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

[Meadhbh Siobhan <[e-mail]>]

morgaine. thanks for the intro into this subject.

OGP defines interoperability between the hosts implementing "a"
virtual world. this virtual world may be "the" virtual world if there
are none other apropos to the conversation at the time. the intro
document uses the term "the" virtual world to emphasize the fact that
within an OGP protocol interaction, for the purpose of that
interaction the endpoints are concerned with THE SAME virtual world.

that is, for the purpose of protocol interactions, both endpoints are
assumed to be participating in the simulation of the same virtual
world. OGP is not a protocol for providing interoperability between
different virtual worlds (such as between a Croquet virtual world and
an OpenSIm instance.) it is a protocol that communicates application
state transitions about THE SAME virtual world.

when the OGP specifications use the term "the virtual world" it is
assumed they are talking about THE virtual world under discussion to
differentiate it from other virtual worlds that might exist.

note that this usage is in keeping with several previous standards
efforts. X.500, for instance, describes "the directory" yet it is not
assumed that there will be a singleton instance of a directory. this
is different from "the web" which in common usage seems to imply a
single collection of protocol endpoints (even though we're probably
all aware that some clients have access to intranet web sites that
clients outside a specific administrative domain do not have access
to.)

that being said...

the authors of the OGP specification believe that OGP is capable of
providing an "internet scale" virtual world, so who knows, in a decade
we may be talking about "the virtual world" the same way we talk about
"the web" today.

so... to recap... the objective of the OGPX working group is to focus
on the OGP family of protocols. it is not to attempt to bridge all
virtual worlds with a common access protocol. this may one day happen,
but that work is more appropriate for the MMOX group. the definite
article in OGP specifications underscores this focus. protocol
endpoints in an OGP protocol transaction are concerning themselves
with state transitions or queries in the same virtual world, not
distinct virtual worlds.

-cheers
-meadhbh

On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 1:46 AM, Morgaine<[e-mail]> wrote:
> 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
>
> an abstract dynamic structured data system, suitable for describing the
> application protocol in a transport-neutral manner,
> clear semantics and mechanisms for carrying OGP messages over
> message-oriented transports with request/response semantics,
> guidelines and mechanisms for host and user authentication and
> confidentiality,
> an application-layer protocol for establishing the user's presence,
> an application-layer protocol for moving a user's presence from one
> authoritative host to another,
> format descriptions for objects and avatars in the virtual world, and
> 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
>
> ============================ END =========================
>
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