[ogpx] VWRAP future (mostly out of protocol ramblings)

[Magnus Zeisig <[e-mail]>]

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In the future I think we will have a VWRAP metaverse similar to how the web works today. The VWRAP protocol will enable both private persons and major organizations to set up and interop, to the degree each entity wants, their own corner of the virtual world with the rest of that world. Just like on the web, we will see entities running "intra-metaverses", totally shut off or only to a limited degree open to the public. We will probably also see attempts by some major entities, just like e.g. Microsoft Network, to set their own standards and believe they are big enough to force others to adapt to those standards, and we will probably, just as was the case with Microsoft Network, see those attempts fail.

In the beginning, there will probably be a few major players with a head starts and server parks, and a multitude of small players, running their pieces of the virtual world using e.g. OpenSimulator, on their desktop or laptop computers. Many of the small players will probably have the very simple policy of "If you want to connect, welcome, regardless of your credentials, but if you misbehave I will kick you out." In time, some of those small players will grow because they serve interesting content or create social networks with many users/visitors. Most of them will probably see a need to develop more strict policies to enable administration of their services at all, so they don't have to spend all day kicking abusers returning time after time with new identities, disrupting the experience for other users.

Those service and domain managers requesting some kind of trust domain to allow others using or connecting to their services and domains will either cut themselves off from all those small players running their domains or services home in their kitchen or cupboard, ease up on their demands for domains of trust, or simplify the procedure so that the necessary domain of trust can be established via electronic signatures on the first connection. If they choose to remain cut off from the rest of the metaverse, they will probably soon be forgotten islands in the sea of tens or hundreds of thousands minor domains and services interoping more freely.

The point is that the VWRAP protocol will not proscribe how you should run your service, open or as a walled garden, small or big. It will permit you to interop to the degree you chose yourself, not forcing you to interop any more or less than that. Other factors, like international law, national legislation, ISP TOS, organization policies and such, may force you to set limitations or raise requirements on with who and how you interop, but VWRAP should offer you the tool to do so, regardless of if you want, or are forced, to run a strictly regulated walled garden alone or including a few trusted peers, by supporting the communication needed for policy-enforcement, or run a no-holds-barred free-for-everyone operation, by not requiring the use of any policy-support whatsoever.

Best regards,

Magnus


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Från: Morgaine [mailto:[e-mail]]
Skickat: den 8 oktober 2009 11:42
Till: Magnus Zeisig
Kopia: [e-mail]
Ämne: Re: [ogpx] Protocol for permitting policy decisions

Magnus,

If ADs are involved in region policy, then in the multi-world deployment pattern, AD2 will have to be consulted when agent A1 teleports from RD1 to RD2, because AD2 will be involved in region policy too.  It's symmetric with AD1.

This is what Joshua wanted to avoid, and it can only be avoided by not giving ADs policy control over regions, otherwise symmetry requires that AD2 be consulted as well.

It's this kind of problem that reinforces what David's been saying about the right mess we currently have when talking about domains determining policy.  The AD/RD split was reasonably adequate when OGP was only extending a single world with policy-free regions, but it is insufficient to do a good job once we get into multi-world deployments with more complex service and policy patterns which require much more flexibility.


Morgaine.


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