Subject: [ogpx] where does VWRAP fit?

From: Kari Lippert <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 12:04:55 -0400

I present this perspective and ask this question to try to clarify
these concepts within my mind. All I ask is that you run with me on
this and think, not react. I am hopeful that this question and these
simple assumptions might inspire the great thinkers on this list to
forge ahead.

As I understand it, a "virtual place" is somewhere my "virtual
representation" can go.  The "public" calls these the "virtual world"
and an "avatar" for convenience. What the "public" is not necessarily
aware of (nor do they want to be), is what goes on behind the curtain
so to speak. The "virtual place" doesn't exist anywhere, so you can't
actually have connectivity between two of them. You can, however, have
the illusion that two "virtual places" are connected. (Abandon here
all philosophical thoughts ye strain to have about this illusion or
the perception thereof - it matters not for the moment.) In the really
crude sketch that I've attached, this is represented by everything
above the red line.

My view of what really does exist is a set of "services" that create
this "virtual place": a service that handles authentication and trust;
a service that provides logging; a service that provides world
construct management; a service that provides avatar management; a
service that provides visual representation; a service that provides
event management; a service that provides messaging; a service that
provides physical infrastructure; and so on. How a company uses this
set of "services" to create their "virtual world" may vary but it is
my guess that there is a lot of commonality. [As an aside, it is not
necessary that these "services" be implemented in any particular
fashion, such as SOA, so please don't get hung up on that detail.]  In
the sketch, this is shown as a set of colored boxes within a gray
shape. To me, the gray shape is an administrative domain (I
acknowledge that it might actually be only a part of a company even
thought the drawing does not show that. Stay with me here - don't get
lost down a rabbit hole!)

The conceptual commonalities amongst these sets of "services" can be
represented generically. Representing these  commonalities
generically, IMHO, is important for the purpose of developing this
protocol. One can then use a set of generic representations to
describe a "collection of services that create the perception of a
virtual place" which is what those below the red line mean when they
speak of a "virtual world."

My question is where VWRAP fits in this view. The "public" desire is
to have "interoperability between virtual worlds" so clearly to them
it is the double line between the two "virtual worlds." Behind the
curtain, what does that become? Does VWRAP interconnect these various
"services"? All of them one to another, or just some of them? Given
what I understand you wish this protocol to be, I believe VWRAP is
destined for existence at this "service" level - each of these
"services" becomes a VWRAP endpoint.

Ultimately, given the various payloads envisioned for transport using
this protocol (as described generally in the proposed charter), I
believe VWRAP is actually a set of related "service" specific messages
that can be used to give the user a perception of connectivity.
"Services" will then be able to communicate freely without constraints
of "meat world" authority or responsibility.

It doesn't make sense to me to relate what the protocol could be
applied to to what I understand as the notion of "region domain". The
last email interchange hinted at the issue with that. Each of these
"services" could be implemented by a different administrative
authority (the perfect world of the service oriented architecture)
thereby being shared across what I think you are calling "region
domains". I think a more flexible boundary distinction might be to
define a "trust region" - a set of these "services" that can be
accessed without a different authentication [note that I do not mean a
re-authentication to make sure it is still you but rather permission
to cross a trust boundary]. The trust boundaries can be related to one
"meat world" administrative authority or can span several depending on
the trust model they share.

It is my hope that this crude sketch will support your understanding
of my perspective. While I recognize that this view might be a bit
strange (it did come from my mind after all), if it is wrong I would
appreciate your corrective comments, but let's not get hung up on
perfecting this sketch. It is only given to help you consider the
question I ask: Given this view of "services" that create the illusion
of a "virtual place," where (or how) does VWRAP fit? Is it, as I
believe it to be, between the orange "service" and the yellow
"service" so that they may understand and exchange with each other the
aspects of the illusion for which they are responsible?

I hope this helps - I don't want to blow things up again but I do need
this clarity.

Kari

---

From: Morgaine <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:36:59 +0100

Kari's question is a good one, because it highlights the curious gulf that
exists between the user's perspective of *virtual worlds* and the
implementation perspective embodied in the OGP documents.  Much has been
made of the alleged ambiguity and uncertainty about this term, but this is
really not true at all.

*Users* of *virtual worlds* know exactly what the term means, in the same
way that they can distinguish one country from another when they go on
holiday.  People have been living with the concept of different places ever
since they started travelling beyond their village boundary, and nowadays
the popularity of tourism embodies that concept most vividly in the form of
*countries*.  Different countries tend to look different and have different
cultures and different rules (local policies).  This is entirely natural and
instinctive to us.

That concept doesn't disappear when "places" become digital.  Instead the
concept blossoms, because without the constraints of the physical world,
virtual places can be so dramatically different.  The huge diversity means
that "virtual worlds" cannot be defined prescriptively, but there is no
ambiguity at all about the separation and independence of virtual worlds as
a concept.  That concept is hardwired within us from physical experience.
As our imaginations are freed by the technology, the diversity and
independence of virtual worlds can bloom while still enjoying a common
protocol for communication.

The only thing that has ever created any confusion about "virtual world" in
the context of  OGPX is the invention of a completely new and totally
unnecessary semantic for the phrase within the protocol documents, a
semantic that bears no relation whatsoever to normal usage.  I'm glad that
we managed to remove the source of the confusion from the charter, but now
comes the larger task of removing it from the protocol documents as well.

Having removed it, we can then address how VWRAP implements the
user-oriented requirement of interop between multiple virtual worlds, since
removing the "single VW" will allow us to refer to more than one VW.  We've
already been told authoritatively that, as it stands, the protocol will only
connect single regions or a region domain of regions to one single virtual
world, and not interop with a whole other VW.  However, that goal has been
extended recently in informal discussions, with a hint that more than one
Agent Domain could be made to interact.  That would indeed be the start of
interop between multiple VWs, as users know them.

I look forward to that.

Morgaine.

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

On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 5:04 PM, Kari Lippert <[email-masked]> wrote:

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

---

From: Joshua Bell <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 09:15:48 -0700

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 12:36 AM, Morgaine
<[email-masked]>wrote:

> *countries*.  Different countries tend to look different and have
> different cultures and different rules (local policies).  This is entirely
> natural and instinctive to us.
>

And yet, from a formal/legal perspective, things are far more complicated
than this, which is why "countries" is a non-technical term and those
seeking to be precise use lovely terms like "nation-states". Check out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation for some discussion about the
terminology, or think about examples like England which is a country by yet
not a sovereign state; it is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland, which in turn is a sovereign member state of the European
Union (Hopefully I got that right...). Or think of microstates - contested
and otherwise. It's not our job as technology implementers and spec writers
to dictate policy, or disenfranchise the world-view of others.

> virtual places can be so dramatically different.

Agreed. Just as the real world is not simply partitioned into "countries",
virtual places will express far more organizational variety than we can
currently imagine. I don't feel anointed to define terminology for the
future users of such technology.

> world, and not interop with a whole other VW.

There is no such authority that could make such a statement. The draft
charter does not speak in a normative fashion about virtual worlds,
precisely to avoid such claims - based on your feedback!

VWRAP as a protocol suite should provide the framework for moving agents
between regions. Regions are represented as sets of services, which can be
provided by multiple service providers, and within multiple trust domains.

Given that, if you personally define "virtual world" as a set of regions
that are provided by a single service provider, then VWRAP should indeed
provide the framework for agents to traverse those multiple virtual worlds,
policy permitting.

If you personally define "virtual world" as the set of all regions that an
agent can visit (provided by one or more providers), then no, VWRAP would
not allow traversing multiple worlds because, by that definition, that agent
can only experience one such world.

Again, the draft charter text explicitly avoids talking about social
constructs like "virtual worlds" precisely for this reason, based on
feedback from you and others.

---

From: Charles Krinke <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 09:45:50 -0700 (PDT)

I think the country analogy is a good one. As I look at virtual worlds, I would perceive that SecondLife, OSGrid, ReactionGrid and ScienceSim are four seperate virtual worlds, and are analagous to countries.

Each has their own set of central services including avatar authentication, assets, inventory, messaging, search within their grids and the like.

Interop between these four worlds (or countries) will become similar to traversing a border crossing and customs between countries. In that mean that the user authentication, assets and inventory will most likely be tied back to the country of origin (the originating grid) and an avatar travelling from OSGrid to ReactionGrid or from ReactionGrid to SecondLife will have a certain set of privileges and responsibilites partly determined by the underlyiing protocols and partly determined by the policies of the respective grids.

So, this seems to be headed in more or less the right direction. As long as we try to keep in mind that we have a set of peer to peer relationships to consider in order to allow interop between similar virtual worlds.

Charles

________________________________
From: Morgaine <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 12:36:59 AM
Subject: Re: [ogpx] where does VWRAP fit?

