[sldev] Question: Replacing current group chat with XMPP?

Rob Lanphier robla at lindenlab.com
Thu Sep 11 18:40:16 PDT 2008


Hi all,

This thread has gone on a really, really long time.   There is already a
feature request filed for this, that seems like a better place to discuss:
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-419

Additionally, a wiki page describing the options (IRC, XMPP, etc) with
the pros and cons, would also be a very productive exercise.

The reason Linden Lab isn't really participating in this discussion is
that it's not something we're working on right now.  Someone else
*could* implement an XMPP gateway using what's available today, or for
that matter could implement a libpurple library that implements the
Second Life chat protocol. 

However, what's a little frustrating about this conversation is that I
don't think any of the parties here are seriously discussing doing this
themselves.

If you're looking to build the case that Linden Lab should do this, the
best place to do it is by constructing a solidly documented case on
wiki.secondlife.com, and linking to it from that JIRA feature above, and
getting a ton of votes on it. Not only will that be the most expedient
method, but even if it doesn't work for now, there's something
documented for the next time this comes up.

A mailing list discussion alone isn't going to be convincing, so please,
pitch in elsewhere rather than continuing to weigh in on this thread.

Thanks
Rob

On 9/11/08 3:04 PM, Harold Brown wrote:
> This page may be of some use:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_instant_messaging_protocols
>
> And from the comparison provided there it would seem that
>
> PSYC - http://www.psyced.org/  or  http://about.psyc.eu/
>
> would be a very good choice for the back end system.  Note that the
> psyced server provides IRC as well as XMPP.
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 1:32 PM, Dahlia Trimble
> <dahliatrimble at gmail.com <mailto:dahliatrimble at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
>     On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 7:41 AM, David M Chess <chess at us.ibm.com
>     <mailto:chess at us.ibm.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
>         > From: "Dahlia Trimble" <dahliatrimble at gmail.com
>         <mailto:dahliatrimble at gmail.com>>
>
>         >I don't know if the IRC model is applicable to SL, but from
>         my experience as
>         >a somewhat heavy IRC user, I just dont see any of the group
>         chat problems
>         >that SL sees and I haven't seen any evidence that the SL
>         *logged in* user
>         >and message volume is greater, if anything I would believe
>         the IRC volume is
>         >much higher.
>
>         Do you have a rough feeling for how many different channels a
>         user is likely to be in at once?  Again, my impression from
>         Zero is that the IRC provider(s) that he talked to cited that
>         as a particular worry-point for scaling. 
>
>
>     No, I don't have a feel for this yer, and I don't have any data
>     about how multiple channel usage affects current IRC servers. I
>     suspect these data may be fairly easy to get as most servers will
>     tell you what other channels any user is currently logged into,
>     and the source code could be studied to offer some suggestions
>     about what limitations there may be, or how they could be overcome
>     if they do exist.  There are also several available open source
>     implementations of servers, and some may perform better or worse
>     in this regard.
>
>
>         >From what little I know of IRC architecture, each server can
>         serve a limited
>         >amount of users and also forwards messages to other servers
>         in a star
>         >configuration. I'm having a hard time envisioning a system
>         that could scale
>         >better than that by just throwing hardware at it as seems
>         possible with the
>         >IRC model.
>
>         That's my impression also.  Distributed pub/sub!  (That is,
>         there's no polling, and a message isn't sent to a server
>         unless there's an interested user in that direction.)
>
>         >I wish it was tongue-in-cheek, but I am a heavy IRC user and
>         so far it's the
>         >only way I can reliably communicate with others when SL's
>         system fails, or
>         >if I want to message people on other grids.
>
>         Well, sure, but I don't really understand the desire for a
>         normal IRC client _in the SL viewer_.  Doesn't KDE / Gnome /
>         Finder / Windows handle the problem of offering convenient
>         access to both SL and IRC at the same time? 
>
>
>     It's a matter of how screen real estate is used. It's easy to
>     forget that end users are using SL because it offers a 3D
>     immersive experience, and without that, it's just yet another chat
>     client. Also I will most likely be using SL on a laptop and screen
>     real estate is critical, having yet another window simultaneously
>     appearing on the screen severely reduces the 3D experience. I
>     haven't seen many chat clients of any kind that take this into
>     regard, and unfortunately that includes the Communicate window and
>     the minimum size that it will size to, although it has improved
>     from previous prototypes. Using the chat window in another
>     application and minimizing it or letting it move behind the SL
>     client window effectively removes me from the conversation, so
>     that isn't the best option. A possible compromise would be some
>     kind of client-side plug in architecture for chat protocols, or
>     even a chat redirection proxy if the client can't be modified in
>     this sense. Then again a well designed AJAX web chat client
>     running in a browser window inside the SL client may even be a
>     contender to replace the Communicate window.
>
>     Here's how I use IRC in the current SL viewers:
>     1. press the F1 key to open a help browser
>     2. type "google.com <http://google.com>" in the URL field and hit
>     <enter>
>     3. search for "web irc"
>     4. pick one, some offer connections to different networks and some
>     may use more or less screen area than others.
>     5. sign in. resize the browser window as appropriate and chat away
>     while you are using SL.
>
>     Note that if you close the browser of navigate to another page,
>     you will most likely need to relog into the web chat client to
>     reuse it, as there doesnt seem to be multiple tabs available in
>     the client's browser.
>
>
>     Also, I'm not trying to advocate a switch to IRC, but rather I'm
>     suggesting it as a possible alternative and as a well-oiled
>     machine worthy of study.
>
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