[Opensim-dev] Inventory and assets

[Tleiades]

Hi

As some of you might know, I have been working on a grid wide inventory 
system. Actually I have a more or less complete implementation on my own 
computers, but for various reasons, I have decided to release the code in 
small incremental chunks.

Today I had a small setback. It turns out - or I had forgotten - that the 
asset server isn't operational, all assets are stored locally on the running 
sim. One way of thinking of the inventory, is to consider it a means for the 
user to point to assets, i.e. an item in the inventory points to an asset in 
the asset server. Consequently a grid wide inventory doesn't make much sense 
until we have grid wide assets.

Consequently I am thinking about putting the inventory aside, and start 
working on a grid wide asset server. Once we have that in place, I intend to 
go back to the inventory.

I think that assets will be a big task, and quite complex, when considering 
the ultimate goal for this project, so I aim for a first implementation, 
wich will be functional, then we can pickup and refine that implementation 
in a later iteration.

My thinking goes along the following lines:

1) Create a functional asset server Using the REST methods sketched out in 
the asset server code
2) Implement an asset cache on the sim, based on a reference counting 
principle, the logic begin something like this:
    On Rez
        if(asset is in cache)
            increment reference count
        else
            get asset from asset server
            store asset in sim cache
            set reference count to 1
        end if

    On Derez
        Decrement reference count
        if(reference count=0)
            remove asset from cache

    When avatar enters sim
        Rez all attachments

    When avatar leaves sim
        Derez all attachments

The only real big question now remains, what is an asset?