Oskar Linden leaves Linden Lab

Daniel Voyager

SL Breaking News

Oskar Linden today posted on the SLUniverse Forums that his employment at Linden Lab was terminated on Friday 2nd November 2012. This relates to last weekend rumors about Oskar Linden being fired via SLUniverse Forums. Sadly the rumors have been confirmed by Oskar Linden and questions will be asked about his departure now for weeks to come i’m sure. I think many appreciated Oskar Linden’s work and SL/LL communications over the years. Oskar Linden was Lead QA and Server Engineer who will be missed deeply by the SL community. I wish him all the best for the future!

Update

Maestro Linden will be be taking over Oskar Linden Server Beta Group Office Hours weekly in Second Life.

(Snapshot above: Oskar Linden in early 2011)

The weekend rumors recently I didn’t want to publish anything because it wasn’t official until now. I’m glad its all been cleared up on the rumor side of things. Oskar Linden explains what’s happening in via the SLU thread below…

To solidify all rumors, yes my employment was terminated by Linden Lab last Friday. It was a surprise Skype call with the manager of my department and HR. At the same moment all my accounts were locked and I was told a courier was on the way to my house to take my laptop. This is standard operating procedure at the Lab. The reasons given were quite vague, but at the root of it was complaints from a griefer who I had banned from a private testing sandbox that I managed after he was harassing people and threatening to crash them and the region. 

I was also told that there were issues with my communications. I don’t understand that because I have operated in the role of public communicator for the lab for three years and have always had stellar reviews. It’s not like the reasons really matter anyway. When the Lab wants you gone it’s over.

To be quite honest this has all come as a surprise and a shock. I have known for a while that this would happen eventually though. All Lindens fear ‘the skype call’. The old Linden culture is long gone. Many Lindens are disappeared in that way when the Lab no longer has use for them. It has been difficult working through the changes at the Lab the past few years. I could have left, perhaps I should have left on my own. I would have been better off. I did not choose to do so because I was dedicated to the wonderful residents I have met during my 4 years working on SL. I was committed to all of you and committed to making Second Life and Linden Lab a better place. I felt I was fighting the good fight and didn’t want to just run away. I felt that I was making a difference. I hope that I did.

I have no idea what is next for me. I have varied passions that I will follow until I feel the need to pursue further employment.

I have nothing disparaging to say about Linden Lab, in fact I am not legally allowed to because of the wording of my separation agreement. 🙂 Linden Lab is cotton candy and kittens, unicorns and rainbows. 

I greatly appreciate all of you who friended me and were so passionate about helping me make Second Life a better place. Your enthusiasm to help find bugs greatly helped the quality of the server code. You are all amazing. You are Second Life, not Linden Lab. Never forget that. I love you all and will miss working with you greatly!

o_Oskar

Farewell Oskar Linden and thanks for everything SL!

23 thoughts on “Oskar Linden leaves Linden Lab”

  2. A company is only as good as the company it keeps. Experienced people are vital, I would have thought, but then, again and again, LL does the opposite of what intuitively seems correct.
    I’m sure you’ll have no problem landing another job, Oskar, in the meantime enjoy your freedom.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Yes, thats very true about experienced people. I think LL does have experienced people however with new products coming out it seems the focus is there instead.

      I wish Oskar all the best for the future and hopefully we will find something soon.

      Like

      Reply

  4. I didn’t know him, and the way he was fired is simply stupid. Have to say that the server rollouts and performance were more than just jumpy lately, so if his responsiblity was there, the griefer story might not be the only reason, though. Seriously, not being able to leave the harbour with your sailboat, because the sim border infront brings message “Can’t cross into new region because the server versions are not compatible.”?

