[vwrap] New progress in VW group IM interop: Jarilo

[Morgaine <[e-mail]>]

Over the last few days, *chat interoperability* between VWs has taken a
significant step forward.

Our AWG friend Latif Khalifa (who also develops the Radegast 2D client and
is part of the libomv team) has created a practical chat bridge between VWs
and classic IM systems, called Jarilo <http://code.google.com/p/jarilo/>,
developed as an open source project.  This currently interoperates Second
Life and/or Opensim group chat and IRC and XMPP conferencing systems, and in
principle could be extended with other IM protocol modules.

Any number and combination of VW chat groups, IRC channels and Jabber rooms
could be bridged in this way.  These individual chat services are
topologically similar in the sense that each defines a flat or single-level
logical grouping of participants, even when implemented across multiple
linked servers.  Jarilo bridges these individual, internally cohesive groups
to form a *metagroup* that does not have the same uniformity, but instead
reflects the diversity of its component subgroups.  Two or more such
metagroups could of course themselves be bridged to create a hierarchical
architecture if desired.

Currently we are experimenting only with triples of component services, each
triple consisting of one SL chat group, one IRC channel and one Jabber
room.  (This is just a choice, not a restriction in the software.)  Two such
triples are currently being tested:


   - The SL group *AW Groupies* (the community arm of the Architecture
   Working Group in SL that was created for interop), the IRC channel *#awg*on
   irc.freenode.net, and the XMPP room *awg* at conference.jabber.org.


   - The SL group *VWRAP Chat*, the IRC channel *#vwrap* on irc.freenode.net,
   and the XMPP room *vwrap* at conference.jabber.org.  *[IMPORTANT:  these
   are informal chat groups and the IETF "Note Well" does not apply in any of
   them nor in the metagroup, despite their VWRAP-related names.]*



(Note that the Opensim-based OSgrid group chat is not currently part of
these tests only because it is non-functional after recent infrastructure
changes.  This is likely to be remedied in short order.)

Because it is an external service, it is easy to see Jarilo as leading
towards the kind of decoupled services that VWRAP will be gluing together
into VW deployments.  It is very noteworthy that this provides chat interop
through client-based interfacing, without requiring interoperable chat
services to be planned and provided by world providers.  This independence
is a very empowering property for VW users, and highlights the point that
David made some months ago about services becoming independent seats of
policy.

Althought Jarilo has only just come into operation and is still at an early
stage of development, it is already providing very valuable practical
experience about both the benefits and the problems of IM interop among
virtual worlds and conferencing systems.

It is important to note that two of the VWs in current use by AWG members
(OpenWonderland and OpenCobalt) employ XMPP for their chat systems, and
hence Jarilo represents real interop of one very important component in
current use by at least 4 different VW implementations.  (Tests between
actual VWs are expected soon.)


Morgaine.