Kari's question is a good one, because it highlights the curious gulf that exists between the user's perspective of virtual worlds and the implementation perspective embodied in the OGP documents.  Much has been made of the alleged ambiguity and uncertainty about this term, but this is really not true at all.

Users of virtual worlds know exactly what the term means, in the same way that they can distinguish one country from another when they go on holiday.  People have been living with the concept of different places ever since they started travelling beyond their village boundary, and nowadays the popularity of tourism embodies that concept most vividly in the form of countries.  Different countries tend to look different and have different cultures and different rules (local policies).  This is entirely natural and instinctive to us.

That concept doesn't disappear when "places" become digital.  Instead the concept blossoms, because without the constraints of the physical world, virtual places can be so dramatically different.  The huge diversity means that "virtual worlds" cannot be defined prescriptively, but there is no ambiguity at all about the separation and independence of virtual worlds as a concept.  That concept is hardwired within us from physical experience.  As our imaginations are freed by the technology, the diversity and independence of virtual worlds can bloom while still enjoying a common protocol for communication.

The only thing that has ever created any confusion about "virtual world" in the context of  OGPX is the invention of a completely new and totally unnecessary semantic for the phrase within the protocol documents, a semantic that bears no relation whatsoever to normal usage.  I'm glad that we managed to remove the source of the confusion from the charter, but now comes the larger task of removing it from the protocol documents as well.

Having removed it, we can then address how VWRAP implements the user-oriented requirement of interop between multiple virtual worlds, since removing the "single VW" will allow us to refer to more than one VW.  We've already been told authoritatively that, as it stands, the protocol will only connect single regions or a region domain of regions to one single virtual world, and not interop with a whole other VW.  However, that goal has been extended recently in informal discussions, with a hint that more than one Agent Domain could be made to interact.  That would indeed be the start of interop between multiple VWs, as users know them.

I look forward to that.

Morgaine.

---

From: Kari Lippert <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:02:48 -0400

> provided by multiple service providers, and within multiple trust domains.
Awesome - this clarifies what a region is. It also states that one
region can exist within multiple trust domains.

> provide the framework for agents to traverse those multiple virtual worlds,
Are you referring to "you personally" as the user perspective? If so,
then this is consistent with what I understand.

> can only experience one such world.
If you are abstracting this definition from the start of my question
regarding "virtual place" then you didn't quite understand. I take the
blame for not properly describing it. What I was trying to say is that
a "virtual place" is somewhere (not everywhere) the "virtual
representation" (as opposed to the meat-body) can go. This statement
was only made to clarify the term "virtual place" as I had intended to
use it in place of the highly contested "virtual world".

The "user community" currently associates the term "virtual world"
with an application/service provider pairing. They can move around
inside most of the "virtual place"s within that application/service
provider pairing seamlessly. (Take as an example the difference
between moving around different user-content-spaces in Second Life vs.
user-content-spaces in Gogofrog. Both 3D, both user-content-spaces,
one seamless and the other not.) I believe the desire of the "user
community" is to move their "virtual representation" between one
application/service provider set of "virtual place"s (which they call
a "virual world") to another (e.g., OpenSim to Second Life) in a
seamless fashion. I do not believe that the "user community" desires
all of those "virtual place"s to be a single application/service
provider pairing. I also believe the "user community" would abandon
the whole thing if it all looked like it came from a cookie cutter!

The future is what this protocol is to support, yes? I believe that
future includes the ability to "walk through a door" (teleport, click
a street sign or ad, etc.) to another "virtual place" -- from your
island on Second Life to her room in Gogofrog to his place in Habbo.
Yes, yes, I know, we're not talking about those sorts of places but I
think they will factor in in the future. If Second Life, OSGrid,
Reaction Grid and Science Sim are the countries, then these places
will become the islands. We want to make sure we don't preclude travel
to islands as we establish travel between countries, but rather define
for the island (and the countries) what has to be in place to allow
such travel.

I thank you for the country travel analogy - as Charles says, it fits
quite well when you consider all of the things involved in a border
crossing.

Kari

---

From: Meadhbh Siobhan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:03:53 -0700

good points, all.

i like to look at it as a trust issue.

if there are two "countries" that trust each other... like they've
signed agreements like "i promise not to rip off your users' content"
and "i promise not to grief your services" then you could create a
client application that knows how to work with both, and present a
pretty compelling experience. you could move from "country" to
"country" and still be able to chat with other people in the world,
and you should be able to carry your digital assets across country
borders and (subject to the permissions on the virtual land you're on)
rez objects. this is the use case i think we at linden are focused on.

but if i (as a user) have a trust relationship with two different
"countries," and they don't have a trust relationship between each
other... i can run a client that knows how to leverage these
relationships; it could be relatively seamless and could make it
appear as if entities from the two "countries" appear as the same
space. but because they are fundamentally different "countries" and
don't have agreements with each other about the use of services or the
protection of content, it might be hard to rez an object from one
country in another country's land. it _may_ still be possible if the
permissions were set right; you could download it from country A to
the client and then have the client upload it to country B, but that
won't work in all cases and assets will find it hard to interact with
other assets across country boundaries. this is a use case that works
well for adhocracy, and is the use case a number of peeps working on
hypergrid have expressed an interest in.

one of the motivations for the use of our terminology and desire to
separate policy from mechanism is to enable the first use case, but
not to deny the second.

just my $0.02.

-cheers
-meadhbh / infinity

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 9:45 AM, Charles Krinke <[email-masked]> wrote:
> I think the country analogy is a good one. As I look at virtual worlds, I
> would perceive that SecondLife, OSGrid, ReactionGrid and ScienceSim are four
> seperate virtual worlds, and are analagous to countries.
>
> Each has their own set of central services including avatar authentication,
> assets, inventory, messaging, search within their grids and the like.
>
> Interop between these four worlds (or countries) will become similar to
> traversing a border crossing and customs between countries. In that mean
> that the user authentication, assets and inventory will most likely be tied
> back to the country of origin (the originating grid) and an avatar
> travelling from OSGrid to ReactionGrid or from ReactionGrid to SecondLife
> will have a certain set of privileges and responsibilites partly determined
> by the underlyiing protocols and partly determined by the policies of the
> respective grids.
>
> So, this seems to be headed in more or less the right direction. As long as
> we try to keep in mind that we have a set of peer to peer relationships to
> consider in order to allow interop between similar virtual worlds.
>
> Charles
>
> exists between the user's perspective of virtual worlds and the
> Users of virtual worlds know exactly what the term means, in the same way
> that they can distinguish one country from another when they go on holiday.
> People have been living with the concept of different places ever since they
> started travelling beyond their village boundary, and nowadays the
> popularity of tourism embodies that concept most vividly in the form of
> countries.  Different countries tend to look different and have different

---

From: Morgaine <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:55:21 +0100

Just in case it's not plain, this discussion is now post-charter agreement I
believe.  Ie. we're not revisiting the charter, at least for a while, and
hence the following is in the context of defining the problem space,
solution space, and draft protocol specifications. :-)

> to dictate policy, or disenfranchise the world-view of others.

This is pushing the analogy too far, but I can run with it if you like. ;-)

First of all (excuse the use of Second Life here, but it is our primary
example), note that the operators of Second Life and all of the residents of
Second Life know exactly which virtual world they operate or inhabit.  There
is not the slightest shadow of doubt about this in anyone's mind, and
therefore the regular suggestions that "virtual world" is ambiguous or
undefined or uncertain are extremely ill-founded.  Likewise, exactly the
same is true of OSgrid, as another example.  The alleged uncertainty about
the meaning of "virtual world" does not exist in the context of OSgrid (nor
of the many other similar grids).  They know exactly who and what they are.

Consequently, there cannot be any uncertainty about the meaning of "virtual
worlds" when we consider interop between two worlds such as Second Life and
OSgrid either.  There are two of them, each is a virtual world, and they are
distinct.  Linden Lab is not the only party that understands that their
virtual world has boundaries and policies that make it distinct and separate
from other virtual worlds.  All VW operators and all VW residents understand
this too, as perfectly as Linden Lab.  Claiming complexity or complication
in this is simply wrong.

Nevertheless, I'll run with your idea of inner complication for you, just to
show that it is ill-founded for virtual worlds.  Let's consider the case of
inner political subdivisions within nation states, and let's examine the
analogy of such inner subdivisions with interop between regions as opposed
to interop between virtual worlds.

Take for example the county of Sussex within the UK and the state of Kansas
within the US.  (These are arbitrary choices.)  Can a traveler from Kansas
visit Sussex by negociating a permit between the administrative domains of
Kansas and Sussex?  Clearly not.  The "interop" that needs to occur is
between the United states and the United Kingdom, even if a direct flight is
taken from Kansas to Sussex without a single foot being placed outside of
the boundaries of Kansas and Sussex.

