Penguins to remain mute for the foreseeable future

Posted Jun 19th 2007 2:00AM by Tateru Nino
Filed under: Mixed Reality

We asked Linden Lab about the future of voice for Linux-using residents. As you probably know, the addon modules for voice in Second Life are third-party and aren't apparently supported outside the Mac and Windows. Inworld a number of Lindens have mentioned that they are pushing hard for voice-on-Linux, but it's been unclear as to whether they meant they were pushing for it personally, or whether they were speaking for Linden Lab as an entity.

Linden Lab responded to our query that they did not "have a timeline for a voice enabled Linux viewer at this time". To me, that pretty much means "Not for the foreseeable future" considering how these things generally work.

Tags: GNU/Linux, Linux, Mute, Voice

Reader Comments

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1. third party modules?
what's wrong with openal?

Posted at 11:22AM on Jun 19th 2007 by dandellion Kimban

2. The voice provider uses proprietary code and codecs on their systems apparently. Voice is only between the viewer and the voice-provider - Linden Lab's servers are not (we are told) participants in the way voice is implemented.

Posted at 11:23AM on Jun 19th 2007 by Tateru Nino

3. When Linden Lab purchased the company responsible for WindLight and released the code as part of the SL viewer under the GNU Public License, they did everyone a big favour. We won't have to worry about ever loosing WindLight. It's here for the long haul.

If the code, for Voice in the SL viewer is not owned by LL, or the codec that it uses does not allow usage under Linux, then a much bigger potential problem exists.

The license to use Voice, if not open, will hang over all the SL viewers like Damocles sword and one day will need attention again - possibly even removal.

LL have done, over all, a fine job adhering to common standards and releasing code as Open Source so that if worst should come to pass, Second Life might exist beyond them. They have built on solid technologies, with sustainable licenses.

The lack on interoperability with Voice in the SL viewer is a much bigger issue than some inconvenience to Linux users. It may lead to Voice in all SL viewers having to be re-written or removed.

Posted at 10:11AM on Jun 20th 2007 by DanteJones Laszlo

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