[Opensim-dev] OpenSimulator 0.7.6.1-rc1 and 0.7.5.1-rc1 now available for testing

[Justin Clark-Casey]

Hi folks,

OpenSimulator 0.7.6.1-rc1 and 0.7.5.1-rc1 are now available for testing [1].

These are minor point releases on top of 0.7.6 and 0.7.5 respectively - these are not branched from master development 
code.  As such, they only contain a few bug fix changes.

The chief motivation for this is to provide official releases that do not suffer from the appearance exception bug 
described in [1].  To summarize, the addition of newer avatar visual parameters to master development code has revealed 
a bug in the handling of visual parameters in existing releases.  This triggers exceptions in the receiving simulator 
and means the avatar will never de-cloud.  Unfortunately, there's no way to work around this bug.

Because these parameters are only present in development code, you only need these releases if you might be receiving 
avatars from such simulators.  So uf you're operating a closed grid using only OpenSimulator 0.7.6 (or earlier), for 
instance, then there's no need to update.

That said, I have taken the opportunity to include some minor bugs fixes in OpenSimulator 0.7.6.1-rc1 [3].  0.7.5.1-rc1 
[4], also has some additional changes, though nothing major afaik except for the appearance fix.

Because there are changes other than the appearance code fix, I have decided to issue release candidates first.  So if 
you see problems with the rc1 which were not present in 0.7.6 or 0.7.5 respectively, please report these in the Mantis. 
  However, I do not anticipate this to be a long RC phase.

Because these are minor releases, you should be able to safely copy over existing configuration files from 0.7.6 or 
0.7.5 respectively.  I also don't believe there are any database migrations, though, as always, you should backup your 
database before updating.

I am doing a 0.7.5.1-rc1 release as well as 0.7.6.1-rc1 because I know some people did not/could not update from 0.7.5 
(released in Feb 2013).  However, I have no plans to update older releases.

[1] http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Download
[2] http://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/opensim-dev/2014-January/012135.html
[3] http://opensimulator.org/wiki/0.7.6.1_Release
[4] http://opensimulator.org/wiki/0.7.5.1_Release

-- 
Justin Clark-Casey (justincc)
OSVW Consulting
http://justincc.org
http://twitter.com/justincc