Nalates Urriah has a blog post on her blog and a forum post in the official forums regarding problems on the Aditi grid. Aditi is the preview grid, you can read more about it here. Basically this is where Linden Lab sometimes roll out server code for testing, or new features. This is part of the Q&A process.
Customers use it for other matters, I use it for playing around with Mesh, others use it for testing their products because Aditi is a place where you get a wad of Linden Dollars to play around with, so uploads are basically free. However bear in mind that what happens on Aditi, stays on Aditi, you won’t be able to bring your dosh across to the main grid, nor your uploaded products, you’ll need to upload on the main grid again and pay for them.
Now the issue seems to be that Aditi is creaking a little, it’s not a mirror image of the main grid, it has far less land and far less resources. Therefore it requires some housekeeping. Oskar Linden used to do this housekeeping, but of course, Oskar has now left the building and new solutions are being sought. I haven’t had any problems logging into Aditi, but it appears plenty of others have.
The issue was discussed at Tuesday’s Simulator User Group meeting, although the minutes aren’t yet up, but further discussion will be taking place at Thursday’s Server Beta User Group meeting, at 3.00pm SLT I think. There is talk of culling users or culling inventory, or maybe both! No decisions have been taken, but as I said earlier, what happens on Aditi stays on Aditi, so culling inventory won’t hurt your main grid products.
Culling who can access Aditi, this could be problematic. As I said I largely use it to play around with Mesh, which my alts can’t do. Trying to limit inventories is a reasonable suggestion to a degree, but then how will people test large inventory issues on Aditi?
Personally I think the first stage of the Aditi purge should be Linden Lab defining use cases for Aditi, if they don’t want people with large inventories or Mesh uploading on there, then they shouldn’t be afraid to say, it may well be that Aditi has turned into something it wasn’t really intended for.
However if you start trying to define too many rules and regulations, you run into problems in terms of governance and create a rod for your own back. Aditi is a very useful resource, for both creators and Linden Lab. A little housekeeping is not something users should fear, wholesale changes on the other hand, could cause disappointment, but it is, at the end of the day, a preview testing grid.
If you have suggestions, then you should go to Thursday’s meeting, but let’s not forget that this is a resource that Linden Lab are under no obligation to provide us with, even though it is ultimately helpful to Linden Lab for residents to use it.
I sincerely hope this doesn’t head the way of the Jira, because that is a seriously nerfed resource, but as I said, this is Linden Lab’s ball, they can take it home if they want to.