Emerald Dies, Burns, and is Reborn

Recently, twitter, facebook, plurk, and a few websites have been ablaze with talk of the very popular Second Life third-party viewer Emerald, with all the great features that were more what the users wanted and less of what the official SL viewer 2.0 offered. However the chatter was about it's many security issues as well as the ethics and sincerity of those on the development team. The last post from Emerald was one of closing up and throwing it all away. Linden Labs reacted with demands made of the Emerald team that they claimed they were unable to comply with. After that one of the developers applied for a trademark and severed access to the servers. It appeared that all was finished and those that continued to use Emerald would be doomed to find it disconnected from the grid in the very near future. Many were upset by the decision to close down instead of finding a way to comply, as other third-party viewers had done already. Emerald had features that others did not have; features that were unique and that had grabbed the attention of many faithful users.

That was two days ago on September 1st. Flash forward to today, September 3rd, where Jessica Lyons, in her blog, announces the Phoenix Viewer with all the functionality of Emerald as well as "100% public transparency in EVERYTHING." They already have an official website with download links for Windows, Mac, and Linus versions.

This is a step in the right direction and one that will be embraced by the throngs of Emerald lovers. The new development team promises to be comprised of "reputable residents in the SecondLife Community." I for one will download this viewer and take it for a spin. I've seen that some are exercising caution by waiting until they have the approval necessary that would put them the TPV list. And that is a good move if you are unsure of the promises that have been made. Considering all the negative press Emerald got and credibility of some of it's developers, it is perfectly understandable. Hopefully, they are right and it will be a quick approval. I know many that can't wait to enjoy all the nifty features.