Viewer Types

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Revision as of 23:22, 10 March 2010 by Zai Lynch (talk | contribs) (moved Public Nightly to Viewer Types: isn't just covering nightly builds)
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Battery Street Irregulars (BSI) Program Discontinued The Battery Street Irregulars (BSI) program has been officially retired. If you wish to continue contributing to the development of new Second Life features, we recommend that you look into our open source project, Snowglobe. The latest Snowglobe builds are distributed via the sl-dev-commits mailing list.


A Primer on the Types of Viewer Releases

Important Note: All Viewers released to Residents whether Alpha, Beta, RC, or Official, will connect to the main, LIVE Second Life Grid. If you elect to use any of them, please be aware that all user information, L$, content, land and other transactions are REAL.


Alpha or Nightly

An Alpha or Nightly is a viewer built from rapidly changing code under active development. These releases are prone to major bugs. A limited number of these builds may be distributed to a small group of alpha tester Residents. Alpha testers must be well-versed in the use of PJIRA for logging and tracking viewer issues. Depending upon the features being developed, alpha-testers may be required to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to participate.


Beta

A Beta viewer, which may still contain obvious bugs, is built from code that has been moved from rapidly changing development branches into code lines under a greater level of oversight and control. These builds are often released to the public, but their use is recommended only by dedicated Residents who wish to experiment with new features, actively log and comment on issues in PJIRA, and work with Linden Lab engineers to resolve challenging bugs. Early Beta testers may or may not be required to sign an NDA to participate.


Release Candidate

A Release Candidate or RC viewer is one built from a closely controlled code line. Only a viewer believed to be very close to the quality desired in an Official Second Life Viewer will be released as a Release Candidate. These builds are recommended for all Residents.


Official Second Life Viewer

An Official Second Life Viewer is the final release of a viewer. Once released, the Official Second Life Viewer becomes the default download for all new Residents.