And this is exactly what happens between virtual worlds as well.  Assuming
for the sake of the example that policy allows interop between SL and
OSgrid, a region from SL and a region from OSgrid cannot interop without
their respective virtual worlds being involved, because it is those TWO
worlds that determine the policies under which the interop occurs, and it is
those TWO worlds that define the sets of VWRAP services that are involved.

You can't cut one of those worlds out of the process, unless the idea is to
"steal" regions from it, which of course is not the case here.  That 2nd
virtual world must be involved if one of its regions is involved.

> currently imagine. I don't feel *anointed* to define terminology for the

Unfortunately OGP *did* believe itself to be *anointed* enough to try to
sweep the identity of virtual worlds out of the equation altogether by
defining a "same virtual world" that bears no relationship whatsoever to any
"virtual world" known to any operator or resident anywhere. ;-)  I am hoping
that we can dispense with that totally incongruous redefinition of a well
understood term in the VWRAP specifications as easily as we eradicated it
from the charter. :-)

>> already been told *authoritatively* that, as it stands, the protocol will
>> only connect single regions or a region domain of regions to one single
>> virtual world, and not interop with a whole other VW.
>
>
> There is *no such authority* that could make such a statement. The draft

By "*authoritatively*", I was referring to the statement made by Meadhbh
Siobhan on 30 August to the effect that "*OGPX is intended to provide
interoperability, not between worlds, but between hosts that work together to
simulate a virtual world*", which I assume was authoritative.  The *virtual
world* being simulated is the point of contention here.  The term either
introduces a new single virtual world that did not previously exist and
which bears no relationship to any virtual world known to any operator or
resident, or else it refers to just one, previously existing and well known
virtual world to which an independent region or region domain is being
added.

What it CANNOT do is to provide interop between two well known VWs, simply
because it is not naming them nor specifying any interaction between them.
An interaction between two region hosts does not provide interaction between
the two virtual worlds of which they are part --- it is at the wrong level
of the "virtual world stack", to make an analogy with layered protocols.

> provide the framework for agents to traverse those multiple virtual worlds,

Except that such a redefinition of "virtual world" does not match the well
known meaning of the term in common use today.  I assume that you know what
"virtual world" means, since you operate the virtual world of SL, and that's
the common meaning that should be used here because it's the same meaning
that everyone else uses as well.

You cannot just arbitrarily redefine a common term like that when creating a
protocol designed to work in an area that already has a meaning for that
term.  It sows total confusion among those who have been working in virtual
worlds for years, people who already know very precisely what "virtual
world" means, as I assume you do yourselves in the context of SL.  And with
reference to Kari's thread, such a redefinition makes it impossible to
address the most significant entities of interest from the perspective of
users, which are the distinct virtual worlds themselves.

> can only experience one such world.

Multiple worlds exist.  Defining virtual worlds by reachability is
completely inappropriate --- they don't go away just because you can't reach
them.

And that's the problem with the approach taken by the old OGP documents ---
they sought to define a single virtual world by reachability, instead of
accepting that multiple distinct virtual worlds exist but wish to
interoperate.  The language that was used precluded this most clear and
obvious interop semantic from even being addressed.  It overloaded the
crystal clear term "virtual world" with an abstract and highly manufactured
fiction that does not represent any virtual world that actually exists.
(Don't say that it's not crystal clear --- you operate a virtual world and
you know what it is very clearly, as does everyone else.)

> feedback from you and others.
The reason why agreement on the charter was reached relatively quickly was
because "virtual world" was almost completely withdrawn from the language
used in the charter.  In contrast, that task still lies ahead of us for the
next phase where we examine the problem space and draft specifications.
Most importantly, the latest draft of the charter refers to "the state of  a
virtual  world", which strongly suggests that there are many virtual worlds,
and this was key to making the language of the charter satisfactory.

However, the name of the protocol is now "Virtual World Region Agent
Protocol", which alludes to Meadhbh's statement that the interop being
considered is not between virtual worlds --- it's within a single virtual
world as defined by its agent domain.  The regions involved are all part of
that single virtual world, not parts of different virtual worlds since no
second AD is involved.  This is fine as long as the protocol is indeed not
intended for cross-VW interop, but we've been down that road before and
apparently there is still a desire to handle multiple VWs as well.

Well that's fine, but we can't handle multiple VWs without referring to
them, and we can't refer to them currently because the term "virtual world"
is blocked from having a plural form by a very curious and wholly
unjustified redefinition of the term inside the specifications.

Morgaine.

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

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 5:15 PM, Joshua Bell <[email-masked]> wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 12:36 AM, Morgaine <[email-masked]
> > wrote:
>

---

From: Carlo Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:17:30 +0200

Can you comment in detail to my post of 4 september too, Morgaine?

-- 
Carlo Wood <[email-masked]>

---

From: Charles Krinke <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 08:58:08 -0700 (PDT)

I agree with Morgaine here. The whole point of this group from my selfish viewpoint is to enhance OGP to allow a more seamless interop between virtual worlds such as SecondLife, OSGrid, ReactionGrid, ScienceSim and others.

To the extent that we enable this ability, our Metaverse becomes more diverse and robust.

I am not interested in fretting over the wording of this or that document, but what I am interested in is making sure that we are headed in the direction of interoperability between independent virtual worlds such as the four examples above. These are not the only examples, only the four that appear to have significant diversity and robustness to be considered in a list of virtual worlds for interop.

With that in mind, I look forward to seeing more OGP interop with things like the 'gridnauts' from the SecondLife Betagrid to IBM OpenSim standalone regions and from the SecondLife Betagrid to OSGrid as was demonstrated a year or so ago.

Along the way, the HyperGrid notions will undoubtedly come into play. These notions are also valid and are currently in use between various OpenSim regions and OpenSim grids and as appropriate, the technical details will be discussed as they evolve in a more or less consistent direction.

Charles

________________________________
From: Morgaine <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Sent: Saturday, September 12, 2009 11:55:21 PM
Subject: Re: [ogpx] where does VWRAP fit?

Just in case it's not plain, this discussion is now post-charter agreement I believe.  Ie. we're not revisiting the charter, at least for a while, and hence the following is in the context of defining the problem space, solution space, and draft protocol specifications. :-)

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 5:15 PM, Joshua Bell <[email-masked]> wrote:

>And yet, from a formal/legal perspective,
>things are far more complicated than this, which is why "countries" is
>a non-technical term and those seeking to be precise use lovely terms
>like "nation-states". Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation >for some discussion about the terminology, or think about examples like
>England which is a country by yet not a sovereign state; it is part of
>the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which in turn
>is a sovereign member state of the European Union (Hopefully I got that
>right...). Or think of microstates - contested and otherwise. It's not
>our job as technology implementers and spec writers to dictate policy,
>or disenfranchise the world-view of others.
>

First of all (excuse the use of Second Life here, but it is our primary example), note that the operators of Second Life and all of the residents of Second Life know exactly which virtual world they operate or inhabit.  There is not the slightest shadow of doubt about this in anyone's mind, and therefore the regular suggestions that "virtual world" is ambiguous or undefined or uncertain are extremely ill-founded.  Likewise, exactly the same is true of OSgrid, as another example.  The alleged uncertainty about the meaning of "virtual world" does not exist in the context of OSgrid (nor of the many other similar grids).  They know exactly who and what they are.

Consequently, there cannot be any uncertainty about the meaning of "virtual worlds" when we consider interop between two worlds such as Second Life and OSgrid either.  There are two of them, each is a virtual world, and they are distinct.  Linden Lab is not the only party that understands that their virtual world has boundaries and policies that make it distinct and separate from other virtual worlds.  All VW operators and all VW residents understand this too, as perfectly as Linden Lab.  Claiming complexity or complication in this is simply wrong.

Nevertheless, I'll run with your idea of inner complication for you, just to show that it is ill-founded for virtual worlds.  Let's consider the case of inner political subdivisions within nation states, and let's examine the analogy of such inner subdivisions with interop between regions as opposed to interop between virtual worlds.

Take for example the county of Sussex within the UK and the state of Kansas within the US.  (These are arbitrary choices.)  Can a traveler from Kansas visit Sussex by negociating a permit between the administrative domains of Kansas and Sussex?  Clearly not.  The "interop" that needs to occur is between the United states and the United Kingdom, even if a direct flight is taken from Kansas to Sussex without a single foot being placed outside of the boundaries of Kansas and Sussex.

And this is exactly what happens between virtual worlds as well.  Assuming for the sake of the example that policy allows interop between SL and OSgrid, a region from SL and a region from OSgrid cannot interop without their respective virtual worlds being involved, because it is those TWO worlds that determine the policies under which the interop occurs, and it is those TWO worlds that define the sets of VWRAP services that are involved.

