Re: [ogpx] VWRAP Draft Charter: 2009 08 28 revision

[Carlo Wood <[e-mail]>]

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 02:30:55AM +0200, Carlo Wood wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 11:27:08AM -0700, Infinity Linden wrote:
> Going with the definition that "virtual world" is from the perspective
> of the user (every place reachable), I think that using "a virtual world"
> is less confusing, and I'd rewrite the above paragraph as follows:

After reading Morgaine's comments, I have to agree with her ...

There is no consensus on the way you defined Virtual World. I'm very
unhappy with it.

The only argument you gave was that (in the future) a "world" would
be perceived by users as all regions reachable and that it would be
confusing to talk about multiple worlds for that reason.

But that's not really a good argument; "World" and "Planet" are close
enough for not seeing any reason not to allow multiple worlds
to be reachable without confusing users, after all, you can also
travel to different planets.

For the working group and our effort however it is, I feel, ESSENTIAL
that we come to an agreement on what 'Virtual World' means and
everything seems to scream "Second Life" / "OSGrid" / kgrid / DragonsWorld
and all-what-not: the currently existing, independent worlds that
seek interop. That is what most people think of when you say "a virtual world".

In the end we'll have simulators, or regions, partitioned land,
for scalability reasons.

Simulator:

	R

Some regions will be adjacent, forming one "island", or just "land".

Island/Land:

      RRRRR
     RRRR
     RRRRR
      RR 

These Regions might be run by different administration, but I'm sure
there can be consensus about them being tightly bound in terms of
regulations; for example, the same ToS, the same set of accepted
Agent Domain Providers, and so on. In fact, so tight that it's
not worth mentioning. This is what YOU think of when we talk
about "multiple administrations" that form one World.

Lets envision this by using an 'r' for a different administration:

Island/(main)land/continent:

      RRRRR
     RRRR
     Rrrrr
      rr 

But no new word other then "distinct organizations" is needed.

Then, of course, there can be more than one island. I have to agree
with Morgaine here that it is NOT wise to use the word "World" here,
simply because of the major confusion. The charter is full of
sentences with the word World used in this way however; so you
cannot delay it's definition.

Note that there is no need to use more than two "distinct organizations"
for a set of islands under one tight regulation, like a single
island, like "Second Life" at the moment. Lets call THAT "(virtual) world":

Virtual World (W):

      RRRRR	          
     RRRR       rr          
     Rrrrr      rr            RRRR
      rr             R  R      RRR

              
	      rrrr
	      rrrrrr
	       rrrrRRRR
                  RRRRRR
		    RRRRR


Then finally, we have multiple Worlds, each of which should as
much as possible allow to be separated in terms of administration
and regulations as much as possible. This will not be anything
as tightly coupled as (the administration) of a single island,
or a World like "Second Life".

Lets call a collection of collaborating Worlds (that have at least
SOME interop and (thus) all use VWRAP) "Galaxy" for now:

Galaxy:

    W   X

    Y   Z

Again (from a previous post), I think that the coupling between
these "galaxies" are the real challenge of this group, comprising
a very important goal of our task. Special care and attention
WILL be needed, as opposed to the coupling of two R's, or even
on R and a an 'r': that already exists (ie, Second Life) and it
will be easy to write down what protocol is used there, since
we can assume any level of trust at *that* level.

We need to aware at a very early point that this difference exists,
and thanks to Morgaine, we are-- or at least, I am at this point.

We NEED a new term, if only for internal use within this group.

I propose "Galaxy" (to replace your definition of "Virtual World")
and then use the term "Virtual World" for (sets of) Region Domains
where we need to concentrate on demanding as little as possible
in terms of trust or regulations in order for the protocol to deliver
some form of interop.

-- 
Carlo Wood <[e-mail]>