[ogpx] one virtual world, or many?

[Dave CROCKER <[e-mail]>]

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