Already giving a 'Ship it', as all my comments below address very minor stuff.

indra/newview/app_settings/settings.xml (Diff revision 1)

<nitpick>
Technically, this doesn't show the (main) Map, but an (additional) Mini-Map. And that isn't in the nearby people list, but above it.
</nitpick>

So maybe make this
      <string>Show/hide additional mini-map above nearby list</string>
or
      <string>Show/hide additional mini-map in 'Nearby People' sidepanel</string>

(... or not. Once people try it, it should be clear enough. And hopefully most will prefer using the gear menu over altering the debug setting manually.)

indra/newview/skins/default/xui/en/panel_people.xml (Diff revision 1)

Are the 'top' and 'left' attributes really needed? I guess they default to 0 anyway when omitted ...

indra/newview/skins/default/xui/en/panel_people.xml (Diff revision 1)

<net_map /> is inside <layout_panel />, so it should be indented one level more.

indra/newview/skins/default/xui/en/panel_people.xml (Diff revision 1)

<avatar_list /> is inside <layout_panel />, so it should be indented one level more.

indra/newview/skins/default/xui/en/panel_people.xml (Diff revision 1)

I'd prefer to have the attributes ordered semantically (i.e. 'name' first, 'top' and 'left' right after each other, 'height' and 'width' right after each other etc.) rather than alphabetically. But as the surrounding code also seems to have its attributes ordered alphabetically, we might as well stick to that. Though, then, keep_one_selected should be moved up.

1. Twisted Laws April 14, 2011, 12:54 p.m. (April 14, 2011, 12:54 p.m.)

   I always wondered about the sequencing of these, but I figured that it was some application that 
   made it easier to work on these did that ordering.  The code that reads it doesn't care about ordering.
   As far as if fields are required or not, I've no idea as I don't believe I have any access to any 
   documentation.  Me working on XML files is try it, change it, try it, etc...
   
   I'll leave it sit a little while for any other comments, and then I'll change it as you suggest.

2. Vadim ProductEngine April 14, 2011, 1:03 p.m. (April 14, 2011, 1:03 p.m.)

   The application is the XUI preview tool (Ctrl+T in the login screen).
   It dumps XMLs with attributes sorted by name. Please do so as well.

Looks fine and works well for me, however I don't quite understand why to limit your changes with XML files.
Resizing the mini-map might improve usability.

indra/newview/app_settings/settings.xml (Diff revision 1)

I'd say "nearby people list", not "nearby list".

indra/newview/skins/default/xui/en/menu_people_nearby_view_sort.xml (Diff revision 1)

I'd say "View Mini-Map": by "Map" we usually mean the world map, which is obviously a different thing.

1. Twisted Laws April 15, 2011, 8:45 a.m. (April 15, 2011, 8:45 a.m.)

   I was making the other changes mentioned in the reviews, but this one I question...  imho, putting in View Mini-Map is misleading also as a requirement of implementation was to leave the mini-map available seperately.  I would not consider this the "mini-map".  But I'm open to have it however you (as a Linden) want it.

2. Vadim ProductEngine April 15, 2011, 8:53 a.m. (April 15, 2011, 8:53 a.m.)

   I'm not insisting, that's just my opinion.
   Let's leave it for PO consideration.

indra/newview/skins/default/xui/en/panel_people.xml (Diff revision 1)

Reformat with alphabetic parameter order and place one parameter per line.

That's more diff-friendly and also improves compatibility with the XUI preview tool.

indra/newview/skins/default/xui/en/panel_people.xml (Diff revision 1)

This looks like irrelevant change.

indra/newview/skins/default/xui/en/panel_people.xml (Diff revisions 1 - 2)

Put a space before the "/>" and it's perfect, I'd say.

(I cannot tell whether all the numbers for the positioning attributes make sense, but I guess you would have noticed while testing if not.)

work fine on linux, nothing "evil" visible after some time of usage.