You can't cut one of those worlds out of the process, unless the idea is to "steal" regions from it, which of course is not the case here.  That 2nd virtual world must be involved if one of its regions is involved.
 
Agreed. Just as the real world is not simply partitioned
>into "countries", virtual places will express far more organizational
>variety than we can currently imagine. I don't feel anointed to define
>terminology for the future users of such technology.
>

Unfortunately OGP did believe itself to be anointed enough to try to sweep the identity of virtual worlds out of the equation altogether by defining a "same virtual world" that bears no relationship whatsoever to any "virtual world" known to any operator or resident anywhere. ;-)  I am hoping that we can dispense with that totally incongruous redefinition of a well understood term in the VWRAP specifications as easily as we eradicated it from the charter. :-)

>>user-oriented requirement of interop between multiple virtual worlds,
>>since removing the "single VW" will allow us to refer to more than one
>>VW.  We've already been told authoritatively that, as it stands, the
>>protocol will only connect single regions or a region domain of regions
>>to one single virtual world, and not interop with a whole other VW. 
>
>There is no such authority that could make such a
>statement. The draft charter does not speak in a normative fashion
>about virtual worlds, precisely to avoid such claims - based on your
>feedback!
>

By "authoritatively", I was referring to the statement made by Meadhbh Siobhan on 30 August to the effect that "OGPX is intended to provide interoperability, not between worlds, but between hosts that work together to simulate a virtual world", which I assume was authoritative.  The virtual world being simulated is the point of contention here.  The term either introduces a new single virtual world that did not previously exist and which bears no relationship to any virtual world known to any operator or resident, or else it refers to just one, previously existing and well known virtual world to which an independent region or region domain is being added.

What it CANNOT do is to provide interop between two well known VWs, simply because it is not naming them nor specifying any interaction between them.  An interaction between two region hosts does not provide interaction between the two virtual worlds of which they are part --- it is at the wrong level of the "virtual world stack", to make an analogy with layered protocols.

VWRAP as a protocol suite should provide the framework
>for moving agents between regions. Regions are represented as sets of
>services, which can be provided by multiple service providers, and
>within multiple trust domains.
>
>Given that, if you personally define "virtual world" as a set of
>regions that are provided by a single service provider, then VWRAP
>should indeed provide the framework for agents to traverse those
>multiple virtual worlds, policy permitting.
>

Except that such a redefinition of "virtual world" does not match the well known meaning of the term in common use today.  I assume that you know what "virtual world" means, since you operate the virtual world of SL, and that's the common meaning that should be used here because it's the same meaning that everyone else uses as well.

You cannot just arbitrarily redefine a common term like that when creating a protocol designed to work in an area that already has a meaning for that term.  It sows total confusion among those who have been working in virtual worlds for years, people who already know very precisely what "virtual world" means, as I assume you do yourselves in the context of SL.  And with reference to Kari's thread, such a redefinition makes it impossible to address the most significant entities of interest from the perspective of users, which are the distinct virtual worlds themselves.

If you personally define "virtual world" as the set of all regions
>that an agent can visit (provided by one or more providers), then no,
>VWRAP would not allow traversing multiple worlds because, by that
>definition, that agent can only experience one such world.
>

Multiple worlds exist.  Defining virtual worlds by reachability is completely inappropriate --- they don't go away just because you can't reach them.

And that's the problem with the approach taken by the old OGP documents --- they sought to define a single virtual world by reachability, instead of accepting that multiple distinct virtual worlds exist but wish to interoperate.  The language that was used precluded this most clear and obvious interop semantic from even being addressed.  It overloaded the crystal clear term "virtual world" with an abstract and highly manufactured fiction that does not represent any virtual world that actually exists.  (Don't say that it's not crystal clear --- you operate a virtual world and you know what it is very clearly, as does everyone else.)

>Again, the draft charter text explicitly avoids talking about
>social constructs like "virtual worlds" precisely for this reason,
>based on feedback from you and others.
>
>
 
The reason why agreement on the charter was reached relatively quickly was because "virtual world" was almost completely withdrawn from the language used in the charter.  In contrast, that task still lies ahead of us for the next phase where we examine the problem space and draft specifications.  Most importantly, the latest draft of the charter refers to "the state of  a virtual  world", which strongly suggests that there are many virtual worlds, and this was key to making the language of the charter satisfactory.

However, the name of the protocol is now "Virtual World Region Agent Protocol", which alludes to Meadhbh's statement that the interop being considered is not between virtual worlds --- it's within a single virtual world as defined by its agent domain.  The regions involved are all part of that single virtual world, not parts of different virtual worlds since no second AD is involved.  This is fine as long as the protocol is indeed not intended for cross-VW interop, but we've been down that road before and apparently there is still a desire to handle multiple VWs as well.

Well that's fine, but we can't handle multiple VWs without referring to them, and we can't refer to them currently because the term "virtual world" is blocked from having a plural form by a very curious and wholly unjustified redefinition of the term inside the specifications.

Morgaine.

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 12:36 AM, Morgaine <[email-masked]> wrote:
>And yet, from a formal/legal perspective, things are far more complicated than this, which is why "countries" is a non-technical term and those seeking to be precise use lovely terms like "nation-states". Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation for some discussion about the terminology, or think about examples like England which is a country by yet not a sovereign state; it is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which in turn is a sovereign member state of the European Union (Hopefully I got that right...). Or think of microstates - contested and otherwise. It's not our job as technology implementers and spec writers to dictate policy, or disenfranchise the world-view of others.
>
> 
>That concept doesn't disappear when "places" become digital.  Instead the concept blossoms, because without the constraints of the physical world, virtual places can be so dramatically different.
>
>Agreed. Just as the real world is not simply partitioned into "countries", virtual places will express far more organizational variety than we can currently imagine. I don't feel anointed to define terminology for the future users of such technology.
>
>
>>>
>>Having removed it, we can then address how VWRAP implements the user-oriented requirement of interop between multiple virtual worlds, since removing the "single VW" will allow us to refer to more than one VW.  We've already been told authoritatively that, as it stands, the protocol will only connect single regions or a region domain of regions to one single virtual world, and not interop with a whole other VW. 
>
>There is no such authority that could make such a statement. The draft charter does not speak in a normative fashion about virtual worlds, precisely to avoid such claims - based on your feedback!
>
>VWRAP as a protocol suite should provide the framework for moving agents between regions. Regions are represented as sets of services, which can be provided by multiple service providers, and within multiple trust domains.
>
>Given that, if you personally define "virtual world" as a set of regions that are provided by a single service provider, then VWRAP should indeed provide the framework for agents to traverse those multiple virtual worlds, policy permitting.
>
>If you personally define "virtual world" as the set of all regions that an agent can visit (provided by one or more providers), then no, VWRAP would not allow traversing multiple worlds because, by that definition, that agent can only experience one such world.
>
>Again, the draft charter text explicitly avoids talking about social constructs like "virtual worlds" precisely for this reason, based on feedback from you and others.
>
>
>

---

From: Morgaine <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:48:03 +0100

Charles, I too would be happy with any form of words that would allow us to
achieve the goal of interoperation between multiple distinct virtual worlds
that support our protocol.

Unfortunately the current language precludes that, by overloading the term
"virtual world" to mean something different and blocking any reference to
multiple VWs.  Other problems abound too, such as not recognizing multiple
ToS, separate legal jurisdictions, etc --- a whole raft of problems arise
from the chosen "single virtual world" language.  That choice was made
wholly without benefit nor justification, and it has led to this problem
directly.

If "the virtual world" in the OGP documents were replaced by "the
communicating parties" or "the participants" or "the participating
endpoints" or "the participating services" or "the participating regions" or
"the communicating regions" or just plain "the regions", or if a brand new
word were coined for "the regions controlled by the interacting ADs", then
we would be getting somewhere, because then we could discuss how to make
multiple VWs interoperate.

Currently we cannot do that, because the documents refer to only one single
virtual world owing to the OGP legacy, and hence preclude us even discussing
multiple virtual worlds.  The problem is entirely an artifact of the
language chosen for the original OGP documents which only sought to grow a
single world.  It has no place in a multi-world VWRAP, as it brings no
benefits but introduces numerous problems.

Morgaine.

