[Opensim-users] What are some solutions for oar file sharing?

Sun Feb 1 19:57:27 UTC 2009

Mo Hax wrote:
> I have heard of this and am only experimenting now with it, but doesn't 
> that imply some cleanup of the output from a save-oar against an entire 
> region? Even if that region has nothing in it but the new items you have 
> built? and are targetting for later sharing as OAR.
> 
> This also raises a best-practice question about the amount of content to 
> generally put in an OAR in any sharing site. OARs could be as granular 
> as one per, say, sofa, or as broad as one per city block.

I would anticipate that something as small as a sofa would be transported as an inventory item rather than as part of a 
region (which might still be suitable for city blocks).  Indeed, there is experimental code for an inventory archive 
format that I intend to do something with fairly soon.

As Robert said, OAR files are bulky.  To some extent this is a tradeoff of convenience against file size.  If all the 
necessary assets weren't contained in the oar then they would need to be requested over the web.  There is a certain 
inconvenience in making assets publicly available.  It's also not ideal if you want to keep those assets private between 
yourself and some trusted receivers.

However, the advantages are probably great enough for a way for an asset service to request assets dynamically via urls 
to evolve in the future.  These urls would probably be embedded in the object url so that one could just toss xml files 
about (though I think there are still good reasons for bundling multiple objects to gether).  Indeed, Cable Beach may 
already be anticipating this.  I would anticipate that this alternative would supplement archives rather than replace them.

> 
> Perhaps that is something that does not lend itself to convention and 
> should just be left up to the content provider, but it seems to me the 
> more granular the content contained in the OAR package the more 
> consumable they become overall.
> 
> I have always dreamed of something of an SL Xchange site where people 
> could search out such packaged (OAR) content, view a few snapshots of 
> it, and click a button to download it, even load it into their opensim 
> directly. Someday it will come one way or another. Funny, if XStreet 
> allowed file upload and download and PayPal payment as well as just 
> Linden it could almost serve that purpose right now and we could have a 
> content 'mall' to piggy back for even for-sale content as well.
> 
> On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 8:55 PM, Frisby, Adam <adam at deepthink.com.au 
> <mailto:adam at deepthink.com.au>> wrote:
> 
>     Well, the OAR doesn't have to be entire regions – it's basically a
>     archive file (targz) containing:
> 
>      
> 
>     -          An XML file for each object
> 
>     -          All associated assets
> 
>      
> 
>     There's no reason why the number of XML files has to match the
>     entire region, I believe being able to seamlessly import these
>     without a wipe probably makes some sense.
> 
>      
> 
>     Adam
> 
>      
> 
>     *From:* opensim-users-bounces at lists.berlios.de
>     <mailto:opensim-users-bounces at lists.berlios.de>
>     [mailto:opensim-users-bounces at lists.berlios.de
>     <mailto:opensim-users-bounces at lists.berlios.de>] *On Behalf Of *Mo Hax
>     *Sent:* Saturday, 31 January 2009 5:17 PM
>     *To:* opensim-users at lists.berlios.de
>     <mailto:opensim-users at lists.berlios.de>
>     *Subject:* Re: [Opensim-users] What are some solutions for oar file
>     sharing?
> 
>      
> 
>     Ok, another thread never hurts I suppose. ;)
> 
>     Agreed no wikis for content sharing ultimately.
> 
>     I agree with others forge is the place.
> 
>     Are we in agreement that OARs are the standard? Don't they represent
>     entire regions?
> 
>     The standard workflow, then, seems to be becoming that every grid
>     have an OAR landing pad that gets wiped and redone for each OAR
>     import as content is moved into other locations on that grid. Did I
>     get that right? Someday a client side way to do the same would be
>     nice, but Second Inventory seems to have that locked up at the
>     moment, although I would love to reduce our dependence on it.
> 
>     On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 7:51 PM, Robert Klein <rtkwebman at gmail.com
>     <mailto:rtkwebman at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
> 
>     All,
> 
>     I have noticed there are several seperate threads trying to deal
>     with this
>     subject. How about we roll it under this one thread to make it easier to
>     follow? The problem is we have and will have a ton of oar files to
>     share and
>     need a solid way to accomplish it other than clogging up a wiki server.
>     Mirrors? Bit torrent? What are your thoughts? Thanks!
> 
>     -Robert
>     --
>     View this message in context:
>     http://n2.nabble.com/What-are-some-solutions-for-oar-file-sharing--tp2252065p2252065.html
>     Sent from the opensim-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> 
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> 
> 
>     -- 
>     Mo Hax
>     http://imohax.com/about
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Mo Hax
> http://imohax.com/about
> 
> 
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Justin Clark-Casey
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