Re: [mmox] One more time: The LESS model vs the Generic Client model

Morgaine <morgaine.dinova@googlemail.com> Mon, 16 March 2009 12:15 UTC

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Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:15:50 +0000
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From: Morgaine <morgaine.dinova@googlemail.com>
To: Jon Watte <jwatte@gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [mmox] One more time: The LESS model vs the Generic Client model
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On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 4:30 AM, Jon Watte <jwatte@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>> <Morgaine>: Generic clients are completely inevitable
>>
>
> That is your opinion, but you seem to present it like scientific fact.



It is not scientific fact, it is just practical fact.  When I ask you to
consider the 7 reasons why generic clients are here to
stay<http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/mmox/current/msg01016.html>(and
there are many more than 7), it is only to recommend that you do not
attempt to sweep back the tide.  But I can only take this so far before I
and everybody else gets bored with it.  Ultimately if you wish to deny
yourself interop until you have successfully swept out the tide, that is
your right, but I doubt that many people wish to wait that long.



> There are some generic clients, for some worlds. If I understand you
> correctly, you believe that there will be one or more clients that will
> actually connect to most virtual worlds in existence. Am I understanding you
> correctly?



You have *almost* correctly expressed the goal of MMOX:  to create a
protocol or protocol suite that will allow most worlds (current and future)
to talk to each other and thereby achieve a useful measure of "interop", ie.
sharing of world concepts, *as perceived in their clients*.  Notice that
word, *clients*.

The client is an inseparable part of this because the sole purpose of
interop is to gives *users* (operators of clients) the perception of a
mashup.  Everything else (for example servers) is a means to an end, an
important means but just a means nevertheless.  The servers could disappear
entirely and interop would still be possible, but not the other way around.

I strongly recommend that this discussion about whether clients are relevant
to interop be brought to an end, because it serves no purpose and just
delays progress.  If you don't wish to place a protocol endpoint on a
client, then don't.  Everything else still applies.


Morgaine.







On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 4:30 AM, Jon Watte <jwatte@gmail.com> wrote:

> Morgaine wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 8:12 PM, Jon Watte <jwatte@gmail.com <mailto:
>> jwatte@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>    Actually, I have seen the Open Sim people propose and argue for
>>    the "generic client" concept.
>>
>>
>>
>> Generic clients are completely inevitable
>>
>
> That is your opinion, but you seem to present it like scientific fact.
> There are some generic clients, for some worlds. If I understand you
> correctly, you believe that there will be one or more clients that will
> actually connect to most virtual worlds in existence. Am I understanding you
> correctly?
>
> I think that generic clients that connect to many different kinds of
> virtual worlds are not only a bad idea. They are way too expensive
> considering that they solve only a pretty trivial problem (the problem, in
> the status quo, that you need to switch clients when switching worlds). Note
> that generic clients do not give you the mash-up capability of using objects
> that come from two separate worlds in a common space. Only one of the two
> options of "dictate the server execution environment" or "server <-> server
> interoperability" gives you that (unless you're aware of some model I'm not,
> but are holding back). That's a problem I think adds tremendous value, and
> moves the metaverse substantially forward.
>
>  that they're already here in our midst
>>
>
> If I understand you correctly: You believe that a client that can only talk
> to Second Life derived virtual worlds is "generic"? That's what I'm hearing.
> Do you also believe that the Metaverse.net client is "generic," because it
> can talk to all the difference virtual worlds built on the Metaverse
> platform?
> Do you believe that the OLIVE client is "generic" because it can talk to
> all of the virtual worlds built on the OLIVE platform?
> If you mean something else, please point me at concrete examples.
>
>
>> But we are talking about clients involved in interoperating worlds, not
>> the total number of clients in existence.  Since worlds of different types
>> do not currently interoperate, talking about the clients they use doesn't
>> seem very relevant.  Looking at the
>>
>
> I think it is very relevant! It's simple economics:
>
> Broad adoption of a standard only happens when it significantly improves
> the status quo, such that the engineering necessary to adhere to the
> standard costs less than the benefit of adhering to the standard. If the
> status quo means that you can visit different worlds, and the adoption of a
> standard means that you can visit different worlds, faster, but otherwise
> changes nothing, then the value of that standard is the value for the users
> in being able to switch between worlds faster.
>
> My argument is that that's pretty low value, and thus will not incite broad
> adoption. My argument is also that if you're to build a generic client that
> reaches even 50% of all the virtual worlds out there, you have to either
> incorporate a large number of different protocols, OR you have to convince a
> large number of virtual world vendors to re-do their client/server
> communications stack to a common format. Both of those alternatives have a
> very high cost associated with them.
>
> Note that I'm not talking about broad adoption among "Second Life Users" or
> even "World of Warcraft Users" (a group 10x the size of the former) -- I'm
> talking about adoption within governments, companies, non-profits, churches,
> countries and everyone else who is currently virtual world illiterate. Our
> job is to make sure that using virtual worlds makes sense for those people;
> that it can transform the way they live their lives and do their work for
> the better.
>
>  You can view this as client proliferation (they're all different) or as
>> clients coallescing and tending towards a single generic client (they're all
>> based on a similar model), but however you view it, both the genericity and
>> the proliferation are here to stay. ;-)
>>
>
> Let me see if I understand you correctly:
> You believe that the Second Life model is actually superior, and will
> prevail over all other virtual world models?
> That's what the above sounds like you're saying to me, but I want to make
> sure I understand you clearly.
> In my view, nobody but the Second Life / OpenSim sphere is trending towards
> a common generic client, and the reason that Second Life / OpenSim are
> "trending" towards that direction is that they all started out from the same
> place to begin with.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> jw
>
>