Saturday 18 September 2010

I have a dream

I have a dream, that can be summed up in one line: "A non-admin user should be able to compile a working Second Life viewer with one command."

For Linux, this means the following workflow should be possible:

1. Install Linux from a CD or DVD

2. The root user installs a certain set of system packages with something like apt-get. Only system-provided packages, not using some random person on the net's repository.

3. A non-root user downloads the source code for a viewer, most probably by cloning a version control repository somewhere

4. The same non-root user issues one single command. This command successfully builds a fully functional Second Life viewer.

As you may expect, none of the viewers I've tried so far pass this test on my system, which is Ubuntu 10.04 x86_64. Therefore, if I can get motivated enough, I will fork one of the existing viewers and make it possible. Obviously I will concentrate on x86_64 Linux as that's what I know, but it would be great if experts on Windows or Mac systems could help make it possible on those platforms too.

I envisage the new viewer project as primarily a viewer for developers, for people who want to compile their own and get stuck in adding features or fixing bugs. I believe the current difficulty of compiling viewers puts off would-be contributors, so we must work to change it!

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