[mmox] taxonomy of topics

[Meadhbh Hamrick (Infinity) <[e-mail]>]

so... what started as a pleasant little proposal to take our (the  
awg's) pleasant little protocol (ogp) kick it around in public (the  
mmox mailing list) and potentially generate some RFCs from it seems to  
have spawned a number of discussions. _all_ of the discussions are  
interesting, but perhaps not all of them are germane to the proposed  
task.

so i ask.. is it appropriate to limit the discussion here to the MMOX  
Charter, LLSD, OGP and HyperGrid with occasional reference to the IETF  
IPR Disclosure Policy?

to be sure... we _are_ in the stage where the charter is important to  
discuss... but i'm just wondering... and these questions are here to  
spark _conversation_, not radical debate. there are rational answers,  
pro and con, to each of these questions and teasing them out is  
important...
	* why would we care about HLA, DIS or IEEE-1278? they're already  
standardized. (though understanding that the structure of something  
like OGP differs from the structure of these protocols _is_ important.)
	* why do we care about OLIVE, which is a proprietary protocol with a  
single implementation?
	* why do we care about MXP whose apparent dependence on another  
protocol with unclear IPR encumbrance gives some people on this list  
the willies.

so the questions i pose are...
	* pursuit of which of these topics brings us to our goal of an  
interoperable virtual worlds?
	* what does it mean to be interoperable?
	* must we have early agreement on all topics before we move forward  
with any component?

* OGP (Open Grid Protocol)
	* should OGP be named something else?
	* how do we do the event queue? (COMET? Bayeux? RHTTP? Long Poll?)
	* where do we stuff permissions in this model?
	* OGP/Teleport is not HyperGrid
* LLSD
	* why is LLSD different from XDR? ASN.1? Google ProtocolBuffers?
	* 128 bit integers? good enough?
	* should LLSD be named something else?
	* XML serialization
		* maps are too much like apple plists in the XML serialization.
* MMOX Charter
	* we should rename everything
	* we should abandon interoperability in favor of general agreement of  
model
* IETF
* Virtual Worlds in General
	* Previously Established Protocols
		* HLA, DIS, IEEE-1278 and related protocols
		* OLIVE
		* MXP?
		* VRML
	* Representation of virtual objects
		* meshes vs. prims
		* interaction models for virtual objects
	* Intellectual Property Regimes for Virtual Worlds
		* Creative Commons (awesome gateway to free culture or the ultimate  
embodiment of evil in the noosphere?)
		* DRM (the only way i'll trust you with my content or the ultimate  
embodiment of evil in the noosphere?)
	* permissions regime
		* MPEG-21?
		* must we mandate the SL-style c/m/t permission?