Subject: [ogpx] Definitions of terms to be used in my (our?) communication

From: Carlo Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:00:06 +0200

A) A smallest partition

  REGION

B) A collection of adjacent regions run by a single administration

  ISLAND or ADJACENT REGIONS

C) A collection of adjacent regions's run by different administrations
   (which very likely use the same TOS etc)

  LAND, or CONTINENT when larger.

D) A collection of continent's that are not adjacent but still fall
   under the same TOS, likely use the same inter-world protocols
   and organisation-specific extensions etc (likely, they will
   have their own website and their own Abuse Report team etc).

  VIRTUAL WORLD

E) A collection of Virtual World's that have totally different
   administrations and possibly different TOS etc, but which
   interoperate (ie, you can pass on a Landmark of one VW to
   a person you meet in another VW).

  GALAXY

F) The whole of all Galaxies that do not interoperate, but still use VWRAP.

  VWRAP UNIVERSE

G) The rest that use the term "virtual world", but do not use VWRAP.

  MMOX UNIVERSE

Please state if
* you have problem with me going to use these terms consistently in my posts
* you will use these terms with the same meaning
* you wish to give these terms a different meaning

I understand there is also something called "REGION DOMAIN", but
I have no idea which of the above that would be as it's not my
term and it was never discussed.

-- 
Carlo Wood <[email-masked]>

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From: Kari Lippert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:34:50 -0400

Personally I would drop the use of "LAND" and  "ADJACENT REGIONS" but
I think these terms, as defined here are the right set based on the
lengthy conversations I started yesterday morning. Using these terms
it should now be rather trivial to restate the Charter in a way that
captures the essence of the effort's intent.

Kari

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Carlo Wood<[email-masked]> wrote:
> _______________________________________________
> ogpx mailing list
> [email-masked]
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---

From: Meadhbh Siobhan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:08:13 -0700

hey carlo,

just as a fyi, we have some _slightly_ different terms/definitions in
OGP/VWRAP than in SL. just a reminder, OGP/VWRAP is decidedly not
legacy SL protocol. (sorry if i sound like a broken record about that)

but before i comment on these terms, let me point out that while this
discussion is interesting and germane to the subject of virtual
worlds, it is a bit out of scope for a discussion about the charter.
so, can we just for right now, just use the terms that have been
defined in the way that they're defined and get through the charter
bashing?

i PROMISE you, that we'll get back to terms in more detail, and
honestly, i like your use of the term "universe."

in the current OGP/VWRAP documents, the term "island" and "galaxy" aren't used.

your use of the term "region" is different than the way it's described
in the intro doc. what you call a "region" below, we would call a
"region domain." what we call a "region" is the set of data used to
represent a collection of adjacent points in the virtual world. i'm
hoping that the verbiage in the draft charter makes it clear that
services that export information about the region or provide an
interface to modify the region's state go through a single region
specific URI. the "simulator" is the server process that maintains the
region's state and processes service requests. the "simulator host" or
"region host" is the machine itself that the simulator process runs
on.

further, a "domain" is a collection of resources administered by a
single entity. thus a "region domain" is a collection of regions that
are run by the same entity, and presumably _could_ be governed by the
same terms of service, or more importantly to us, could potentially be
considered a single end entity in the trust model.

we haven't put the term "adjacent region" into the doc, and now that i
see you talking about it, i think it was an oversight not to. or
rather, maybe just to talk about "adjacency" in general. for people
who are unfamiliar with SL, adjacent regions are simply regions that
are next to each other in the geometry of the virtual world. in second
life, a region communicates with adjacent regions so the original
region can tell the client the state of assets it's managing, if the
client needs to know about it and policy says the client can access
that information. *whew* in SL, the term "island" sometimes means
regions that have no adjacent regions (i.e. - they're out in the
virtual ocean, all by themselves) or about a virtual landscape that
looks like an island. (obviously, the former is more interesting to
this group than the latter at this moment.)

the terms "land" and "continent" are not defined in the spec. SL uses
"continents" for administrative and (some) billing purposes. we are
not trying to foist this aspect of SL off on the unsuspecting public.
that is, it works well for us to divide things into continents, and if
someone other than Linden wants to do this, good on ya. but, requiring
that this be a part of the specification is not harmonious with our
objective of not having people say bad things about us.

"galaxy" is also not defined in the spec, or by any of implementors
who worked on OGP over the last 2 years.