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

On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 4:58 PM, Charles Krinke <[email-masked]> wrote:

>
> I agree with Morgaine here. The whole point of this group from my selfish
> viewpoint is to enhance OGP to allow a more seamless interop between virtual
> worlds such as SecondLife, OSGrid, ReactionGrid, ScienceSim and others.
>
> I am not interested in fretting over the wording of this or that document,
> but what I am interested in is making sure that we are headed in the
> direction of interoperability between independent virtual worlds such as the
> four examples above. These are not the only examples, only the four that
> appear to have significant diversity and robustness to be considered in a
> list of virtual worlds for interop.
>
> With that in mind, I look forward to seeing more OGP interop with things
> like the 'gridnauts' from the SecondLife Betagrid to IBM OpenSim standalone
> regions and from the SecondLife Betagrid to OSGrid as was demonstrated a
> year or so ago.
>
> Along the way, the HyperGrid notions will undoubtedly come into play. These
> notions are also valid and are currently in use between various OpenSim
> regions and OpenSim grids and as appropriate, the technical details will be
> discussed as they evolve in a more or less consistent direction.
>
> Charles
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Morgaine <[email-masked]>
> *To:* [email-masked]
> *Sent:* Saturday, September 12, 2009 11:55:21 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [ogpx] where does VWRAP fit?
>
> Just in case it's not plain, this discussion is now post-charter agreement
> I believe.  Ie. we're not revisiting the charter, at least for a while, and
> Nevertheless, I'll run with your idea of inner complication for you, just
> to show that it is ill-founded for virtual worlds.  Let's consider the case
> of inner political subdivisions within nation states, and let's examine the
>>> already been told *authoritatively* that, as it stands, the protocol
>>> will only connect single regions or a region domain of regions to one single
> You cannot just arbitrarily redefine a common term like that when creating
> a protocol designed to work in an area that already has a meaning for that
>>> *Users* of *virtual worlds* know exactly what the term means, in the
>>> same way that they can distinguish one country from another when they go on

---

From: Charles Krinke <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 11:21:16 -0700 (PDT)

Well, you bring up some really good points. Personally, what I have been doing is ignoring all the discussion of what the words mean and focusing on my end goal which is the interoperability between similar, autonomous, distinct grids all using compatible protocols.

So, ... if the words get in the way, it is my intention to roll right over them and ignore them. 

If that is an issue, then we need to go back and agree on the words.

If that is not an issue, then we move forward and figure out how to interop between similar autonomous grids.

Charles

________________________________
From: Morgaine <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 10:48:03 AM
Subject: Re: [ogpx] where does VWRAP fit?

Charles, I too would be happy with any form of words that would allow us to achieve the goal of interoperation between multiple distinct virtual worlds that support our protocol.

Unfortunately the current language precludes that, by overloading the term "virtual world" to mean something different and blocking any reference to multiple VWs.  Other problems abound too, such as not recognizing multiple ToS, separate legal jurisdictions, etc --- a whole raft of problems arise from the chosen "single virtual world" language.  That choice was made wholly without benefit nor justification, and it has led to this problem directly.

If "the virtual world" in the OGP documents were replaced by "the communicating parties" or "the participants" or "the participating endpoints" or "the participating services" or "the participating regions" or "the communicating regions" or just plain "the regions", or if a brand new word were coined for "the regions controlled by the interacting ADs", then we would be getting somewhere, because then we could discuss how to make multiple VWs interoperate.

Currently we cannot do that, because the documents refer to only one single virtual world owing to the OGP legacy, and hence preclude us even discussing multiple virtual worlds.  The problem is entirely an artifact of the language chosen for the original OGP documents which only sought to grow a single world.  It has no place in a multi-world VWRAP, as it brings no benefits but introduces numerous problems.

Morgaine.

>>like "nation-states". Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation >>for some discussion about the terminology, or think about examples like

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:36:15 -0400

On Sep 13, 2009, at 2:21 PM, Charles Krinke wrote:

> Well, you bring up some really good points. Personally, what I have  
> been doing is ignoring all the discussion of what the words mean and  
> focusing on my end goal which is the interoperability between  
> similar, autonomous, distinct grids all using compatible protocols.
>

I think that metaphors can be very important in cases like this, so  
here is one I will throw out for consideration after reading through  
this mail thread. If someone else has made this metaphor, I apologize  
(but I did look).

I look at the "virtual worlds," from an Internet perspective, as  
analogous to Autonomous Systems. An Autonomous System (AS) is a  
network that has its own routing policy, its own internal services,  
etc. An AS gets to determine what happens inside of it, and (in  
connection with the other party) gets to determine peering policies  
with its peers. (Note that an ASN is not necessarily the same as a  
company, university or other real-world entity - some companies have  
more than one, other ASs aggregate traffic from several networks.) At  
the largest level, the Internet is a network of ASNs connected by the  
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) .

 From this standpoint,  SecondLife, OSGrid,  etc., are Autonomous  
Virtual Systems (AVSs), and, just as BGP determines how packets pass  
between ASs, it seems to me that VWRAP should provide a gateway  
protocol to determine what happens as avatars pass between AVWs. In  
this metaphor, some services might be automatic if you are allowed in,  
some might require an invitation (similar to the way that firewall  
passage typically requires an invitation from the inside), there might  
be true peering between AVSs of similar size (where avatars or  
services are allowed free interoperation between the two AVSs), and  
relationships between AVSs of different sizes might require payment  
for the smaller AVS).

This metaphor, while similar to the idea of Virtual Worlds as  
countries or nation-states, it seems to me is better aligned with the  
way things are done on the Internet, and close to the realms where we  
have working code and experience.

