At present, all I can source is what has been implemented, I would like to see a timeline showing features that are going to be implemented and when.
This will allow me to make two large decisions.
1) Is Sansar for me?
2) What is going to be the functionality of Sansar, what is being planned and for when?
If you search the forums and join discord and go to product meetups you'll find most of the things you are asking for have been answered several times over.
We've been asking for a road map for close to a year now. We're generally lucky if we know what's coming in the next monthly update.
Discord is terrible, you find nothing back. The want to know to much. It's to realtime. Still a bad choice. The could have improved the forums and use that.
Meetings did go down to at some point and where not interesting anymore. Also there's not much changed in sansar in that time.
QUOTE [
GindippleToday at 13:11If you search the forums and join discord and go to product meetups you'll find most of the things you are asking for have been answered several times over.
We've been asking for a road map for close to a year now. We're generally lucky if we know what's coming in the next monthly update.]
There is the deal, If every person had to search a forum for such basic information, then it is an indication, the platform is sunk.
Using a voice comm for such things is as archaic as relying on chinese whispers, the internet is here, and you have persistent information from the horse's mouth. Or that is how it needs to be to remain current. Anyone worth their salts knows, the only thing sourceforge forums attract and IRC is those of a high tech knowledge, Sasar is aimed at the mainstream user, if it fails to engage them in a useful way, they are lost for good.
Linden Labs has a roadmap and I am asking to see it. It is a must for survival of any platform, given the amount there is to choose from.
I kinda have to agree with Gindipple on this. If you want to get a better idea of what's coming, get involved. Watch some of the Discord channels. Ask questions there; specific ones, not general "what's up?" questions. Go to product meetups. Make friends with regulars like me who have some insights. Subscribe to the forums here; especially Bug Reports and Feature Requests.
I think LL has taken the tacit stance that they are better off not publicly committing to a specific timeline. They believe that we will pillory them when they fail to meet certain deadlines. I think we are more flexible and understanding than they give us credit for. But also, if they commit in detail to deliverables and timelines, we are bound to be disappointed for the simple reason that they don't even know, internally, what they are.
LL is trying to take something of a laboratory approach to innovation. There's high level oversight of the research, but small teams are in their separate labs trying to see what they can come up with in pursuit of high level goals. And it's better to wait until a given cake is fully baked. It might take 5 more minutes than expected, but it'll taste better.
So don't expect to ever see a real roadmap like you want. Instead, get to know the people involved. They reveal a lot if you listen carefully.
In any business there is a product/resource timeline, no matter if that changes, it is always there. This is not a whimsical playground, Linden Labs is investing time, money, people to this venture. They have to know from the outset what is going to be achieved as a foundation of user abilities to gain projected returns.
In other words, a business plan. I am not asking for the whole plan, that is way too broad and to be honest, none of our business. A business plan asks questions like why?
Primary goals/keystones would include such elements as the implementation of the Oculus headset, types of media hosting. API's, material handling basics etc. When resources need to be available. Without that plan, a project will fail within the first few weeks if not sooner.
What the plan also shows, is what function/feature needs to come online in the correct order. What's more important from the perspective of the post is, is the persistence of the information, not a meandering pathway over 400+ posts on forums.
Using the ilks of discord for hours to 'join in' won't cut it either. Timelines come into play, I live in the UK, I would surmise users don't live near me or even Linden Labs employees. Pre-Planned meetings are ok unless real life intervenes.
Any new user is going to join the growth stream at some point along the way, where history is missing or diluted. As I run several businesses, I portion my time and effort. Spending time scouring forums and spending hours on voice comms, to find out if a feature will be included, will not simply happen. I need to know if Sansar is the tool I need to provide my services to my clients. Hearsay and chinese whispers are the minefield of most forums.
I know quite a few of Linden Lab employees from a variety of departments, dealing almost exclusively within Second Life for the best part of 10 years+ That is the sole reason I am here tbh. If Sansar is going to be Second Life reaching into the next decade, then it is a good place to invest. Currently there is no Second Life V2 from a business perspective.
So, can I see the plan please?
Best we can tell the road map is "fly by the seat of your pants"
Most of us gave up asking for one.
I wish you luck in being the guy that gets us one.
Yeah. I don't actually think LL's business plan or roadmap has the kind of information you describe in it. I'm betting their business plan for Sansar has descriptions of broad goals like "accessible via desktop, VR headsets, and mobile devices" and targets for basic metrics like peak number of concurrent users per day by date X.
It's clear that LL does have a meaningful road map internally. But as I said earlier, I think it too has fairly broad targets that are goal-oriented like "advanced lighting model" or "broadcasting visitors across instances" and do not necessarily have the fine details spelled out. Part of why I'm sure of this is that LL regularly tells us about the open questions they are still trying to answer and often asks our opinions about those open questions. When they do, they typically tell us about some of the pros and cons they've discussed and about experiments they've done so far. What I'm describing is the "lab" approach. And the simple fact is they don't know in advance how long it will take to bring some new feature to fruition. This is realistic. Trying to force that into a future timeline is not.
I totally agree with your frustration about the difficulty of getting your hands in the dirt here. And especially with the challenges of showing up for meetings that are at inconvenient times. I miss a lot of meetings for this reason. Practically speaking, nobody can tap into every source of information about Sansar's development. We all get a fragmented view.
Nevertheless, whether you think it should be this way or should not, it is this way. You will get more insight into how the sausage is being made if you integrate yourself with the community more. It takes time. You want answers immediately and proactively. Good luck demanding it.
I can revert to emails :)
The reason I don't, is because it is not documented and shared. Copy pasting has its own issues.
I found the sort of information I was looking for from Sansar, but as nicely laid out gnant charts from Space.
https://trello.com/b/jUeF6CYM/sinespace
Space has some merit but seems to around the same development stages as Sansar (early days). I like the idea for developers, that interests me a lot, moreso as they offer White Label opportunities.
With 25+ full builds awaiting a hosting solution in addition to the ones already hosted, Space literally offers a solution from that business plan.
I am not so sure it has the quality I have seen in Sansar, time will tell.