[Opensim-dev] Micropayment

[ezekiel at daelindor.com]

Aldon,

I agree that the availability of micropayment is a critical success factor. In my view, it would be a honorable undertaking to implement the technical base for micropayment because this would allow many people, especially in developing countries, to open up their own small businesses. However, I think it is not in the scope of this project to develop and manage a currency or implement a banking system.

In my view, the is only one easy way to implement payment: Do it off-world: The in-world vendor specifies the web address of a payment provider. Upon payment, a remote data channel to the provider is established and a browser window to the provider is opened on the user's PC. The user pays through secure html. The vendor is notified on the remote channel when the transaction is complete. 

What needs to be done to implement this ?
- create a standard XML format for the communication between vendor and payment provider. 
- Implement an LL command like 'LLRequestPayment' that opens the browser at a specified web address and sends payment information to the provider.
- Accept provider payment notification through 'money' event. 
- Since client based payment (prim payment) cannot be supported without additional parameters, it should be disabled. LLGiveMoney is also useless because
it is not secure.

Would this be OK ?

Ezekiel
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Aldon Hynes 
  To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de 
  Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2007 6:33 PM
  Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] Some more thoughts on "Friendly teleports"


  It seems like slurl is positioned to handle some of this.  Their format is currently
  http://slurl.com/secondlife/<region>/<x-coordinate>/<y-coordinate>/<z-coordinate>/

  It seems as if they could easily replace 'secondlife' with the name of some other grid.  It is also worth noting that current version of slurl and the secondlife: protocol do not do anything to check which grid you are connected to, so you can use within to teleport to places within any grid.

  As to the ID/PWD, it seems as if the approach for other protocols would seem appropriate for the osap (or whatever it gets called protocol)

  osap://userid:password@host:port/sim/x/y/z 

  would seem to be the standard.  Omitting the userid and password would mean either anonymous access, use the current access, or prompt for a userid and password, which is how other protocols do it.  The optional port, would behave similar to ports in other protocol definitions.  It would default to the standard port for the protocol (80 for http, 8002 for osap), unless overridden.

  One of the issues, of course, would be to get various viewers, like the ones produced by Linden Labs and Electric Sheep to accept and properly handle these options.

  The other issue that I'm particularly concerned about is the relationship between authentication and 'money' in world.  The built in microcurrency, I believe, is an important part of where an open second life needs to go.  Yet this raises interesting questions about exchanging currency between worlds.  That is why the authentication, IMHO, is important, and reasons why looking at currency and exchange rates between grids may be especially interesting.

  Aldon
    -----Original Message-----
    From: opensim-dev-bounces at lists.berlios.de [mailto:opensim-dev-bounces at lists.berlios.de]On Behalf Of ezekiel at daelindor.com
    Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2007 12:04 PM
    To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
    Subject: [Opensim-dev] Some more thoughts on "Friendly teleports"


    Some additional thoughts from a newbie on the "Friendly Teleports" discussion you had back in September:

    For the OpenSims to be really open, the matter of adressing sims and locations in sims will need to be given 
    some additional thought. Since, as you state, OpenSim is intended to be an open network (a web) of Sims rather
    than a closed world like SL, there definitely is the need for a common way of addressing locations from outside
    - from the web or any other world that supports URL-type links.

    LL have a proprietary solution in addressing secondlife://sim/x/y/z. A comparable open solution would be something like:
    osap://subdomain.domain.tld/sim/x/y/z   (osap is for Open Simulator Access Protocol :)
    IMHO the current notion of users logging into grids with ID/PWD falls short of the requirements of an open network. 

    P.S: I would love to discuss design decisions that affect the usability and hence success of OpenSim. What you build today
    could well be the 'next big thing' that mayaffect the online experience of millions of people in the future.

    Ezekiel 


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