Re: [vwrap] Networked Communication of Objects: some thoughts

Christopher, your post
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/vwrap/current/msg00528.html of a few
weeks ago and its linked PDF gave me much food for thought.  Web-oriented
communication with objects in virtual worlds is useful, but it seems to me
that this is really just a subset of a larger field of interest:
communication *between objects* in virtual worlds.

It's rather remarkable that throughout the long AWG->OGP->MMOX->OGPX->VWRAP
process, we never considered inter-object communication between VWs.  Yet,
communication with and between VW objects is undoubtedly an important aspect
of VW interop, as it provides essential mechanisms for integration.

That was a failure on our part, probably caused by excessive familiarity
with the largest commercial VW service, which unfortunately doesn't
recognize the existence of other virtual worlds and the need to communicate
with them.  We need to do better than this if we're trying to bring in a
future of interop.

Since we're already defining an abstract data type and some serialization
formats to carry it, why don't we extend the role of these definitions to
inter-object communication as well?  It's a relatively small step from LLSD
to an LLSD-based messaging format --- the only additional requirement is a
scheme for VW object addressing so that an LLSD-formatted message can reach
the right object in the intended virtual world.

I can think of several ways of achieving this in a flexible way, and
numerous applications for it.  Perhaps it's worth discussing?

Morgaine.

=======================================

On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 4:54 AM, L. Christopher Bird <zenmondo@gmail.com>wrote:

> Before we turn off the lights...
>
> I have recently written a paper Entitled Networked Communication of Second
> Life® Objects using LSL, php, and MySQL. And it can be found at
> http://flynnos.org/Networked%20Communication%20of%20Second%20Life%20Objects.pdfIts short so I will wait while you read it.
>
> So this got me to thinking, though my application is specific to Second
> Life, there is no reason that communication between objects in various grids
> with non-persistent URLs could not be obtained with a simple extension to
> this method.  Though my method specifically uses the LSL HTTP server (which
> I believe up to this point is not reproduced in the OpenSimulator LSL clone)
> any object in any virtual space that can send and receive HTTP requests
> should be able to join in one of the networks described in the paper.
>
> The best part is that this is built on existing standards and all that is
> needed  in any virtual world to implement something like this is an HTTP
> channel to your virtual object.
>
> Thoughts? Criticisms? Comments?
>
> -- Christopher (ZenMondo)
>
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