GRID-WIDE - Just when you believe Linden Lab does not actively listen to the paying residents they never cease to amaze. Whilse facing one of the biggest PR disasters of recent times, Linden Lab has taken a miraculously large step back and has reassessed their desire to enforce Dazzle, with no alternative option, upon the residents of Second Life.

As I documented in April, Dazzle caused major concern across the Second Life network. Its bright user interface could be held accountable for eye strain and migraines, and is also not ergonomically suitable for those users with varying degrees of color blindness.

The complaint was not specifically against Dazzle: it was against the inability to easily revert to the old style, or for a user friendly option to skin the client, if Dazzle affected a resident with the health issues mentioned above. With a massive amount of votes and comments on the two Dazzle specific JIRA entries VWR-5059 http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-5059 & VWR-5080 http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-5080 it now seems that Linden Lab has listened to the worried residents.

In the latest Second Life Blog post, Ramzi Linden announced the release of RC11 with 39 crash fixes and the news that Linden Lab will not ship the Release Candidate until it has working skin-ability. "To start, we are now developing a solution to VWR-5059 - “Ability to switch between the new/old theme” - and will ship that before finalizing the official Second Life Viewer 1.20. Therefore, in the coming weeks, please look for a couple other iterations of this Release Candidate, but perhaps not as frequently. We will deliver an RC12 and RC13 before finishing this 1.20 Release Candidate cycle," he wrote.

Linden Lab may have taken their time, but I am sure I and the hundreds of non Dazzle supporters are both in favor and somewhat in shock at this latest development. Potential PR disaster almost averted.

Trinity writes news and commentary at Rez Magazine