party Viewers, and if you are a Developer, you are also responsible for all Third-Party Viewers that you develop or distribute.


What this means is that a viewer developer has to take (legal) responsibility for any action of any viewer user. That's something GPL specifically allows to exclude, now LL forces such responsibility back to software developers. It is pretty much impossible for anyone to take such a responsibility. Besides many other questionable points this clause renders the whole 3rd party viewer policy unacceptable.

Boy Lane stated she refused to comply with the new policy, and recommended others stop using third party viewers, saying they were risking being banned from Second Life.

Tateru Nino in “Massively” called the new policy, “the worst day's work that we've seen come out of the Lab to-date. TPV policies have a number of glaring flaws, chief among which are multiple incompatibilities with the existing source licenses, so that you can't actually build and distribute a viewer from the open source code-base while simultaneously being in compliance with the TPV policies. That's quite an astonishing oversight. In fact, not a single release of the source-code made by Linden Lab to date complies with the TPV policies. An unmodified build from the trunk code-base would be violate the policies as they presently stand.”

Why were the new policies so poorly written? The question was summed up between comments between Tateru and one of her readers. He thought the Lindens were too proud to admit that their viewer was inferior to that others could build. Tateru thought this wasn’t the case, but rather a blunder, wondering if, “someone on the legal team just phoned this in half-asleep.”

Word is, Soft Linden is writing up a more clear policy. Hopefully this will clear up a good deal of confusion and suspicion, and quiet fears the Lindens are trying to ban third-party viewers without saying so.

To go to the Linden Blog post, Click Here

To go to the comments, Click Here.

Other sources: Massively, Boy Lane

Second Life Viewer 2.0 Beta Released

There’s been some talk about it in recent weeks, wondering what it might bring. Well, it’s finally arrived. The Beta for Second Life’s Viewer 2.0.

“Today, we're excited to announce the launch of Viewer 2 Beta, the next generation of Second Life viewers -- combining an easy browser-like experience with shared media capabilities -- providing what we believe is the best experience yet for accessing Second Life, and a new option to choose from among Viewer 1.23 and other Third Party Viewers. We looked carefully at the experience design of other successful social media and technology platforms--such as the web browser, Facebook, the iPhone, Twitter, etc.--and the key elements that enabled them to reach mass adoption. You'll see much of that thinking baked into new Viewer 2 experience design. Our primary goal was to create a more consumer-friendly viewer--an imperative to bring in a new wave of Second Life Residents. After all, more people in Second Life means that there will be more amazing content, more customers to purchase virtual goods, a thriving economy, more friends and communities, and we can do even more to improve the experience. All very good things for all of us.”

Taking a look, I saw they remembered Mac users, and downloaded the beta viewer. It was notable that the icon had a yellow bar with black stripes on the side, as if to signal “under construction.” It took a minute for the viewer to initially appear after double-clicking on the icon, though later on it came on normally. One friend when downloading it only got a string of binary code.

I managed to log on okay, but my friends list was a bit quirky, people listed as “waiting,” and I was cloudy. Eventually, the list appeared, though some were listed as offline whom later turned out were on. When I logged on later, there was no “waiting” period. My avatar remained a cloud, even on the second time I used the beta. So it looks like the beta needs improvement there.

Using the new viewer took some getting used to, and the side-to-side movement and crouch & jump buttons were missing from the movement toolbar. But there are interesting features. On the right of the screen are tabs, which can be clicked to open a window with information. Bringing up someone’s profile will reveal both their Second Life and real-life pictures (or what’s used in place of them), which can be useful for those who wish to better mix their virtual lives with their real ones. One’s teleport history is stored, so if you forgot to make a landmark at a place you visited the previous day, you can check the history to return.

One feature should be of great interest to non-human avatars, such as furries and tinies: Alpha Masks. Meant to be used in place of invisiprims, they can render parts of your avatar invisible. For digitgrade avatars, this means no “force field” effect around their shins.

Being cloudy the whole time, my impression the beta still needs a good deal of work. But it does have some cool features that show good potential for it.

For the complete Linden blog entry, Click Here. To go to continued comments, Click Here. To go to a Second Life Youtube about the Beta viewer, narrated by Epsy Linden, Click Here.

Bixyl Shuftan

[Emerald] Meetings with Linden Lab

 Over the course of the last year or so, more and more people have chosen to use the Emerald Viewer; so many in fact, that it is now the most used third party viewer in Second Life. As a result, it is undeniable that even the most incidental of changes in Emerald, when multiplied by the sheer amount of users, can cause drastic effects on the grid. We thus felt it was necessary to work more closely with Linden Lab to prevent any serious issues from occurring.

As some of you may already know, for the past several weeks we have been meeting with representatives from Linden Lab for the purpose of discussing issues that impact the Second Life service and the Emerald Viewer. By initiating and maintaining direct and frequent contact with Linden Lab, we have access to the information necessary to ensure that our improvements and features do not disrupt the service. This allows us to make certain that the changes we implement, when scaled up to the tens of thousands of people using Emerald, will not cause anything to explode. ;P

What this means is that in the future, if we feel that a potential improvement to Emerald could harm the service, we can communicate with Linden Lab to avoid the possibility of releasing a feature with undesired effects. Conversely, if Linden Lab were to discover a problem caused by Emerald, they can contact us in real time in order to get the issue resolved as quickly as possible.

As a result, this cooperation should help ensure the overall stability of the grid, and of the features you've come to depend on, whether they are features of Second Life, or just our particular additions to it.
 
EDIT: FYI, nobody is buying/taking over Emerald kthx
 Source: [Emerald] Meetings with Linden Lab