Re: [ogpx] one virtual world, or many?

[Meadhbh Siobhan <[e-mail]>]

so. this is an interesting one.

those of us who called for the OGPX BoF are in agreement that the term
"virtual world" is informational only. it is evocative of the problem
domain, but yeah, difficult to pin down. we explicitly used the terms
"region domain" and "agent domain" and "client application" to avoid
having to define the term "virtual world."

our intent is to define terms that are consensus based, germane to the
standards effort and necessary.

i think introducing "virtual world" as a normative term would be akin
to introducing terms for "the web" or "an intranet" to a protocol
document like RFC2616. it is informational, but not a requirement to
specifying the protocol. further, defining "the web" or "an intranet"
or a "virtual world" may artificially limit future options.

for example, when HTTP was first under development, important features
of "the web" weren't deployed (like the "behind the firewall"
deployment pattern commonly thought to be core to the term "intranet"
or the wide-spread use of ECMAscript for enhanced interactivity in web
applications.)

my feeling is that we're at the same place with "virtual worlds" right
now; we're at the beginning of process rather than the end. defining a
"virtual world" to be limited to a specific area of the problem domain
could be interpreted as precluding this protocol's use in other, yet
to be imagined, applications. imagine, for example, that at the time
that HTTP just started attracting attention and people started using
the term "the web" someone suggested that gopher sites should not be
considered part of "the web."

this actually did happen... i was actually in a conversation in 1993
where people asked whether it was considered appropriate for legacy
gopher services to be accessible while their content was moved to HTTP
access. because the ambiguously defined term "the web" was introduced
into a formal statement of work, we had to actually spend cycles
defining it. ultimately we were able to do this because the term is
defined in an ambiguous manner; we were able to argue that the web
should be defined in terms of the content accessible to the user, and
not in terms of the protocol used to access that content or in the
precise manner it is deployed. had the term "the web" been defined at
that time to be limited to information accessible via HTTP, there
would have been unfortunate and unintended consequences.

this is why a number of us are concerned with efforts to define the
term in a normative fashion.

if we start by saying the virtual world is defined as being "all the
places an avatar can go," does this mean that information that comes
into the virtual world by way of web protocols, from web sites
intended to be used by traditional web browsers is or is not part of
the virtual world? or what about two "worlds" that only share a single
region? are they simultaneously part of the same "overworld" and part
of distinct "subordinate worlds"?

but still... part of the reason we came to this forum was to get
feedback, and it's starting to sound like we want to have at least a
working definition of the term, if for no other reason than to evoke
an intuitive understanding of the problem domain.

if we want to define a meaning for the term "virtual world," let's be
clear that the definition is non-normative.

for related reasons, i'm reticent to say that the collection of
distinct existent virtual worlds combine to make "the" virtual world.

is it possible to move the definition of "virtual world" to the intro
document? i would assert we have sufficient interest in the problem
domain to establish a working group, and that the definition of the
term "virtual world" is orthogonal to this group's initial efforts.
(why do we need to get hung up on the definition of the term when the
specifications do not use the term in a normative fashion? it's like
saying we can't work on HTTP because we can't decide whether resources
accessed by GOPHER are part of "the web.")

-cheers
-meadhbh / infinity

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 8:40 AM, Dave CROCKER<[e-mail]> wrote:
> Folks,
>
>
> Pre-game.
>
> Confusion and disagreement that includes the term "virtual world" is proving
> tenacious, in spite of extensive and substantive discussion.  Typically,
> something this persistent means either that some concept(s) lack shared
> definition or that competing technical paradigms are present.
>
> As was noted many message ago, there's a good chance that much of the
> disagreement is really about the meaning of the term.  That is, that
> apparent
> disagreements about such things as scope of work is really about scope of
> this one term.  That, at least, is my own reading of the discussions.  I
> think people are using the term differently.  If we can get to the point of
> using it the same
> way, my sense is that we will find that disagreements about actual work to
> be done, and its use, are rather small.
>
> In other words, I think the persistence of debate that keeps using that term
> "virtual world" means we have to resolve it before we can make serious
> progress. These sorts of things never seem to go away without explicit
> resolution.  While much of the earlier attempts to resolve this look like
> they helped quite a bit, it seems clear that a bit more effort is needed.
>
>
>
> The wind-up.
>
> Since the crux of the challenge keeps coming back to what interoperability
> will
> or will not be provided -- with at least one additional point about whether
> the
> current work must be used internal to a service or only used /between/
> services
> -- permit me a moment of theft from Internet history and constructs.  I
> think it
> can be applicable here:
>
>   Network vs. Internetwork.
>
>   "A" virtual world vs. Multiple virtual worlds.
>
> But hold on.  I'm not necessarily going to suggest mapping the two sets as
> one-to-one directly...
>
> Originally, a network was a discrete technical set.  X.25.  NCP.  XNS.
> Netware.
> Whatever.  Both technology and administration had the same boundary.  Your
> network might use one technology and mine might use another.  But even if
> they
> used the same technology, one was mine and the other was yours.  So I tend
> to
> view interaction across administrative boundaries as far more interesting to
> internetworking than whether different technologies are used:
>
>   <http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1775.html>
>
> The term Internet has come to mean a single, unified, global service.  It
> crosses administrative boundaries.  Does IBM internally operate a 'network'
> or
> an 'internetwork'?  Either choice is reasonable, depending on what is the
> focus. I think we don't need to resolve the equivalent question here.
>
> There is universal agreement that there is a single global service,
> comprising many independent smaller services, and that that single, larger
> thing is "The" Internet.
>
> What we tend to forget is that there probably are other Internets that don't
> (directly) interoperate with the global one.  They are off "The Internet"
> grid
> and are on their own.  They are likely also "an" Internet.  These days, they
> might be running TCP/IP, but they don't have to.  For example:
>
>   <http://www.dtnrg.org/wiki>
>
> Some uses of "virtual world" appear to mean an administrative boundary and
> others appear to mean a technical boundary. This is the sort of thing we
> need to resolve.
>
>
>
> The pitch.
>
> I suggest ignoring technical differences within an administrative domain and
> even across different administrative domains.  Simply, VWrap is used to
> connect together administrative domains running simulations.
>
>     I'm running one simulation and you are running another.  We use
>     VWrap to interoperate.
>
>     Are we connecting two virtual worlds or is the result a single
>     virtual world?
>
> Some other folk might not interoperate with our unified service.  They are
> running their own thing.  Are they running a different virtual world or,
> perhaps, a different set of multiple virtual worlds?
>
>
>
> The swing.
>
> I suggest that:
>
>     Any set of independent administrative domains that interoperate
>     together, using VWrap, creates a /single/ virtual world.
>
>     Each independent administrative domain is running /part/ of that single
>     virtual world.  (The part might be one Region, or Agent, or it might be
>     many of both or any combination.)
>
>     Hence, I am suggesting that an integrated VWrap environment has a
>     comparable quality to an integrated internet environment that we call
>     "The" Internet.  One service.
>
> If you are running a simulation that is not part of an integrated,
> interoperable
> VWrap environment, you are in a different virtual world.
>
>     If you are part of an interoperable VWrap service, you are in a
>     single virtual world.
>
> It doesn't matter what you run internally.  What matters is integration to
> the
> interoperable service using VWrap.
>
>
>
> Base hit or strikeout?
>
> d/
> --
>
>  Dave Crocker
>  Brandenburg InternetWorking
>  bbiw.net
>
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