Regards
Marshall

> If that is not an issue, then we move forward and figure out how to  
> interop between similar autonomous grids.
>
> Charles
>
> Charles, I too would be happy with any form of words that would  
> allow us to achieve the goal of interoperation between multiple  
> distinct virtual worlds that support our protocol.
>
> Unfortunately the current language precludes that, by overloading  
> the term "virtual world" to mean something different and blocking  
> any reference to multiple VWs.  Other problems abound too, such as  
> not recognizing multiple ToS, separate legal jurisdictions, etc ---  
> a whole raft of problems arise from the chosen "single virtual  
> world" language.  That choice was made wholly without benefit nor  
> justification, and it has led to this problem directly.
>
> endpoints" or "the participating services" or "the participating  
> regions" or "the communicating regions" or just plain "the regions",  
> or if a brand new word were coined for "the regions controlled by  
> the interacting ADs", then we would be getting somewhere, because  
> then we could discuss how to make multiple VWs interoperate.
>
> Currently we cannot do that, because the documents refer to only one  
> single virtual world owing to the OGP legacy, and hence preclude us  
> even discussing multiple virtual worlds.  The problem is entirely an  
> artifact of the language chosen for the original OGP documents which  
> only sought to grow a single world.  It has no place in a multi- 
> world VWRAP, as it brings no benefits but introduces numerous  
> problems.
>
>
> Morgaine.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I agree with Morgaine here. The whole point of this group from my  
> selfish viewpoint is to enhance OGP to allow a more seamless interop  
> between virtual worlds such as SecondLife, OSGrid, ReactionGrid,  
> ScienceSim and others.
>
> I am not interested in fretting over the wording of this or that  
> document, but what I am interested in is making sure that we are  
> headed in the direction of interoperability between independent  
> virtual worlds such as the four examples above. These are not the  
> only examples, only the four that appear to have significant  
> diversity and robustness to be considered in a list of virtual  
> worlds for interop.
>
> With that in mind, I look forward to seeing more OGP interop with  
> things like the 'gridnauts' from the SecondLife Betagrid to IBM  
> OpenSim standalone regions and from the SecondLife Betagrid to  
> OSGrid as was demonstrated a year or so ago.
>
> Along the way, the HyperGrid notions will undoubtedly come into  
> play. These notions are also valid and are currently in use between  
> various OpenSim regions and OpenSim grids and as appropriate, the  
> technical details will be discussed as they evolve in a more or less  
> consistent direction.
>
> Charles
> Just in case it's not plain, this discussion is now post-charter  
> agreement I believe.  Ie. we're not revisiting the charter, at least  
> for a while, and hence the following is in the context of defining  
> the problem space, solution space, and draft protocol  
> specifications. :-)
>
>
> And yet, from a formal/legal perspective, things are far more  
> complicated than this, which is why "countries" is a non-technical  
> term and those seeking to be precise use lovely terms like "nation- 
> states". Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation for some  
> discussion about the terminology, or think about examples like  
> England which is a country by yet not a sovereign state; it is part  
> of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which  
> in turn is a sovereign member state of the European Union (Hopefully  
> I got that right...). Or think of microstates - contested and  
> otherwise. It's not our job as technology implementers and spec  
> writers to dictate policy, or disenfranchise the world-view of others.
>
> First of all (excuse the use of Second Life here, but it is our  
> primary example), note that the operators of Second Life and all of  
> the residents of Second Life know exactly which virtual world they  
> operate or inhabit.  There is not the slightest shadow of doubt  
> about this in anyone's mind, and therefore the regular suggestions  
> that "virtual world" is ambiguous or undefined or uncertain are  
> extremely ill-founded.  Likewise, exactly the same is true of  
> OSgrid, as another example.  The alleged uncertainty about the  
> meaning of "virtual world" does not exist in the context of OSgrid  
> (nor of the many other similar grids).  They know exactly who and  
> what they are.
>
> Consequently, there cannot be any uncertainty about the meaning of  
> "virtual worlds" when we consider interop between two worlds such as  
> Second Life and OSgrid either.  There are two of them, each is a  
> virtual world, and they are distinct.  Linden Lab is not the only  
> party that understands that their virtual world has boundaries and  
> policies that make it distinct and separate from other virtual  
> worlds.  All VW operators and all VW residents understand this too,  
> as perfectly as Linden Lab.  Claiming complexity or complication in  
> this is simply wrong.
>
> Nevertheless, I'll run with your idea of inner complication for you,  
> just to show that it is ill-founded for virtual worlds.  Let's  
> consider the case of inner political subdivisions within nation  
> states, and let's examine the analogy of such inner subdivisions  
> with interop between regions as opposed to interop between virtual  
> worlds.
>
> Take for example the county of Sussex within the UK and the state of  
> Kansas within the US.  (These are arbitrary choices.)  Can a  
> traveler from Kansas visit Sussex by negociating a permit between  
> the administrative domains of Kansas and Sussex?  Clearly not.  The  
> "interop" that needs to occur is between the United states and the  
> United Kingdom, even if a direct flight is taken from Kansas to  
> Sussex without a single foot being placed outside of the boundaries  
> of Kansas and Sussex.
>
> And this is exactly what happens between virtual worlds as well.   
> Assuming for the sake of the example that policy allows interop  
> between SL and OSgrid, a region from SL and a region from OSgrid  
> cannot interop without their respective virtual worlds being  
> involved, because it is those TWO worlds that determine the policies  
> under which the interop occurs, and it is those TWO worlds that  
> define the sets of VWRAP services that are involved.
>
> You can't cut one of those worlds out of the process, unless the  
> idea is to "steal" regions from it, which of course is not the case  
> here.  That 2nd virtual world must be involved if one of its regions  
> is involved.
>
> Agreed. Just as the real world is not simply partitioned into  
> "countries", virtual places will express far more organizational  
> variety than we can currently imagine. I don't feel anointed to  
> define terminology for the future users of such technology.
>
> Unfortunately OGP did believe itself to be anointed enough to try to  
> sweep the identity of virtual worlds out of the equation altogether  
> by defining a "same virtual world" that bears no relationship  
> whatsoever to any "virtual world" known to any operator or resident  
> anywhere. ;-)  I am hoping that we can dispense with that totally  
> incongruous redefinition of a well understood term in the VWRAP  
> specifications as easily as we eradicated it from the charter. :-)
>
>
> Having removed it, we can then address how VWRAP implements the user- 
> oriented requirement of interop between multiple virtual worlds,  
> since removing the "single VW" will allow us to refer to more than  
> one VW.  We've already been told authoritatively that, as it stands,  
> the protocol will only connect single regions or a region domain of  
> regions to one single virtual world, and not interop with a whole  
> other VW.
>
> There is no such authority that could make such a statement. The  
> draft charter does not speak in a normative fashion about virtual  
> worlds, precisely to avoid such claims - based on your feedback!
>
> By "authoritatively", I was referring to the statement made by  
> Meadhbh Siobhan on 30 August to the effect that "OGPX is intended to  
> provide interoperability, not between worlds, but between hosts that  
> work together to simulate a virtual world", which I assume was  
> authoritative.  The virtual world being simulated is the point of  
> contention here.  The term either introduces a new single virtual  
> world that did not previously exist and which bears no relationship  
> to any virtual world known to any operator or resident, or else it  
> refers to just one, previously existing and well known virtual world  
> to which an independent region or region domain is being added.
>
> What it CANNOT do is to provide interop between two well known VWs,  
> simply because it is not naming them nor specifying any interaction  
> between them.  An interaction between two region hosts does not  
> provide interaction between the two virtual worlds of which they are  
> part --- it is at the wrong level of the "virtual world stack", to  
> make an analogy with layered protocols.
>
>
> VWRAP as a protocol suite should provide the framework for moving  
> agents between regions. Regions are represented as sets of services,  
> which can be provided by multiple service providers, and within  
> multiple trust domains.
>
> Except that such a redefinition of "virtual world" does not match  
> the well known meaning of the term in common use today.  I assume  
> that you know what "virtual world" means, since you operate the  
> virtual world of SL, and that's the common meaning that should be  
> used here because it's the same meaning that everyone else uses as  
> well.
>
> You cannot just arbitrarily redefine a common term like that when  
> creating a protocol designed to work in an area that already has a  
> meaning for that term.  It sows total confusion among those who have  
> been working in virtual worlds for years, people who already know  
> very precisely what "virtual world" means, as I assume you do  
> yourselves in the context of SL.  And with reference to Kari's  
> thread, such a redefinition makes it impossible to address the most  
> significant entities of interest from the perspective of users,  
> which are the distinct virtual worlds themselves.
>
>
> that an agent can visit (provided by one or more providers), then  
> no, VWRAP would not allow traversing multiple worlds because, by  
> that definition, that agent can only experience one such world.
>
> completely inappropriate --- they don't go away just because you  
> can't reach them.
>
> And that's the problem with the approach taken by the old OGP  
> documents --- they sought to define a single virtual world by  
> reachability, instead of accepting that multiple distinct virtual  
> worlds exist but wish to interoperate.  The language that was used  
> precluded this most clear and obvious interop semantic from even  
> being addressed.  It overloaded the crystal clear term "virtual  
> world" with an abstract and highly manufactured fiction that does  
> not represent any virtual world that actually exists.  (Don't say  
> that it's not crystal clear --- you operate a virtual world and you  
> know what it is very clearly, as does everyone else.)
>
>
> The reason why agreement on the charter was reached relatively  
> quickly was because "virtual world" was almost completely withdrawn  
> from the language used in the charter.  In contrast, that task still  
> lies ahead of us for the next phase where we examine the problem  
> space and draft specifications.  Most importantly, the latest draft  
> of the charter refers to "the state of  a virtual  world", which  
> strongly suggests that there are many virtual worlds, and this was  
> key to making the language of the charter satisfactory.
>
> Protocol", which alludes to Meadhbh's statement that the interop  
> being considered is not between virtual worlds --- it's within a  
> single virtual world as defined by its agent domain.  The regions  
> involved are all part of that single virtual world, not parts of  
> different virtual worlds since no second AD is involved.  This is  
> fine as long as the protocol is indeed not intended for cross-VW  
> interop, but we've been down that road before and apparently there  
> is still a desire to handle multiple VWs as well.
>
> Well that's fine, but we can't handle multiple VWs without referring  
> to them, and we can't refer to them currently because the term  
> "virtual world" is blocked from having a plural form by a very  
> curious and wholly unjustified redefinition of the term inside the  
> specifications.
>
>
> Morgaine.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Users of virtual worlds know exactly what the term means, in the  
> same way that they can distinguish one country from another when  
> they go on holiday.  People have been living with the concept of  
> different places ever since they started travelling beyond their  
> village boundary, and nowadays the popularity of tourism embodies  
> that concept most vividly in the form of countries.  Different  
> countries tend to look different and have different cultures and  
> different rules (local policies).  This is entirely natural and  
> instinctive to us.
>
> And yet, from a formal/legal perspective, things are far more  
> complicated than this, which is why "countries" is a non-technical  
> term and those seeking to be precise use lovely terms like "nation- 
> states". Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation for some  
> discussion about the terminology, or think about examples like  
> England which is a country by yet not a sovereign state; it is part  
> of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which  
> in turn is a sovereign member state of the European Union (Hopefully  
> I got that right...). Or think of microstates - contested and  
> otherwise. It's not our job as technology implementers and spec  
> writers to dictate policy, or disenfranchise the world-view of others.
>
> That concept doesn't disappear when "places" become digital.   
> Instead the concept blossoms, because without the constraints of the  
> physical world, virtual places can be so dramatically different.
>
> Agreed. Just as the real world is not simply partitioned into  
> "countries", virtual places will express far more organizational  
> variety than we can currently imagine. I don't feel anointed to  
> define terminology for the future users of such technology.
>
> Having removed it, we can then address how VWRAP implements the user- 
> oriented requirement of interop between multiple virtual worlds,  
> since removing the "single VW" will allow us to refer to more than  
> one VW.  We've already been told authoritatively that, as it stands,  
> the protocol will only connect single regions or a region domain of  
> regions to one single virtual world, and not interop with a whole  
> other VW.
>
> There is no such authority that could make such a statement. The  
> draft charter does not speak in a normative fashion about virtual  
> worlds, precisely to avoid such claims - based on your feedback!
>
> VWRAP as a protocol suite should provide the framework for moving  
> agents between regions. Regions are represented as sets of services,  
> which can be provided by multiple service providers, and within  
> multiple trust domains.
>
> that an agent can visit (provided by one or more providers), then  
> no, VWRAP would not allow traversing multiple worlds because, by  
> that definition, that agent can only experience one such world.
>

---

From: Morgaine <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:09:30 +0100

Marshall, having worked at the network operations centre of an ISP for many
years and dealt daily with AS's, I have to say that your analogy is near
perfect, and the best yet, by far.