"virtual world" is defined informally as discussed earlier on this
list. i know morgaine frequently uses the term "region domain" to
describe what we would call a "virtual world."

"VWRAP Universe" is not defined now, and i'm generally loathe to
introduce new terms, but i have to admit, i kinda like this one. but
let's talk about it more later.

about "MMOX Universe.." as far as i can tell, no one is working on
MMOX currently, so we might want to say "non-VWRAP universe" to
describe universes that are not VWRAPish.

---

From: Meadhbh Siobhan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:10:29 -0700

i would go further and say that the discussion of adjacency is
important, but not required for the charter.

we should be able to define the protocol in such a way that adjacency
or non-adjacency are covered by the description of the protocol, and
not special cases that need to be called out in the charter.

-cheers
-meadhbh / infinity

---

From: Carlo Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 00:05:22 +0200

> captures the essence of the effort's intent.

thanks

and since Infinity didn't give replacement terms in his reply
(he only said 'this term is not defined by us in past 2 years')
I see no other alternative than to use these terms.

---

From: Carlo Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 00:29:34 +0200

> honestly, i like your use of the term "universe."

that feels to me ... like pushing it through.

> in the current OGP/VWRAP documents, the term "island" and "galaxy" aren't used.

great then it won't give rise to confusion

> "region domain."

a "region domain" is the smallest possible partition???
I thought a region is a single 'sim' (in SL those 256x256 m^2 areas)

> what we call a "region" is the set of data used to

you lost me there, comparing it with SL (PLEASE! just for clarity!),
do you mean something smaller than 256x256 meter or something larger
with endless sea as boundary?

> "region host" is the machine itself that the simulator process runs

I thought you just said that was a region domain

> considered a single end entity in the trust model.

you said "what we call a "region" is the set of data used to
represent a collection of adjacent points in the virtual world"
and "a "region domain" is a collection of regions..."
Thus a region domain is adjacent? Or not?

> life, a region communicates with adjacent regions so the original

see? a region IS a sim! Then that is the smallest partition, no??
(partition as in 'able to run on separate hardware'; definitely not
talking about parcels)

> this group than the latter at this moment.)

so we have consensus there ((a set of) regions that have no adjacent regions)
I just add that it's run by a single administration

> objective of not having people say bad things about us.

no reason not to use the terms from now on on this list.

> who worked on OGP over the last 2 years.

no reason not to use it on this list.

> describe what we would call a "virtual world."

Yes, Morgaine/Kari/me say: "virtual world" < "region domain", or so
we thought. You say: "region domain" < "virtual world", and still
there is no need to define these terms more clearly, right?

> let's talk about it more later.

not important

> describe universes that are not VWRAPish.

even less important

Now please do the reverse: start with my descriptions and then
give terms that we can use ON THIS LIST - not in the protocol, or
drafts or whatever document - just here - so that we UNDERSTAND
eachother!

Let me fill in what I THINK you have as term...

> > A) A smallest partition 

I still think you call this 'region': in principle it is
possible to run every region on a different host/machine,
there is nothing smaller that could be run on a separate
machine.

> > B) A collection of adjacent regions run by a single administration

you have no term... but we need one.
Make one up, or lets use 'island'

> >   (which very likely use the same TOS etc)

idem / 'continent'

> >   have their own website and their own Abuse Report team etc).

*** THIS IS THE REASON THAT WE HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THE CHARTER ***
because: you don't HAVE a term for this!

That collapses D and E into one, and that is unacceptable.

> >   a person you meet in another VW).

You consistently call this 'virtual world'

---

From: Infinity Linden <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:30:38 -0700

we need to have a normative definition of "land?" i would assert that
the term "region domain" is sufficient, for the purposes of an
interoperability protocol, to define a container for a collection of
one or more regions. i further assert that this concept is distinct
from the concept that regions from different region domains may or may
not be adjacent, and that the manner in which regions geographic
relation to one another is described is independent of the number of
regions in a region domain.

and yes, i did mention the concept of adjacency, and recommended we do
not make adjacent regions a special case, but rather define regions in
such a way that the positional aspect of regions makes it clear that
regions should understand that they need to respond to protocol from
other regions that are defined to be adjacent, when they exist.

and the proper english usage for a person of my gender is "and since
Infinity didn't give replacement terms in her reply (she only said
'this term is not defined by us in past 2 years')."

so... to recap... we've survived for two years without a normative
definition of "land," and i assert some stuff about why. i think we
should define "ADJACENCY" as being an aspect of a "REGION" instead of
defining something called an "ADJACENT REGION" that is distinct from a
"REGION." My drivers license has an 'F' on it, and not an 'M'. (though
honestly, i understand it's difficult sometimes to recognize the
uniquely feminine way in which i type.)

