I should posted this before on the blog but I was a little busy with somethings in RL, sorry for being late!, anwyway here are my thinkings about what happened to Kirstein’s Viewer:
This is something a little bit sad but anyway, RL is calling and Kirstein will not have free time to focus on the viewer and also crowfounded didn’t reach the foundation targeret, you can read in here:
“AND FINALLY …..
Alas the crowdfunder did not reach it’s target, it is perhaps unfortunate that the funding pitch came at a time where I have limited internet and could not make more of a song and dance about it… But should I need too? I had a review of previous downloads and stats over the last year from the site it had 280 thousand unique visitors, 30 million page views and consumed 3256 gigabytes of data.
The downloads of the clients varied of course but on average between 6000 to 8000 downloads were made per version.
Last week sourceforge registered 217 downloads of an older client! Looking at actual unique login statistics provided by the Lab itself we find a good 3 to 4 thousand people used the viewer on a very regular basis.”
I don’t doubt about this, but at as I said before, I have my own opinion about OpenSource software and what I said about it philosophy (read my post about Opensource Software in this blog), if Kirstein could reach the fund then the development of Kirstein’s Viewer could be continuous until the next year but as it was not possible then the project have to be finished. But there’s more on kirstien webpage:
“Looking at the positive side we did have a small but VERY generous bunch of funders and all things considered 28% of the target was none too shoddy, to those people I thank you Crowdfunder should be in contact with you with refunding info as I write this.
I do wonder if the 217 people who downloaded the old client last week from sourceforge ever decided to fund.. we will never know.”
I would like to congratulate all of those people who could support kirstein (sorry I couldn’t :(), because better than the money it was the good intention to get alive the project. Even kirstein viewer was not so popular like Phoenix or any other viewer it has some original things that make it quite diferent for the other sl viewers and even I think that kirstein viewer was the first one viewers outside Lindens Lab viewer that supported Mesh (I hope, I am not wrong). Here a part of the post that I would like to give an opinion:
“Anyway perhaps the biggest shame is what I consider the missed opportunity, many times groups or organisations have contacted me with requests for customised clients to suit specific needs this funding pitch would have been perfect for such an endeavour.
Or groups with a common interest or goal could have got together and collectively funded the project with the goal of adding specific features.”
For those who were asking for “customised clients for to suit specific needs”, why they didn’t fund to the project ?, even some organizations or groups did contact Kirstein asking for “customised clients”, I mean if they wanted something then if they funded to the project then they could get what they want. But not as some people may think “It is opensource and it is free, then I don’t have to pay”, as I said this is totally wrong. Does an Opensource developer don’t have the same rights than a pay developer ?, yes it have the same rights as I said, they work is so valuable than a pay developer. An here is the end of the article:
“Enough rambling, lets tie up the loose ends and finish this.
Many many Thanks to Everyone who has supported this viewer you know who you are. The website forums will be closed, and the site will close at the end of December.”
Bye bye for Kirstein’s Viewer! but I wish the best for Kirstein new job and Good Luck in your new task!
This was the lastest message that Kirstein left on his webpage which will be closed soon. To you and to your partner, I will wish you the best but also to have a good luck in your new task!.
Now, that Kirstein’s Viewer is going out of SL soon, but there’s someone who is forking the source code of this viewer into a new one that is still on development. This new viewer is developed by another resident called Niran’s and I am going to speak about it near the future.
Metaverse4Me 