    On the other hand, as of last weekend the grid lost 2,500 regions alone this year so far…

    Like

    Reply

  6. this is ridiculous! i dont know oscar linden and have never meet him in sl. but i sure know this when i need help on things SL related and i find help next to the help articles online using google, i find oskar name is next to most of them which makes me think what the heck is wrong with LL now? I guess their LL goal is to keep bringing down this wonderful game.Thanks for all the help you left online for us residents to find while we were new at this game Oskar. glad to have finally found you, here..lol. no clue how i got here prob was google search again and i wasnt looking for these bad news..oh well have a great journey . u will be missed a ton. can we do a sl resident riot strike or protest to bring u back? i am just kidding. and yes is not LL runing sl, is us residents adicted to it like i am that makes sl still be a great fun game to be part of it.. God bless you.
    ps: I am telling all my SL friends about this.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Thanks, ines.

      It’s shocking and ridiculous that hes gone after all the good things he did for SL community over the years. It seems to be heading that way – the ship goes under water while others start to rise. hehe a riot strike – thats something ive not heard before and it will not work as the final decision has been made higher up management at LL.

      Spread the word, thanks!

      Like

      Reply

  7. Time to All start thinking of to alternatives!
    1st: Move to Open sim commercial or free grids.
    2nd: Wait and see if all the progress made (and even with all the bad management, nobody can deny that Sl is much better now on some things, like graphics, stability , cross sims and so on!) is worth the hassle of Second Life downtimes getting worse and more frequent and the progress made one week, undone on next one|

    Like

    Reply

    1. Thanks foneco.

      I know many have been switching over to alternatives like opensim grids which seem to be growing more than SL is at the moment. Check out Hypergrid Business latest blog posts and stats page.

      I think if nothing really big happens in 2013 then SL will be like how it was back in the early days. This year fewer residents have logged in as the graphs show on the SL grid survey website and many lost sims this year which is not good news.

      Downtimes and region restarts have been less in 2012 but there have been days that its been offline for 5+ hours or more.

      Like

      Reply

  8. That method is pretty standard is Silicon Valley.

    The reason sounds strange. From his PoV, it seems as if he was let go because he stopped a griefer. That just can’t be right. It has long been rumored that many griefers -were- connected to or in fact LL employees (The whole FIC thing, the Woodbury thing, the persistence of attacks on Prok, etc). But even if those rumors had some truth to them – most of the old lindens are gone.

    So why would they side with a griefer over a Linden in such a dramatic way?

    Curious.
    In the sort of way that makes one wonder what really motivated this.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Thanks Pussycat.

      Something else must be happening but that info we will not know most likely by the lab.

      There’s alot of questions to be asked about his departure indeed. Hopefully Oskar will tell us more soon!

      Like

      Reply

      1. They put a gag order on him as a part of the terms of separation. While that may sound fishy to folks, its also pretty normal in Silicon Valley. This whole area is run by people who are a tad too paranoid. Get fired by the CIA and you can probably spend a week lounging around the office reading documents that say “uber super duper top secret” on them. Get fired in Silicon Valley by a company that has nothing new or secret, just a decade old video game and a minecraft knockoff (Oh yeah I went there), and its like the KGB and the SS get together to punk you.

        I’ve only seen one company in the two decades I’ve been around here that didn’t do a whole routine with armed guards, escorting, securing equipment, and assorted lawyers when people were let go or left – and I’ve not even been fired anywhere…

        I doubt we’ll ever get the details. We just have to shrug at LL’s folly yet again. At least from how it looks from our POV.

        Like

  10. Pingback: Oskar Wild » Ciaran Laval

  11. Obviously the reasons given by LL for Oskar getting the boot make no sense at all. Likely explanation: they just want to downsize, and finding stupid excuses to fire people is a cheap way of doing it. In the civilised world, we call this “constructive dismissal”. It’s illegal and tends to lead to large compensation payouts.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Thanks Slartibartfast for your blog comment and welcome to my SL blog. 🙂

      The reasons given don’t make sense and for that reason Oskar should stay be with LL/SL now. It seems LL are getting smaller or something in company size. The direction has changed for sure and is kind of worrying for 2013/2014+

      Like

      Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.