[Opensim-dev] On solving Authentication and such

[Toni Alatalo]

First, a big + the separation of concerns. Then some brief remarks and 
comments:

Mike Mazur kirjoitti:
> This means that the server will provide one client stack implementing
> one protocol that deals only with 3D information. Avatar movement,
> scene description, agent updates, prim updates, etc. The viewer speaks
> this protocol in order to display to the user what is happening in the
> 3D world. This makes it possible to write a client that is only capable
> of viewing the world and doesn't care about inventory. The protocol
> could be, for example, the LLUDP protocol.
>   

That is BTW exactly the plan in the RexNG viewer effort now: implement a 
minimal set of LLUDP for the client to get the world, and leave out all 
the IM, social networking, commerce etc. related parts of the SL 
protocol, as the idea is to use other existing things for those (xmpp 
etc). And possibly switch away from LLUDP later if it seems to make 
sense, the experiments with MXP now are interesting (i started testing 
adding support to that to openviewer btw to learn more, dunno if will 
have time to complete that soon but we'll see).

So I guess a part of the plan is to facilitate that on the server side 
too, AFAIK that part hasn't been examined more closely in Rex work yet 
(apart from doing modrex and hence getting experience with dealing with 
client views etc). But if the core etc. would be refactored as needed in 
Opensim in general to support using such a minimal set nicely I think 
it'd also benefit the Rex effort directly.

> The inherently 2D features, such as chat or inventory, can use another
> protocol. The server will provide a different client stack that deals
> only with the 2D feature(s). The viewer also implements this protocol to
>   

A remark on the concepts: There is nothing 'inherently 2d' about those. 
They are information that can be represented in many ways. Some GUI may 
use a 2d widget to show them, some other may feature 2,5d or 3d UIs to 
e.g. deal with inventory, and for e.g. blind people you can have chat 
and inventory as audio.

> provide these additional services to the user. This 2D information can
> then be overlaid over the 3D rendering of the world. This allows to
>   

Or some other client implementation may come up with interesting ways to 
integrate them to inworld. In fact the idea that the other GUIs would 
disappear, and the VW itself would be the interface for all services: 
e.g. google searches, making notes, planning an API,  .. but not via 
putting rendered html pages as images to planes, but having the 
structures of the world itself be the information, services and tools -- 
that's what sometimes intriques me most as a long-term thing (and this 
is just my private thinking based on good experiences from earlier 
research systems, can point to them elsewhere if someone's interested).

Back to short term concrete plans, with Rex the plan is exactly that - 
overlay traditional GUI things on top of the Ogre scene (like openviewer 
and idealist do too).

But yes, I'd also think that such separation would make sense - 
especially because there are many possible and I'd bet yet unknown ways 
to mix&match these different features. Like someone said, let's do 
components and let the world decide about the configurations. And indeed 
a specific client may be interested in a single feature, and doing that 
powerfully (e.g. inventory management).

> Mike

~Toni