Re: [mmox] IETF policy question

[Morgaine <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 9:45 PM, Jon Watte <[e-mail]> wrote:

>
> As for concrete proposals: I've tried proposing actual, concrete actions,
> and I then back those proposals up by describing how I see the needs of the
> market and the future, integrated, multi-vendor metaverse. I believe that's
> a solid, requirement-based engineering: Given problem statement X, a
> proposal Y is mapped to solve that problem.
>


Indeed, you have done that, and it was very useful.  Unfortunately, you then
jump from that helpful input to a "take it or leave it" S-S package deal in
solution space, instead of trying to unify your requirements with what
already exists.

We have to build upon the universe as it stands, rather than force everybody
into the same model (you often say this about OGP after all).  That universe
includes architectures in which clients are intelligent and gain massively
by direct contact with remote worlds, as well as architectures in which all
contact is through servers.  That's how things are, and we need to come
together and find protocols that are helpful to both.  (And let's not forget
C-C or P2P worlds as well.)

OGP is a barebones framework that can embrace all of these models, if we
require it to do so:  *OGP client endpoints* can be opened by the servers of
another world, for example.  Nothing precludes that, and we could quite
easily make the specification reflect this mode of usage and also provide
more helpful capability for server-based client endpoints, a merger between
OGP and LESS concepts.

Unless we take this kind of unified approach that embraces all our models,
we will continue to pitch alternative package deals at each other and get
nowhere.

A concrete suggestion:  As I see it, what little exists of OGP already
supports connection of servers that are proxying on behalf of non-OGP
clients, albeit rather poorly (for example, it assumes 1 connection per
avatar).  I suggest that we examine in depth these assumptions that are not
very favourable to S-S interop, so that our protocols can address all modes
of operation effectively.


Morgaine.








On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 9:45 PM, Jon Watte <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Morgaine wrote:
>
>> Heiner, your question presupposes that incompatibilities make it
>> impossible to find common areas of interop, and you then ask what the IETF
>> can do about it.  I think that your premise does not reflect the actual
>> situation, but only reflects that some parties have not been willing to
>> build bridges so far, and just keep making position statements instead.
>>
>>
> I think we should come out and say what we mean. Saying "some parties keep
> making position statements" is too imprecise. Saying "when person X says Y,
> I don't understand how this relates to a concrete virtual world
> interoperability standard" would probably be more helpful.
>
> As for concrete proposals: I've tried proposing actual, concrete actions,
> and I then back those proposals up by describing how I see the needs of the
> market and the future, integrated, multi-vendor metaverse. I believe that's
> a solid, requirement-based engineering: Given problem statement X, a
> proposal Y is mapped to solve that problem. One of the problems, I think, is
> that different parties on this list have a different concept of problem
> statement X. Thus, having vastly different ideas about what Y looks like is
> not surprising.
>
> What is frustrating to me is that I have not actually gotten any response
> from the Linden people about the concrete proposals; neither on the problem
> statement proposal, nor the specific concrete action proposals. All I have
> gotten a detailed response to is some, but not all, of my critique of the
> currently available OGP proposals, mostly to tell me that I'm wrong because
> my assumptions are wrong and the pre-existing AWG-derived assumptions are
> right.
>
> These concrete proposals of mine have otherwise gotten some positive
> response from the Open Sim community, and other non-Linden-derived
> participants, and mostly absent response from other parts of the Open Sim
> community.
>
> If we can't agree on assumptions (and there's a real chance that we can't),
> then all the bridge building in the world won't help us, unfortunately.
> That's why getting the assumptions and use cases down first is crucial.
>
>  If MMOX were an /engineering/ team, the way ahead would be clear.  We
>> would break down the problem space into pieces based on the needs of many
>> different worlds, and then we would find a model and protocol for decoupled
>> services that is applicable to all the architectures involved.
>>
>>
> I agree! In engineering, you start with requirements.
>
> That's why I posted five detailed use cases for virtual world
> interoperability.
>
> I have since asked explicitly for other use cases to complement the ones I
> contributed, but nobody has stepped up to the plate -- in fact, nobody from
> Linden Lab even replied to the use cases as posted. And for some reason, the
> chairs of the BoF meeting excluded the use case slides and presentation from
> the actual meeting, even though it was on the agenda. I inserted myself at
> the end to at least make the concluding proposal that perhaps we should
> solve smaller problems in different WGs, rather than one big WG that tries
> to solve everything VW related in one swell foop.
>
> However, I am also definitely getting the feeling that the majority of the
> active people on this list are mainly interested in achieving near-term
> Second Life / Open Sim interoperability specifically, and not interested in
> engineering a standard that would be generally accepted and implemented by a
> majority of VW vendors/platforms (most of whom aren't even members of this
> list). If that turns out to be the end result, then it probably should come
> as no surprise that those not interested in that particular facet would bow
> out.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> jw
>
>