[sldev] AWG - Scope (Future SL Architecture versus Multiworld Interoperability)

[Dzonatas]

Zha Ewry wrote:
> >From my perspective, primarily technical, but, yes, I work for IBM, 
> and yes interoperability is something we think is very important, the 
> goal of the AWG is to help Linden with it's next generation 
> architecture. Linden kicked off the AWG process with scaling 
> requirements based not just on the next year or two of growth of 
> SecondLife, but growing the approach to world wide web scale.The 
> broader vision of getting to web scale, and getting a broad approach 
> which permits that was placed on the table from the very begining. 
> That said, I don't think there's a lot of technical  conflict between 
> getting the architecture to scale, and getting it to interoperate.

There was a recent widespread proof-of-concept based on some idea's LL 
had at a very early stage.

> The desire to allow non Linden Labs hosts to host regions and assets, 
> is, in fact inherently about interoperability.  From the point of view 
> of software design, a cluster of sims hosted by a star trek 
> roleplaying community, and a second life like  virtual world run by 
> another vendor, pretty much look the same. Make it possible to do the 
> one, and you've largely made it possible to do the other.
Check done.
>
> Enabling a cluster of interoperable  virtual worlds centered around 
> the secondLife approach would be one step to a much broader 
> interoperability story. Growing beyond that, to standards which would 
> allow very disparate virtual worlds to connect and interoperate is a 
> longer term, broader effort, one which would both inform the AWG and 
> be informed by the AWG's work.
AWG has tended to sway away from the Open Source philosophy and 
pragmatic nature too often. That's why I believe the SLAWG is a great 
incubation for the AWG project for awhile. I haven't seen any goal to 
spin-off a separate AWG as of yet. I have seen motives for 
interoperability with IETF.

>
> When Zero talked about goals, and schedule, and some of these issues, 
> he made it very clear that Linden is going to be balancing short term 
> needs to evolve SecondLife and keep it growing, and stable, as well as 
> the longer term goals. I fully expect that at times, as a community, 
> this will lead to Linden pushing ahead on some features they need 
> before there is a complete community centered AWG story, and 
> sometimes, the AWG is going to lay out something that's needed by the 
> larger community, which Linden won't immediately implement. This may 
> lead to some interesting short term challenges, but long term, I don't 
> see it as a major challenge

The concern is about more immediate needs cured over evolutionary 
steps.  Temporary solutions as a short-term implementation is unrelated 
switches until a final long term implementation is available.

++ Dz

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Power to Change the Void