[sldev] [PROTOCOL] Protocol Documentation

[Rob Lanphier]

Hi Argent,

Comment below:

On 10/3/07 8:08 AM, Argent Stonecutter wrote:
> I'm not knocking Linden Labs here. Open Sourcing the client was an
> amazingly cool thing, it was really courageous of them to do that, and
> I'm not criticizing them where they haven't gone further by any means.
> I'm just trying to promote another kind of openness... one that's as
> old a part of the software industry as Open Source and just as
> important... and arguing that it needs some kind of commitment from LL
> that they don't seem to have made:
>
> * LL: we can't log every change, it would be cluttered and irrelevant
> * LL: the source code is very clear on how all of this works
> * LL: it [the code] is very clear documentation
> * LL: so this whole discussion about documenting the capability API is
> just so people can steal code?
>
> Again, I'm not saying they have to make that commitment, I'm just
> asking them to.

Part of working with a company that's trying to be open like we are is
understanding that not every utterance by every person here is the
formal written and undebatable policy of Linden Lab.  "LL" above is some
combination of Tess and I, speaking off-the-cuff at Zero's office hour.

One of the biggest challenges we face by investing in documentation is
that we're still experimenting and changing things.  It's not clear what
exactly we should lock down.  Moreover, we're not feeling a lot of
competitive pressure on this front relative to other really urgent
things that we need to do.  So, we're not investing heavily in protocol
documentation right now.  That almost certainly isn't a permanent
situation, but it's where we are today.

Most of the effort we do spend in formal protocol documentation is going
to be under the auspices of the Architecture Working Group, since
anything we do there needs to be detailed and formal in order to gain
momentum and credibility.  That's not terribly helpful in the near term,
but I hope that provides assurance that we don't intend to let the
status quo persist.

In other areas, we'll have to be a little more clever in making sure
things get documented correctly, and that's going to involve getting
help from you all.  We strongly encourage everyone who wants good
protocol documentation to pitch in here:
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Protocol

I'll encourage everyone at Linden Lab to participate in building this
out, but I'll have a much easier time of it if there's a lot of outside
activity on those pages (thus being a very leveraged investment on our
part).

Rob

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