[mmox] The Story So Far...

[Mark Lentczner <[e-mail]>]

MMOXen -

I thought that it would be good to give a recap of how we got to where  
we are...

By mid-2007 there were at least two independent development efforts  
that were trying to be interoperable with Second Life, despite there  
being no official way to do it: LibSL and OpenSim.  At Linden Lab, we  
saw that as healthy, and indication that there was clear interest in  
building toward interoperable virtual worlds. In September of 2007,  
Linden Lab called together a group of interested users, including the  
LibSL and OpenSim projects, and formed the Architecture Working Group  
(AWG) to help design an interoperable architecture and protocol.

In the Spring of 2008, the first drafts of the Open Grid Protocol  
(OGP) were published. Rather than simply writing down Second Life's  
existing protocol, these documents took new ideas, melded with what  
the community learned about interfacing with Second Life, and boot- 
strapped a wholly new protocol.  Working through the Spring and Summer  
of 2008, Linden Lab, first with IBM, and then later with a wider range  
of the community, demonstrated interoperability between Second Life  
and OpenSim, having avatars teleport back and forth between the  
worlds. At the same time, others created another implementation of the  
protocol, PyOGP, to be used for testing and for building other  
interoperable components.

By the end of 2008, since there were now several OGP documents  
written[1], and several implementations, it seemed to us that the time  
was ripe to bring this work to the IETF: Some of these protocols would  
need things like registered MIME types, and all would benefit from  
more input to the work. In that context, along with the fortuitous  
location and timing of IETF 74, Linden Lab and IBM requested creation  
of this mailing list, and a BoF session for IETF 74. While we realize  
that OGP has a long way to go, building a working group at a standards  
body also takes time, and felt that we should get started now.

During roughly the same span of time, two other consortia efforts got  
under way.  One is the MPEG-V group which is looking at information  
exchange formats and interfaces with the physical world.  Their last  
published documents are from May 2008 and are a set of project  
requirements[2]. The other group is the Virtual Worlds Roadmap SIG,  
started by Intel, Samsung, Electric Sheep and others to develop a  
broad case analysis, roadmap and timeline for adoption of virtual  
worlds and their applications[3]. These groups clearly have different  
objectives than the IETF's which is more focused on supporting  
protocol usage on the Internet.  We felt that the required work on OGP  
would be best served by the IETF, whereas more general discussion and  
evolution would be better served by the Virtual Worlds Roadmap SIG.

While there is plenty to do and discuss in order to develop OGP into a  
fully workable protocol, we think it represents an initial shared  
vision of an interoperable protocol and hope it can evolve and grow in  
the context of this group.

	- Mark Lentczner

[1] http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Open_Grid_Protocol
[2] http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/working_documents.htm#MPEG-V
[3] http://www.virtualworldsroadmap.org/

Mark Lentczner
Sr. Systems Architect
Technology Integration
Linden Lab

[e-mail]

Zero Linden
[e-mail]

P.S.: I like "MMOXen".  Makes me think we are bearing the hard work to  
furrow the ground to plant the seeds for the growth of.... okay, okay,  
so perhaps I'm taking that too far.  But I still like "MMOXen".