Philip Linden talks mission statement
Philip Linden (known as Philip Rosedale in some circles, we hear) today published a piece on Linden Lab's mission statement. If he'd been talking about the stability problems (no improvements today, alas - worse, if anything) or if this talk had been given at Second Life's anniversary (23 June every year, in case you were wondering) this would seem a little less out of place.
As it is, it seems to come out of left field, as they say.
Certainly Linden Lab's new-look mission statement is a laudable one: "To connect everyone to an online world that improves the human condition."
Laudable not only in sentiment, but it's also considerably shorter than the previous version. The best mission statements are short and state the obvious. My editors would be clamouring for me to take five words out of that, even so.
Most of the talk focuses on where we've been to get to this point, and sort of suggests vaguely where we're going - though immediate questions that come to mind are, "Is any of this ever going to work on lower-end hardware?" and "Will editions of it ever run on the $100 laptop?"
That's not to say it's not nice to hear from Philip. Since 2005, he's been increasingly far from the Second Life eye. Traveling, doing talks and meetings.
I spoke with him, briefly, in May last year - in Second Life - and honestly, at the time he sounded tired, and maybe a little despondent. I got the impression that he'd build the best and most amazing toy in the world - the most startling machine - and had no time to take pleasure in it. A few minutes here and there to dash around and find something cool, and then off on a plane to somewhere.
It's good to see that he's still feeling passionate about Second Life. Let's hope both the short term and longer term goals he has set out here are achieved and that he can start to take pleasure in his dream coming to life once again.