Yes indeed, VWs and ASs are quite analogous as seats of policy and choices,
and cross-VW interop is very much about peering between VWs with clients as
an intermediary.  But to be able to peer between ASs you have to be able to
refer to the ASs in the first place, and not invent a "single AS" out of
thin air that precludes this.

Peering between VWs looks like a very effective angle from which to approach
this work.

Morgaine.

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

On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 7:36 PM, Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>wrote:

>  Well, you bring up some really good points. Personally, what I have been
>> doing is ignoring all the discussion of what the words mean and focusing on
>> my end goal which is the interoperability between similar, autonomous,
>> distinct grids all using compatible protocols.
>>
>>
> I think that metaphors can be very important in cases like this, so here is
> one I will throw out for consideration after reading through this mail
> thread. If someone else has made this metaphor, I apologize (but I did
> look).
>
> I look at the "virtual worlds," from an Internet perspective, as analogous
> to Autonomous Systems. An Autonomous System (AS) is a network that has its
> own routing policy, its own internal services, etc. An AS gets to determine
> what happens inside of it, and (in connection with the other party) gets to
> determine peering policies with its peers. (Note that an ASN is not
> necessarily the same as a company, university or other real-world entity -
> some companies have more than one, other ASs aggregate traffic from several
> networks.) At the largest level, the Internet is a network of ASNs connected
> by the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) .
>
> From this standpoint,  SecondLife, OSGrid,  etc., are Autonomous Virtual
> Systems (AVSs), and, just as BGP determines how packets pass between ASs, it
> seems to me that VWRAP should provide a gateway protocol to determine what
> happens as avatars pass between AVWs. In this metaphor, some services might
> be automatic if you are allowed in, some might require an invitation
> (similar to the way that firewall passage typically requires an invitation
> from the inside), there might be true peering between AVSs of similar size
> (where avatars or services are allowed free interoperation between the two
> AVSs), and relationships between AVSs of different sizes might require
> payment for the smaller AVS).
>
> This metaphor, while similar to the idea of Virtual Worlds as countries or
> nation-states, it seems to me is better aligned with the way things are done
> on the Internet, and close to the realms where we have working code and
> experience.
>
> Regards
> Marshall
>
>
>> Charles, I too would be happy with any form of words that would allow us
>> to achieve the goal of interoperation between multiple distinct virtual
>> worlds that support our protocol.
>>
>> single virtual world owing to the OGP legacy, and hence preclude us even
>> discussing multiple virtual worlds.  The problem is entirely an artifact of
>> the language chosen for the original OGP documents which only sought to grow
>> a single world.  It has no place in a multi-world VWRAP, as it brings no
>> Along the way, the HyperGrid notions will undoubtedly come into play.
>> These notions are also valid and are currently in use between various
>> OpenSim regions and OpenSim grids and as appropriate, the technical details
>> will be discussed as they evolve in a more or less consistent direction.
>>
>> Charles
>> "virtual worlds" when we consider interop between two worlds such as Second
>> Life and OSgrid either.  There are two of them, each is a virtual world, and
>> they are distinct.  Linden Lab is not the only party that understands that
>> their virtual world has boundaries and policies that make it distinct and
>> separate from other virtual worlds.  All VW operators and all VW residents
>> understand this too, as perfectly as Linden Lab.  Claiming complexity or
>> complication in this is simply wrong.
>>
>> Kansas within the US.  (These are arbitrary choices.)  Can a traveler from
>> Kansas visit Sussex by negociating a permit between the administrative
>> domains of Kansas and Sussex?  Clearly not.  The "interop" that needs to
>> occur is between the United states and the United Kingdom, even if a direct
>> flight is taken from Kansas to Sussex without a single foot being placed
>> outside of the boundaries of Kansas and Sussex.
>>
>> You can't cut one of those worlds out of the process, unless the idea is
>> to "steal" regions from it, which of course is not the case here.  That 2nd
>> Unfortunately OGP did believe itself to be anointed enough to try to sweep
>> the identity of virtual worlds out of the equation altogether by defining a
>> "same virtual world" that bears no relationship whatsoever to any "virtual
>> world" known to any operator or resident anywhere. ;-)  I am hoping that we
>> can dispense with that totally incongruous redefinition of a well understood
>> term in the VWRAP specifications as easily as we eradicated it from the
>> charter. :-)
>>
>>
>> By "authoritatively", I was referring to the statement made by Meadhbh
>> Siobhan on 30 August to the effect that "OGPX is intended to provide
>> interoperability, not between worlds, but between hosts that work together
>> to simulate a virtual world", which I assume was authoritative.  The virtual
>> world being simulated is the point of contention here.  The term either
>>  An interaction between two region hosts does not provide interaction
>> between the two virtual worlds of which they are part --- it is at the wrong
>> level of the "virtual world stack", to make an analogy with layered
>> protocols.
>>
>>
>> And that's the problem with the approach taken by the old OGP documents
>> --- they sought to define a single virtual world by reachability, instead of
>>  Most importantly, the latest draft of the charter refers to "the state of
>>  a virtual  world", which strongly suggests that there are many virtual
>> worlds, and this was key to making the language of the charter satisfactory.
>>
>>  People have been living with the concept of different places ever since
>> they started travelling beyond their village boundary, and nowadays the

---

From: Charles Krinke <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:39:04 -0700 (PDT)

+1. Although I hope we dont get caught up too much in the ambiguity of TLA's as they can mean either TwoLetterAcronyms or ThreeLetterAcronyms and if someone doesnt know that particular acronym being referred to, communication goes downhill more.

In any case, we have a series of grids (or AVW, or AVS, or whatever), and we desire to have some sort of interop between similar grids. As I recall, this has already been partly accomplished more then a year ago by both OGP and HyperGrid. For whatever reason, we seem to be continuing to go around in circles about nomenclature. Perhaps we are doomed to be on different floors of the "Tower of Babel" and if so, so be it.

It seems to me that the thing is to focus on the actual interop details to be documented, that is those that have already been proven to work. Then we focus on the interop details yet to be defined, that is, those necessary to establish OGP as a peer-to-peer interop protocol similar to the development currently going on with HyperGrid.

Somewhere, they should meet, hopefully. That will probably be determined by the perceptions of all the players at the point where they do meet. But, for now, this group is focused on OGP, and that is fine. 

Charles

________________________________
From: Morgaine <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 1:09:30 PM
Subject: Re: [ogpx] where does VWRAP fit?

Marshall, having worked at the network operations centre of an ISP for many years and dealt daily with AS's, I have to say that your analogy is near perfect, and the best yet, by far.

Yes indeed, VWs and ASs are quite analogous as seats of policy and choices, and cross-VW interop is very much about peering between VWs with clients as an intermediary.  But to be able to peer between ASs you have to be able to refer to the ASs in the first place, and not invent a "single AS" out of thin air that precludes this.

Peering between VWs looks like a very effective angle from which to approach this work.

Morgaine.

On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 7:36 PM, Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]> wrote:

>I think that metaphors can be very important in cases like this, so here is one I will throw out for consideration after reading through this mail thread. If someone else has made this metaphor, I apologize (but I did look).
>
>>I look at the "virtual worlds," from an Internet perspective, as analogous to Autonomous Systems. An Autonomous System (AS) is a network that has its own routing policy, its own internal services, etc. An AS gets to determine what happens inside of it, and (in connection with the other party) gets to determine peering policies with its peers. (Note that an ASN is not necessarily the same as a company, university or other real-world entity - some companies have more than one, other ASs aggregate traffic from several networks.) At the largest level, the Internet is a network of ASNs connected by the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) .
>
>>From this standpoint,  SecondLife, OSGrid,  etc., are Autonomous Virtual Systems (AVSs), and, just as BGP determines how packets pass between ASs, it seems to me that VWRAP should provide a gateway protocol to determine what happens as avatars pass between AVWs. In this metaphor, some services might be automatic if you are allowed in, some might require an invitation (similar to the way that firewall passage typically requires an invitation from the inside), there might be true peering between AVSs of similar size (where avatars or services are allowed free interoperation between the two AVSs), and relationships between AVSs of different sizes might require payment for the smaller AVS).
>
>>This metaphor, while similar to the idea of Virtual Worlds as countries or nation-states, it seems to me is better aligned with the way things are done on the Internet, and close to the realms where we have working code and experience.
>
>>Regards
>>Marshall
>
>
>

---

From: Kari Lippert <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 16:54:20 -0400

+1 for the metaphor  :)

On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 2:36 PM, Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> <[email-masked]> wrote:

---

From: Morgaine <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 06:11:12 +0100

> Can you comment in detail to my post of 4 september too, Morgaine?