-cheers
-meadhbh

---

From: Infinity Linden <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:31:37 -0700

krunk. had i waited a few minutes to send this reply i would have seen
that i think we're hurtling 'towards agreement.

---

From: Infinity Linden <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:06:48 -0700

> that feels to me ... like pushing it through.

and saying that we don't want to start _any_ work before we all agree
on every term seems obstructionist to me.

> I thought a region is a single 'sim' (in SL those 256x256 m^2 areas)

yes, a region is the smallest possible partition that is defined in
OGP/VWRAP. but OGP/VWRAP regions are not limited to SL's 256x256
geometry. also, we're not trying to force the use of "parcels" and
"estates" as part of OGP/VWRAP. they are, of course, an integral part
of our billing process, so Linden will still support them, and if
people think we need to publicly define the interface and definition
of these terms, we probably would.

but we don't think it's a requirement for non-second life regions to
support our billing infrastructure, so it's probably going to be
defined as a distinct set of resources/interfaces available on linden
region domain(s).

later on if everyone thinks such a thing SHOULD go in the protocol,
maybe, but i don't think people will.

> with endless sea as boundary?

for the purposes of OGP/VWRAP, a region is some data with a couple of
well defined interfaces queried by clients (either client applications
running on users' systems, other VWRAP servers or other information
services (read web applications.) one aspect of a region is it's
shape. the region may choose to define their shape as 256x256m if they
want, and most currently deployed SL regions will likely retain that
shape for the indefinite future. but there's no reason someone else
could define a region to be 128x128m or 512x512m or decide to use an
arbitrary 3d shape to define the bounds of the region.

and though VWRAP will define the concept of a region and SL will
define regions to be 256x256m in the near term, this doesn't mean you
can't define "sub-regions" or "super-regions" or "sectors" or "map
grids" or "stellar cartography instances" in your region domain.

> I thought you just said that was a region domain

no. a "region" is the object graph. the "simulator" is the process
that implements the protocol. the "region domain" is the collection of
regions "owned" by one organization. the "region host" or "simulator
host" is the machine on which the simulator runs.

> Thus a region domain is adjacent? Or not?

a region domain is a collection of collections. the protocol does not
flatten collections.

> (partition as in 'able to run on separate hardware'; definitely not

huh? a region is a region and a sim is a sim.

> I just add that it's run by a single administration

yeah. it's thought that a region will have one root administrator, and
may have 0 or more adjacent regions.

that being said.. we have to be careful when we define who gets to
administer regions in region domains or any subordinate organizations
the region or region domain introduces. i don't want to define things
in a way that OSGrid has problems. and we're going to retain the
feature of our system that estate owners can do things that normal
users can't. but we don't want to force everyone to adopt this model,
so we're not pushing for it to be in the spec, 'cause we really think
there are people out there who don't want to be burdened with
artifacts of our billing model.

> no reason not to use the terms from now on on this list.

yes. there are reasons not to use them. they have no normative
definition and asking people to accept artifacts of our billing model
is asking for trouble.

> no reason not to use it on this list.

why not call it a cartographic set?

> there is no need to define these terms more clearly, right?

yes, but we don't have the need to define the term "virtual world."

>> let's talk about it more later.

LOL. i say i like something and you assert it's irrelevant.

>> describe universes that are not VWRAPish.

huh? you are trying to tell me we should define things that are not
VWRAP as "non-VWRAP" instead of "MMOX" and i tell you there seems to
be no one working on MMOX and you think this is unimportant? really?

> there is nothing smaller that could be run on a separate

i could care less how many machines it's run on. a region has a single
URI used to request its services.

> Make one up, or lets use 'island'

fine. you can call it an island. it is unimportant for the definition
of the protocol. what is important is that regions have 0 or more
adjacent regions and that regions are members of a region domain.

>> >   (which very likely use the same TOS etc)

again. feel free to use whatever terminology you want to use.

> because: you don't HAVE a term for this!

well. sorry you don't want to play with us.

> You consistently call this 'virtual world'

we do not use the term "virtual world" in a normative fashion.