Subject: [ogpx] Proposal: Change OGPX to...

From: Joshua Bell <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:26:40 -0700

Hey gang,

One of the charter issues we identified coming out of Stockholm was
the name (for both the group and protocol suite). Open Grid Protocol
(OGP)" is historical, used to describe interop trials from 2008, and
the name was carried forward to the BoF/mailing list (with an "X" for
good measure). Linden Lab employees, OpenSim developers and Second
Life residents frequently use the term "grid" to describe the
collection of systems responsible for providing virtual world
services, even if that set of systems would more accurately be
described by the terms "cluster" or "cloud" (or term-of-the-week...),
playing off the grid-like organization of regions on a map.

We received repeated feedback that "grid" was confusing, both on the
list and at Stockholm, in the broader context of the IETF. This was
underscored by at least one person who attended the OGPX BoF in
Stockholm saying they anticipated hearing a discussion about grid and
cloud computing services.

A few alternatives to OGP have been offered, such as "Region Access
Protocol (RAP)" and "Agent / Region Interaction Protocol (ARIP)". The
former discounts the importance of the agent oriented aspects of the
protocol, the latter discounts the "access" aspect of the protocol
which underscores the RESTful nature of the conceptual objects on
either end of a protocol transaction.

>From off-list discussions, here are some new suggestions:

* "Agent Based Open Virtual Environments (ABOVE)" - (as a group name?)
* "Open Virtual Entity and Region (OVER)" - (as a protocol name?)

These have the advantage of being concise, fairly accurate,
pronounceable, keeping "Virtual" in the name, slightly "cute" but not
overly so. They are not humorous or ironic and don't reference
pop-culture. They don't overload "IP" (yay) and avoid "P" in the name
(the dreaded "ATM machine" syndrome.)

Taking these as serious suggestions, could we get rough consensus on
either/both of these? Last call for objections/alternatives?

(To maintain continuity of discussion, we should keep the OGPX mailing
list and other trappings until an actual working group is chartered.)

---

From: David W Levine <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:44:10 -0400

Comment below

[email-masked] wrote on 08/21/2009 01:26:40 PM:

> Joshua Bell <[email-masked]> 
> Sent by: [email-masked]
> 
> 08/21/2009 01:26 PM
> 
> To
> 
> [email-masked]
> 
> cc
> 
> Subject
> 
> [ogpx] Proposal: Change OGPX to...
> 
> Hey gang,
> 

Above seems quite good. Over.. OVER.. well... I am dreading having to 
type:

"When we run OVER over XMPP" 

I have shades of the movie Airplane. "Re: [ABOVE] Running OVER over HTTP 
under CentOs" 

That said,  quite like Above, and could live with Over. Frankly at this 
point, I can
live with almost any name, as long as it doesn't requires a special 
keyboard to type it. 

- David / Zha

> list and other trappings until an actual working group is chartered.)
+1

> _______________________________________________
> ogpx mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ogpx

---

From: Infinity Linden <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:53:22 -0700

okay.. i'll actually not recommend "antaŭ" as a replacement.

but yeah, saying "OVER over HTTP" or "OVER over XMPP" might be a
little confusing. and honestly, i like both OVER and ABOVE. i could
live with either.

maybe we could have ABOVE be both the group name and the protocol?

-cheers
-meadhbh

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 10:44 AM, David W Levine<[email-masked]> wrote:
> Above seems quite good. Over.. OVER.. well... I am dreading having to type:
>
> live with almost any name, as long as it doesn't requires a special keyboard
> to type it.
>
>
> - David / Zha
>
>
>>

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From: "Dickson, Mike (ISS Software)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:56:50 +0000

How about VWGP.  "Virtual World Grid Protocol".

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Joshua Bell
Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 12:27 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: [ogpx] Proposal: Change OGPX to...

Hey gang,

---

From: Infinity Linden <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:09:08 -0700

'cause we're trying to avoid the word "grid."

before the F2F in stockholm, i was one of the most vocal proponents
for keeping OGP. we had a fair amount of history with the name, and i
thought it made sense to keep the name to avoid the confusion a new
name would bring.

right before the BoF, i remember Dave Crocker (and maybe others)
saying something like "you know... some people are going to think this
is not a virtual worlds protocol, but one for provisioning services
and managing a grid or cloud."

my response was (and i'm paraphrasing here,) "nonsense! everyone reads
every word of every working group charter and knows what every other
group is working on!"

immediately after the BoF, someone came up and said.. "yeah. that was
an interesting BoF, but i thought it would be a discussion of managing
grids, you know, regular grids."

so. yes. i have eaten a bit of crow and am now a convert to the idea
that the term "grid" in the group or protocol name is confusing since
the protocol we're defining could work on a grid, a cloud, a cluster
or even a single host (for a small virtual world.)

-cheers
-meadhbh

---

From: "Dickson, Mike (ISS Software)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:12:12 +0000

Well, that's why I qualified it with the VW first.   :-)

So I actually think the grid part *is* appropriate since SL and the worlds being modeled are laid out in one. As opposed say to Activeworlds or Croquet which are more portal based.

So I understand wanting to avoid the confusion with the general grid term but in this case I actually think Grid is important.  OGP is confusing since its not descriptive enough.  I was hoping with the VWGP thingy you're essentially describing exactly what it is. A virtual world protocol for worlds laid out in a grid.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: Infinity Linden [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 1:09 PM
To: Dickson, Mike (ISS Software)
Cc: Joshua Bell; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [ogpx] Proposal: Change OGPX to...

-cheers
-meadhbh

---

From: Infinity Linden <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:23:52 -0700

well.. fwiw... we're not baking the "grid" concept into this protocol.
it's appropriate for worlds that are grids, toroids, spheres,
cylinders or defined by a tensor field. the only requirement is that
the worlds use a 3 dimensional vector to denote locations in the world
and that the world is piecewise smooth.

but yes. in non-grid cases, both the client and the server would have
to agree a priori what the shape of the world is, and all the current
participants are only defining grid-based worlds. so your point is
definitely valid.

at this point i don't know that i care what the name is as long as we
can reach consensus and the name isn't confusing.