Sure Carlo, I've just done it, and I'll post it shortly.  You wrote a long
post, so it took a while to answer in detail as requested.  :-)

Morgaine.

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

---

From: Joshua Bell <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:04:31 -0700

Let me try using fewer words:

VWRAP should be the protocol suite for enabling movement of an agent between
two regions.

Please note that the above statement says NOTHING about how the agent or
regions are administered. Those regions could be part of one virtual world
or two virtual worlds. They could be operated by one service provider or
two; the agent services may be provided by one of the same or yet a third.

Is there rough consensus on that statement? Does anyone see anything in
contradiction between that statement and the draft charter?

Morgaine: You keep quoting Meadhbh's comment from Aug 30th. Based on
feedback received regarding that comment, we (multiple mailing list members)
came to understand that there was confusion about terminology. The charter
was then refined appropriately to avoid confusion and focus on technical
terminology such as "regions" and "agents" that have clear meaning and
aren't a source of confusion. Please stop beating that dead horse.

---

From: Morgaine <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:02:27 +0100

> aren't a source of confusion. Please stop beating that dead horse.

Joshua, this is a completely different horse.

That was the charter.  We are now beyond that stage and dealing with the
problem space, the solution space, and the draft specifications.  We have
only just begun this new area of work.

One of the key changes to the charter was the eradication of the references
to a single virtual world which was such a sticking point.  There are over
100 lines containg that problem phrase in the draft-hamrick-ogp-intro.txt
document alone.

I think we have quite a bit more work to do before we can go home, and
finding effective terminology is merely the start of our efforts.  It's far
from being a dead horse.

Morgaine.

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Joshua Bell <[email-masked]> wrote:

> VWRAP should be the protocol suite for enabling movement of an agent
> between two regions.
>
> On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 10:11 PM, Morgaine <[email-masked]
> > wrote:
>

---

From: Morgaine <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 02:38:34 +0100

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Joshua Bell <[email-masked]> wrote:

>
> Morgaine: You keep quoting Meadhbh's comment from Aug 30th.
>

Joshua, I think it's excellent that you've highlighted a possible area of
mismatch between the language selected for the charter out of expediency and
the actual work ahead.  This gives us our first post-charter opportunity to
clarify the goals further.

It was my understanding that Meadhbh's comment is still accurate, and that
therefore it's the best that we currently have.  It was certainly a very
clear statement, which is why I quote it, and if it is still current then of
course it is correct of us to quote it.

We arrived at a charter that avoided making such clear statements, leaving
many things open to interpretation so that we could get beyond the charter
stage, which I believe was a good move.  It gave us rapid progress.

But we can't continue to be vague about everything.  At some point we need
to know exactly what all these words actually mean and what the protocol can
achieve, and I'm going to work hard to ensure that what we write actually is
meaningful and is understood.

>From your reply, I believe that the crucial words *"not between
worlds"*from Meadhbh's comment are no longer appropriate, in that you
wish VWRAP
interop between regions to include the case where those regions belong to
more than one virtual world.  Is that correct?  If so, we can declare that
earlier comment as *overridden* and I won't cite it again.

This will have a dramatic effect on our work.  Since it now opens up VWRAP
to include interop between VWs (by removing "*not between worlds*"), our
workload now includes the following:

   - Removal of the fictional "*single virtual world*" conjured up in the
   old OGP documents which overloaded the term and hence blocked all discussion
   about multiple VWs.
   - Mapping of multiple VWs onto the entities in our protocol, such as ADs
   and RDs.
   - Specification of use cases demonstrating how VWRAP will handle cross-VW
   interop in terms of the entities defined by VWRAP.

I am sure it will please many people in SL-compatible grids if we manage to
put interop between worlds on a solid footing in this way.  (This was always
the hope for OGP in open grids.)  Subject to the clarification above, this
now becomes an important goal for VWRAP.

Morgaine.

---

From: Morgaine <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:39:52 +0100

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Joshua Bell <[email-masked]> wrote:

>
> *VWRAP should be the protocol suite for enabling movement of an agent
> between two regions.*
>
> *Is there rough consensus on that statement? Does anyone see anything in
> contradiction between that statement and the draft charter?*
>
>
> I have read the draft charter again very carefully (it contains only one
reference to "moving between regions"), and I see no contradiction between
the above statement and the draft charter.  (It's one function of VWRAP out
of many of course.)

You have my +1 to build rough consensus on that statement, Joshua.

Of course, that statement does not tell us anything about *how * "*enabling
movement of an agent between two regions*" can be achieved when those two
regions belong to two different worlds.  That is something that we will have
to work out.

I am quite certain that there is no intention of bypassing and hence
subverting the policies of those two virtual worlds, and so the protocol
cannot refer to those two regions alone in isolation.

It must also refer to the two "policy servers or services" of those virtual
worlds, in other words their two *ADs* that provide the seed caps that
determine policy.  (Or instead of ADs they might be the two "*world services
*" of those worlds if we adopt Cable Beach terminology.)

I look forward to us figuring out how the two ADs will, together, achieve
this.  (Marshall has given us the excellent metaphor of *peering* between
VWs that can help here.)

Morgaine.

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

---

From: Charles Krinke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:34:29 -0700 (PDT)

+1 Morgaine.

I am in a similar place here. To me, this work represents a step towards documenting and enhancing the work of OGP to go between similar but autonomous virtual worlds and to that end, I applaud it.

To the extent we concentrate on region crossing within the SecondLife virtual world, I will probably stand on the sidelines as my heart is in interop between SecondLife and various OpenSim grids.

Charles

________________________________
From: Morgaine <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2009 6:38:34 PM
Subject: Re: [ogpx] where does VWRAP fit?

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Joshua Bell <[email-masked]> wrote:

>Morgaine:
>You keep quoting Meadhbh's comment from Aug 30th.
>

Joshua, I think it's excellent that you've highlighted a possible area of mismatch between the language selected for the charter out of expediency and the actual work ahead.  This gives us our first post-charter opportunity to clarify the goals further.

It was my understanding that Meadhbh's comment is still accurate, and that therefore it's the best that we currently have.  It was certainly a very clear statement, which is why I quote it, and if it is still current then of course it is correct of us to quote it.

We arrived at a charter that avoided making such clear statements, leaving many things open to interpretation so that we could get beyond the charter stage, which I believe was a good move.  It gave us rapid progress.

But we can't continue to be vague about everything.  At some point we need to know exactly what all these words actually mean and what the protocol can achieve, and I'm going to work hard to ensure that what we write actually is meaningful and is understood.

>From your reply, I believe that the crucial words "not between worlds" from Meadhbh's comment are no longer appropriate, in that you wish VWRAP interop between regions to include the case where those regions belong to more than one virtual world.  Is that correct?  If so, we can declare that earlier comment as overridden and I won't cite it again.

This will have a dramatic effect on our work.  Since it now opens up VWRAP to include interop between VWs (by removing "not between worlds"), our workload now includes the following:

	* Removal of the fictional "single virtual world" conjured up in the old OGP documents which overloaded the term and hence blocked all discussion about multiple VWs.
	* Mapping of multiple VWs onto the entities in our protocol, such as ADs and RDs.
	* Specification of use cases demonstrating how VWRAP will handle cross-VW interop in terms of the entities defined by VWRAP.
I am sure it will please many people in SL-compatible grids if we manage to put interop between worlds on a solid footing in this way.  (This was always the hope for OGP in open grids.)  Subject to the clarification above, this now becomes an important goal for VWRAP.

Morgaine.

Let me try using fewer words:
>
>VWRAP should be the protocol suite for enabling movement of an agent between two regions.
>
>Please note that the above statement says NOTHING about how the agent or regions are administered. Those regions could be part of one virtual world or two virtual worlds. They could be operated by one service provider or two; the agent services may be provided by one of the same or yet a third. 
>
>Is there rough consensus on that statement? Does anyone see anything in contradiction between that statement and the draft charter?
>
>Morgaine: You keep quoting Meadhbh's comment from Aug 30th. Based on feedback received regarding that comment, we (multiple mailing list members) came to understand that there was confusion about terminology. The charter was then refined appropriately to avoid confusion and focus on technical terminology such as "regions" and "agents" that have clear meaning and aren't a source of confusion. Please stop beating that dead horse.
>
>
>On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 10:11 PM, Morgaine <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>>Sure Carlo, I've just done it, and I'll post it shortly.  You wrote a long post, so it took a while to answer in detail as requested.  :-)
>>
>>Morgaine.
>>
>>
>>