[Opensim-dev] Standardizing OpenSim data formats

[Hurliman, John]

Currently, OpenSim server<->server communication is primarily made up of .NET XML serialization. As a side effect of this, I've seen the wire format between simulator and grid services or grid service to grid service change many times since I started working on backend services. The OAR file format has also changed at least once while retaining the same version number because the underlying prim XML format changed. I am working on a libomv OAR reader/writer at the moment, and trying to deal with hacks for supporting pre and post change OAR files.

To increase compatibility between versions of OpenSim and with third party services I'd like to propose a standardization of (eventually) all over-the-wire communication in OpenSim. I started with an attempt at an LLIDL definition for primitives:

http://opensimulator.org/wiki/PrimitiveFormatProposal

Is anything missing? Does this look like a reasonable start?

John