<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Dear David:</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Maybe it might be a good idea if you and Diva were to collaborate a little bit. Couldnt hurt.</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Charles<BR><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">----- Original Message ----<BR>From: David Wendt JR. <dcrkid@yahoo.com><BR>To: opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de<BR>Sent: Thursday, February 7, 2008 4:00:40 PM<BR>Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] OpenSim search<BR><BR>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">Yes. I think we came up with this a few days ago on IRC, and I would like to start hammering out details. I already have some code to index parcels, but right now all it does is output parcel changes to the console since there's no API or transport protocol to expose.<BR><BR>A simple exposed XML file polled at set intervals would be fine. But I would also like a way for a search service to subscribe to a sim's XML file to have it pushed (delta-compressed, of course) to the search service whenever something changes or at set intervals such that low-traffic sims get updated whenever something changes, but high-traffic sims don't flood the service with too many updates.<BR><BR>So I'll be back with an XML schema idea.<BR><BR>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">----- Original Message ----<BR>From: Charles Krinke <cfk@pacbell.net><BR>To: diva@metaverseink.com; opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de<BR>Sent: Thursday, February 7, 2008 1:29:02 PM<BR>Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] OpenSim search<BR><BR>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif">I'll weigh in here and say that I think Diva's thoughts appear sound to me and I would like to encourage them and offer a friendly environment to test them on OSGrid as they come together.</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Charles<BR><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">----- Original Message ----<BR>From: Diva Canto <diva@metaverseink.com><BR>To: opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de<BR>Sent: Thursday, February 7, 2008 9:01:05 AM<BR>Subject: [Opensim-dev] OpenSim search<BR><BR>Hi all,<BR><BR>I've been spending some time studying the project, to see how exactly I <BR>can contribute towards enabling search engines in OpenSims/Grids. I have <BR>a more concrete plan now that I'd like to share with you, and ask <BR>whether this is something you think it's worth pursuing or not. If not, <BR>then, well, never mind, it's just a plan! :-) If you think it's worth <BR>pursuing, after getting your comments I will proceed to coding this <BR>weekend, and when I'm done I'll submit my code as a patch for your <BR>assessment and consideration. The patch involved in this is relatively <BR>independent of everything that already exists, it would simply be
<BR>another server command that doesn't interfere with the existing ones. <BR>Here's the details.<BR><BR>The very basic for a search engine to exist is the data that lives on <BR>the sims. (I'll talk more about which data and data access control in <BR>the next paragraph, but let's ignore that in this paragraph.) As such, <BR>that data has to be exposed for collection. The right way to do this is <BR>to generate an XML file representing the information on the sims, namely <BR>parcel and object information. This file can then be served by the sim <BR>via, for example, http. So, a possible interface to data collection <BR>services might be as simple as this: <A href="http://tagus.ics.uci.edu/OpenSim" target=_blank rel=nofollow>tagus.ics.uci.edu/OpenSim</A> Test.xml. <BR>My concrete proposal as a first step is to implement a command that <BR>generates this XML file, possibly called xml-snapshot.<BR><BR>Unlike the existing save/load commands, whose purpose
is admin backups <BR>and data ports, this external exposure doesn't need so many details and <BR>must be aware of exposure controls.<BR>- Less details: children prims in objects are irrelevant -- only the <BR>root prims matter.<BR>- Exposure control: the viewer's checkbox "Show in search" is a good <BR>indicator of users intensions towards external exposure. (In fact, that <BR>button should really be called "Expose externally"). Only objects and <BR>parcels that have that marked should be exposed.<BR><BR>Additionally to users intensions, there can be two more layers of <BR>control, one at the sim admin level, and one at the grid admin level.<BR>- At the sim level, each sim admin should have the power to override the <BR>users checkboxes. Specifically, if sim admins decide that nothing in the <BR>sim should be exposed then the xml-snapshot for those sims is a no-op.<BR>- At the grid level, each grid operator should have the power to decide
<BR>whether to externally serve common assets, such as textures, or not. <BR>More importanly, the grid operator should also be able to instruct the <BR>sims on that grid that they should not serve the XML file to external <BR>data collectors, only to data collectors that are "authorized" by the grid.<BR><BR>These controls enable a variety of grids, from very open to completely <BR>closed, homogeneous, heterogeneous, and everything in between.<BR>Once this external data exposure is in place, data collection components <BR>(search engines and others) can do their thing.<BR><BR>Note that Linden Lab has recently moved from being a closed grid to <BR>being open, with respect to sim and user data. Unfortunately, they <BR>decided to use HTML as data representation...duh.<BR><BR>Additionally to the xml-snapshot command, I can volunteer to implement a <BR>basic Lucene-based search engine that OpenSim grid operators can run on <BR>their own grids. This is
independent of any other search engines, and is <BR>particularly useful in grids that are closed to the outside. The <BR>argument here is that Lucene-based text search is 100x better than <BR>relational queries, under all aspects I can think of -- run-time <BR>performance, sim/grid load, component coupling, and relevance of search <BR>results.<BR><BR>Note that some parts of the search problem can still be served in the <BR>traditional way. Specifically, user search seems like a really simple <BR>thing to do with SQL, it's not like there are many Diva Canto's on the <BR>grid... So the idea of a SQL-based search service for certain kinds of <BR>data is not incompatible with what I'm proposing.<BR><BR>I'll wait for your comments, and, as I said, if you think this is not <BR>worth pursuing, I'll go away :-)<BR>Probably won't be able to reply until later tonight.<BR><BR>Diva<BR><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Opensim-dev
mailing list<BR><A href="mailto:Opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de" target=_blank rel=nofollow ymailto="mailto:Opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de">Opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de</A><BR><A href="https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev" target=_blank rel=nofollow>https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev</A><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><BR></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR><BR>-----Inline Attachment Follows-----<BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Opensim-dev mailing list<BR><A href="mailto:Opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de" target=_blank rel=nofollow ymailto="mailto:Opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de">Opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de</A><BR><A href="https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev" target=_blank rel=nofollow>https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev</A><BR></DIV></DIV><BR></DIV></DIV><BR>
<HR SIZE=1>
Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. <A href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51733/*http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ" target=_blank rel=nofollow>Try it now.</A></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><BR></DIV></div></body></html>