[mmox] An attempt to revive this group: Service Disovery, part 1

[Christian Scholz <[e-mail]>]

Hi there!

This list seems to be quite quiet but I hope we can at least revive some
discussion in it   :-)

In order to do so, I wanted to send out some ideas on what actually
could be discussed here based on some thoughts and interests which have
been circulating here before.

So let me sketch out some ideas.

First of all what has been tried here in the past seems to me to find
consensus on a virtual worlds protocol which reaches from everything a
virtual world does including communications, identity, social
connections, 3D formats, simulation protocols and much more.

Now this apparently hasn't worked out and maybe it actually does not
need to.

The question is maybe more on which subsets of such a protocol could be
worked on together while also including as much as existing components
as possible?

So my idea of a virtual world is actually quite simple: It's a social
network. It's a social network with 3D services attached. Some might
even be just 2D worlds. But technically a virtual world contains most of
the things we usually find in social networks.

Having a 3D environment of course enables a lot of new things and
depending on the type of environment maybe even the community is
influenced and creates certain behaviour, commerce etc.

Now after thinking a bit about it I wonder if we also really want to
reduce all that variety of environments we have today to one single
experience or format/protocol. I think we don't. There is lots left to
invent in this space and there are already a lot of existing and
exciting services out there all being driven by their unique approach to
the problem.

Moreover of course there is some strong business interest to not
recreate the whole environment as esp. 3D related projects tend to me a
lot more resource hungry than e.g. implementing a REST API (think of 3D
clients, protocol benchmarking etc.).

So what maybe can be done more easily than standardizing a complete 3D
virtual worlds environment is to try on discussing certain components to
make this whole framework a bit more modular.

In the past I talked already a bit about service discovery and how
services and users can advertise what services and data they own and
where they are. Add some authorization layer to it and you have a
initial idea of modularity.

In my next email I would like to introduce some existing protocols or
such being worked on which could be helpful in that area. I also would
like to introduce a basic concept on how these can work together.

Besides that I met with Heiner Wolf at the Barcamp in Cologne and we
discussed something along a VW protocol and what some use cases could
be, you can find the notes at
http://socialconnect.info/trac/wiki/vw_protokoll

I also started a prototype of some VW based on Ogre not so much for
inventing new 3D protocols but for testing the integration between
virtual worlds and normal web based social networks. Once I win my fight
against integrating Python, Ogre and some GUI I will hopefully present
it to you.

But that's maybe enough for my first email. I hope that MMOX is not dead
because I see it as one of the few places where at least some vendors
came together and started discussion. I'd really to keep this discussion
alive but maybe not so much centered around what each party is willing
to change or not to change but maybe more focused on general exchange of
ideas or experience. Maybe some common ground can develop on that.

-- Christian


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