Upheaval at Linden Lab: Cory Ondrejka out
There's a major kerfuffle going on at Second Life publisher Linden Lab.
According to the virtual world blog Massively, Linden Lab CTO and employee No. 4 Cory Ondrejka has been asked by CEO Philip Rosedale to leave the company.
And Linden Lab itself has confirmed that Ondrejka is leaving, though it hasn't publicly explained whether he was fired or left on his own.
Either way, this is very big news in the Second Life world because Ondrejka has been there from the beginning, wrote the Linden Scripting Language and has been the engineering lead all along.
But according to an e-mail posted Tuesday by Massively that appears to be from Rosedale to Linden Lab employees, he fired Ondrejka over irreconcilable differences.
Here is the text of that purported internal e-mail written by Rosedale, which, it should be noted, was provided to Massively by someone presenting themselves as a Linden Lab employee:
"Cory is going to leave LL. He has been with us for 7 years, and was the fourth person to join. So this is a big deal. Cory has been a huge part of the company, having designed big parts of SL, hired many people, contributed greatly to the culture, and given a powerful voice to SL and LL. Among other things, he had the original design idea for the love machine, single handedly wrote the scripting language, and got us all doing A&Os back in 2001. Losing him will be hard for the company. I will miss him a lot. What's worse is that ultimately his leaving is my decision.
"Cory and I have differences in how we think Linden should be run, differences that in the past few months have become irreconcilable. These are tensions that were more manageable when we were smaller, and there have been times that they have helped us do great work together. But now, as we change and grow as a company, I feel that we need a different set of strengths in engineering leadership. I strongly believe that this is the right decision, although not without pain, for both LL and Cory. Of course, I'm not going to go into the details of these differences. This is one of those times when, in having me as your leader, you will also have to trust me in my decision."
If this situation is for real, it would be pretty big news. As any regular user of Second Life knows, the virtual world has many technical problems that have gone unfixed for years. Who exactly has overseen attempts to address those problems is not entirely clear to me, though Ondrejka, as CTO, certainly had some oversight.
On the other hand, as CEO, Rosedale obviously also has oversight over such issues.
All we can say for now is that Linden Lab seems to be in a bit of a state of chaos, and that's certain to last as the dust settles.
Stay tuned for more on this.
Update, 8:17 p.m. PST: In an e-mail response to a query from CNET News.com, Linden Lab provided a statement. Further, a Linden Lab representative said someone would be in touch on Wednesday.
The statement, issued on behalf of Rosedale, read: "I can confirm that Cory Ondrejka, CTO, will be leaving Linden Lab at the end of this year, in order to pursue new professional challenges outside the company. I wanted to take this opportunity to publicly thank Cory for his tremendous contribution to the company and to Second Life, in terms of its original vision and ongoing progress.
"As it grows, the needs of our company are changing, and the role of CTO, or technical lead, has also evolved. Therefore, Cory and I are in agreement that our paths, at this point in time at least, lie in different directions. During Cory's tenure the engineering team has grown tremendously, and given the breadth and depth of our technical expertise, we do not foresee any impact on our development plans.
"Together, we've produced great things in the development of Second Life, and I know Cory will go on to achieve excellence in his chosen field.?
Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and everything in between. E-mail Daniel. 
That said, we are so much more than our physical bodies, and in a sense this separation is as inevitable as any rite of passage, as Linden Lab shifts from the small band of visionaries to a more sustainable (and sadly) less interesting multinational corporation with all the assets and liabilities of the same.
Cory may be leaving Linden Lab, but he will never leave Second Life, even if he chooses to. As much as any infant is made up of the genetic contributors, Second Life is built on the sweat and blood of it's engineers and other loyal employees.
Cory will always remain the greatest sword fighter in this world.
Respectfully,
Sundog Sakai
Cory, the work you've been a big part of at Linden Lab has brought me and many other folks a great deal of pleasure. Thanks.
(make the servers more stable and satisfy your paying using base), whereas Phil is just looking to milk the PR machine by adding on hype driven drivel and pop and flash 'new' interface tools.. gag me with a spoon.
Hope you do well Cory, SL will miss you.
Mitsu~
SL resident
Now imagine others catching onto this!
Sorry to see that no linden dollars can be bought at stores like I can with itunes at the check out lanes.
Cory was one of the only real tech people that knew what was wrong. Others are just well wish they knew as much as cory. Its not going to be easy release Cory. But then again the game is so bad now if we have 2 years left we be lucky.
- Goodbye Cory - SL is going to town now.
- by ram.perpe December 19, 2007 10:58 AM PST
- Sadly this seems to be the last nail in the second life adventure coffin, As much as I grumbled on LSL radical changes in the code's core, I still hold the highest respect for the language itself and to the one man who created it ? Mr. Ondrejka.
- Reply to this comment
-
(7 Comments)If there is one thing Mr Ondrejka supported was fair play and high morals, especially on fair trade and protecting creator?s rights, it?s not the first time we see LL taking the dark path of unfair trading, mostly by simply looking the other way as copy bots and other illegal ?toys? ripped and embezzled all the fun (and profit) out of second life members.
Yes, this ship is going to town. I simply recommend to all of you out there to bail out now - just like in any pyramid game.
With that I am still left aghast to see large companies from small and somewhat ?left behind? countries still spills money in, second life in 2008 will be focused on setting a ?bail out? path to LL original team members as they ?sell away? second life to people with no idea of innovation and artistic creation, less then making some more money on the backs of the poor souls that failed to exit.