31 July 2021

Leaving Firestorm

If you're running the Mac version of Firestorm downloaded from the official website, it was built on my desktop computer, most recently a Mac Mini I purchased last year mainly for that purpose.

The current version, 6.4.21.64531, is the last for which that will be the case. Effective immediately, I have resigned from the Firestorm team as developer.

This is very bittersweet for me. I was one of the very last of the original project team to still be a part of the project. In a very real sense, it would not exist without me: I am the one who convinced Jessica Lyon to fork the Emerald project in the first place. (Perhaps she'll forgive me for that one day.) I have put 11 years of my life and a substantial amount of money into it.

The simple truth is that being a developer for Firestorm has gotten to be un-fun. The group dynamics have become toxic for me, and I've been keeping my involvement down to the amount I could take. I believe things are not going to get better.

In addition, I have started a new job recently - a job I got in no small part because of my involvement with Firestorm. That is taking more and more of my time.

Even so, this is a painful decision for me to make, and one I do not make lightly. It is my hope that the team can continue to serve the users of Second Life with the high quality, well-tested code it has become known for.

I am not leaving Second Life; far from it. It is perhaps the biggest part of my life outside of family and work. I have too many close relationships, too many good friends, and too many fun things to do to leave it. But I will no longer be active in viewer development.

I hope that I have managed to give at least something back to the Second Life community. I wish the team well.