[sldev] Puppettering Branch

[Argent Stonecutter]

On 2008-06-07, at 12:19, Felix Duesenburg wrote:
> Argent Stonecutter wrote:
>> For higher volume data transfer, let the viewers share P2P contact  
>> information through this bus, subject to user request and approval.
>
> Sounds good from a technical viewpoint, but couldn't this open  
> another can of worms? I could imagine that in SL, to a higher  
> degree even than on the www, people are icky about privacy and  
> wouldn't want to reveal their IP addresses to untrusted parties.

That's why "subject to user request and approval".

You would have to turn on "P2P support" the way you have to turn on  
"streaming media" now.

You would have to click some icon to approve each new P2P request.

Of course a plugin or custom viewer might decide not to cooperate  
with this, but plugins can already decide not to cooperate with any  
of the restrictions in SL, so I don't see that as being a new problem.

> If you use P2P networks then you (ought to) know what you're doing,  
> but with SL you didn't bargain for that actually. Even with  
> explicit approval - if declining means you can't use some  
> functionality, then this is a double-edged sword.

That's true, and that's already an issue with streaming media and  
external HTTP requests (which I routinely deny). I'm proposing this  
because it provides the required functionality for the more common  
case of synchronizing actions between viewers without opening up the  
P2P can of worms for the easy case.