[ogpx] OGPX Charter+Intro ambiguity in Virtual World vs Virtual Worlds

[Morgaine <[e-mail]>]

A number of weaknesses in the current OGPX charter have been described by
others.  Here I would like to point out one more.  It might be merely the
result of inconsistent wording, or it might reflect an important scoping
issue for the protocol suite -- it's hard to tell.  Either way, the
ambiguity should be addressed and removed.

The problem arises because of ambiguous use of the terms "Virtual World" and
"Virtual Worlds" without explicitly stating whether they are both one and
the same or distinct.  When we read this loosely with the help of our 2-year
prior backround in OGP, the charter seems understandable, but when analysed
for independent meaning (as newcomers to the project will need to do) it is
more confusing than enlightening in its terminology, as I'll explain.

At the heart of the problem is that the key reference document
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hamrick-ogp-intro-00 (Open Grid Protocol:
Introduction and Requirements) refers to just a single "virtual world", and
hence it is out of step with the more common notion that there is a
multiplicity of virtual worlds which wish to interoperate.  "Virtual world"
seems to be conflated with "virtual universe of virtual worlds" or
metaverse.

To illustrate, http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hamrick-ogp-intro-00 refers
to a single virtual world as follows (taken from various paragraphs):

"This protocol is intended to carry information about the *virtual world*:
its shape, its residents and manipulatable objects existing inside the *
world*.  The objective of the protocol is to define an extensible set of
messages for carrying state and state change information between
*hosts*participating in the simulation of the
*virtual world*."

"OGP assumes *hosts* operated by multiple organizations will collaborate to
simulate the *virtual world*.  It also assumes that services originally
defined for other environments (like the world wide web) will enhance the
experience of the *virtual world*."

"The OGP suite assumes that multiple *hosts* will participate in simulating
the *virtual world*."

"The *virtual world created by OGP* is intended to be hosted on systems from
several different administrative domains."

"Initial placement and movement in the *virtual world* is an intricate
interaction between *hosts* in the agent domain (which maintain information
about the avatar's presence) and *hosts* in the region domain."

"If an avatar moves out of the *virtual world region* managed by a
particular *simulator* and into a new *simulator*, the client must initiate
the transit to the new *simulator*."


The above are just a few examples, but there are many others.  Tthe document
is completely self-consistent in this use of "virtual world" throughout:
there is no mention of *interop between virtual worlds* at all, but only
between regions of a single virtual world, or worse, between
implementation-dependent "simulators".

In other words, draft-hamrick-ogp-intro-00 describes the *one-world paradigm
of Second Life*, and not the interop between SL and an Opensim-based grid,
nor interop between Opensim-based grids, nor interop between single
Opensim-based worlds or anything else.

That's the background to this.  Now let's look at the draft charter.

The charter starts off by talking about "Virtual Worlds (VWs)", clearly
acknowledging that there are many, and referring to them as "applications".
In paragraph 2 it then declares that a goal of OGPX is "to provide an
application-layer wire protocol for Virtual Worlds to enable
interoperability between applications", and then immediately in the same
paragraph jumps into the SL-speak of draft-hamrick-ogp-intro-00:  "The Open
Grid Protocol (OGP) will describe semantics and protocol interaction for the
virtual world".  The mixing of "world" and "worlds" continues in paragraph
3, and then the 5 bullet points refer to a single world, but the points are
introduced by the sentence "The Open Grid Protocol will define virtual
worlds with the following assumptions."  Confusion reigns.

This might be the result of nothing more than typos and/or inconsistency of
wording, rather than any intended one-world agenda.  Whichever it is, it's
very confusing when one is trying to establish the intended meaning of what
is written.  For the charter to be useful to the group, its meaning should
be plain and the phraseology consistent.

First of all, the *intent of OGPX* needs to be clarified.  Then the charter
needs to be improved to reflect this intent unambiguously.  And finally, the
various drafts will need revision if they are inconsistent with the amended
charter.


Morgaine.





==============================================================
*Reference*:   *OGPX DRAFT CHARTER* (including here as the MIME type on the
original file appears to be broken):

*Area and Area Directors:*

Applications Area

Lisa Dusseault <[e-mail]>

Alexey Melnikov <[e-mail]>

*Responsible Area Director:*

TBD

*Mailing List:*

[e-mail]

http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ogpx


*Description of Working Group:
*
Virtual Worlds (VWs) and other Massively Multi-Party Online
Applications (MMOs) are of increasing interest to the Internet
community. Innumerable examples exist of such applications, most
using proprietary protocols. With their roots in games and social
interaction, Virtual Worlds are now being used increasingly in
business, education and information exchange. With a growing user
base, creators of such systems are interested in developing a
standard virtual worlds protocol to enable interoperability.

The objective of the OGPX working group is to provide an
application-layer wire protocol for Virtual Worlds to enable
interoperability between applications and provide for access and
exchange with other systems on the internet such as web services,
e-mail and other information storage systems. The Open Grid Protocol
(OGP) will describe semantics and protocol interaction for the
virtual world, independent of transport, though bindings for
carrying OGP over HTTP will be defined.

The core work of the group will be the production of the Open
Grid Protocol suite (OGP), a set of application protocols to
communicate and interact with the state of Virtual World
applications. The Open Grid Protocol will define virtual worlds with
the following assumptions:


   - The Virtual World exists independent of the participating clients.
   - Users have a single, unique presence in the virtual world.
   - The virtual world contains persistent objects.
   - The virtual world may be partitioned.
   - Presence, state and simulation occur on authoritative hosts.


Further details regarding the structure of and requirements for virtual
worlds described by this group may be found at the document Open
Grid Protocol : Introduction and Requirements

Foundational components of the Open Grid Protocol include the publication of

   1. an abstract dynamic structured data system, suitable for describing
   the application protocol in a transport-neutral manner,
   2. clear semantics and mechanisms for carrying OGP messages over
   message-oriented transports with request/response semantics,
   3. guidelines and mechanisms for host and user authentication and
   confidentiality,
   4. an application-layer protocol for establishing the user's presence,
   5. an application-layer protocol for moving a user's presence from one
   authoritative host to another,
   6. format descriptions for objects and avatars in the virtual world, and
   7. an application-layer protocol for identifying agents, and requesting
   information about them.


*Goals and Milestones:*

   - December 2009 "OGP: Requirements and Introduction" to the IESG as an
   Informational RFC
   - December 2009 "OGP : Abstract Dynamic Structured Data" to the IESG as
   Proposed Standard
   - December 2009 "OGP : Foundational Concepts and Request-Response
   Transport Bindings" to the IESG as Proposed Standard
   - April 2010 "OGP : Guidelines for Host Authentication" to the IESG as an
   Informational RFC
   - April 2010 "OGP : Service Establishment" to the IESG as Proposed
   Standard
   - April 2010 "OGP : Client Application Launch Message" to the IESG as an
   Informational RFC
   - April 2010 "OGP : Simulation Presence Establishment" to the IESG as
   Proposed Standard
   - August 2010 "OGP : Primitive Object Format" to the IESG as Proposed
   Standard
   - August 2010 "OGP : Digital Asset Access" to the IESG as Proposed
   Standard
   - December 2010 "OGP : Entity Identifiers" to the IESG as Proposed
   Standard

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