Re: [ogpx] VWRAP Draft Charter - 2009 09 01

[Carlo Wood <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, Sep 02, 2009 at 02:41:37PM +0100, Morgaine wrote:
> Joshua, this draft of the charter reads a lot better than the previous ones,
> the iterations are definitely helping. :-)
> 
> Admittedly, our job has been simplified tremendously by knowing that VWRAP will
> not address interop between VWs, so that we can focus on the single-world
> building aspects of the work.  This is good.  (Not ideal but still very
> useful.)  We could have been here already on the 20th August if my call for
> clarity had been accepted.
> 
> The following is worth noting:  because you still have not spelled out that the
> protocol does not allow for more than one world to be mentioned (it never talks
> to a peer world), the workgroup will probably continue to receive input from
> people expecting VWRAP to be a VW interop protocol. 
[..snip..]

Morgaine,

I think that Meadhbh's standpoint is not that VWRAP shouldn't allow VW interop,
we just failed to understand eachother.

I think I now FINALLY start to understand what she's been trying to say,
so let ME try to give you a clear explanation:

The refusal to define "virtual world" is, imho, irrational and apparently
based on the fact that the MMOX effort failed because they couldn't get
an agreement on it's definition. Fearing that any attempt to define
it in this group would lead to a failure again, Meadhbh dogmatically
refused to even consider talking about it. A definition of the term
"virtual world" is taboo. Not rational, but lets just accept that
as a fact. After all, the solution is simple: use a different term!

I've seen some people the term 'grid', but also that isn't very
clearly defined (although not as much taboo).
A better term however is apparently "Region Domain".
"Region Domain" is defined within OGPX namely, and means something
along the way of:

* A collection of regions run by a single entity (in the trust model).

What WE consider a "single administration", or, for example,
the current participants like Linden Lab, or people running
a given VW/grid using OpenSim right now is as good as synonym
for "single entity in the trust model."

Therefore, your (and my) view of "virtual world", namely a
collection of regions run by a single administration, who obviously
can decide to use any arbitrary inter-world protocol, and therefore
which ALSO can be defined more technically by being set of regions
that define VWRAP endpoints at it's boundary, is the same as a
"region domain"! :)

Hopefully this clarifies things and I propose to start using
"region domain" instead of "virtual world", because the last term
is not usuable in a technical context without clear definition.

Most importantly, Meadhbh/Joshua et al ARE concerned with
allowing interop between different region domains and definitely
think that this is an important part of VWRAP.

The main difference, I think, is that they are mostly interested
(from their background with LL) in a tight trust model where
there is no room for "stealing content" without legal consequences
while you and me, and Cable Beach, think that the VWRAP universe
will benefit most from a nil trust model. We'll just have to
make sure that VWRAP will allow as much as possible with as
little trust as possible. I think a win-win solution is definitely
possible here.

-- 
Carlo Wood <[e-mail]>