SL Grid Architecture Meeting
Thanks to Tao Takashi, whom I met at SLCC07 in Chicago, I recently joined the sl-dev mailing list because I wanted to keep up with the technical changes happening in the backend, particularly since the chatter about Linden Lab open sourcing the servers has grown louder. The conversation on the list is largely over my head because I’m not a coder, but the parts that I do understand are interesting indeed.
It seems that Second Life is at something of a juncture. It’s at least on the mental map of anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to social networking, gaming, and 3d/virtual worlds, across multiple industries and sectors and countries, and there is a discernible push to open source more than just the client and to drastically improve the reliability and scalability of the grid.
These items have been hot topics of discussion on the sl-dev list, and chatting with Tao about it proved to be very helpful. He was able to explain a number of concepts from the list in a way that was accessible to me, so we talked about meeting at a set time and invite whomever was interested. The meeting was an informal rather ad hoc gathering. I mentioned it to anyone on my friend’s list who I thought might be interested in the technical details and sent out some tweets, and Tao invited some people too.
Compare the following two slides that Tao put up at the meeting(assuming it’s ok to repost since he mentioned putting the slides up on Slideshare soon):
Tao Takashi explains the current SL grid architecture model.
Proposed changes to the SL grid architecture.
In the first slide, you can see that the SL client connects to a region on LL’s grid, which then connects to the central databases. In the second slide, there are both agent (user) domains and region (sim) domains and with your client, you might connect to an agent domain hosted by someone other than LL, and then connect to a region hosted by LL or by the company or someone else. The agent domain would store one’s identity (profile, friends list, etc) and if “trusted” by another region domain, could connect the user to that region through the viewer.
This model allows for a number of interesting possibilities. Company X may host their region domain but only allow agents from within their own agent domain to connect – similar to an intranet – and may or may not allow agents to connect to other regions. Likewise, region domain hosts could set different levels of access to different agent domains depending on all sorts of criteria, but probably especially security and identity verification protocols. Trusted agent domains would have access to the most regions, and even LL could restrict certain behaviors based upon the originating agent domain (so for example preventing an agent from rezzing objects if they are not from a trusted agent domain).
It seems that now is the time to enter the conversation if you have an interest in such things, as most of the model is still very much up for discussion and debate. Soft Linden provided a number of links, as did others in the crowd, for follow-up and participation. I hope to have a chatlog soon, but in the meantime, check out these links if you’d like to participate:
- Agent Domain schema:
- https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Agent_Domain
- Persistent Inventory on distributed VR systems: http://boroon.dasgupta.ch/persistent_inventory/persistent_inventory.pdf
- Information about the SL-Dev list:
- http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/SLDev
- Linden Office Hours and Locations:
- https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Office_Hours
- Second Life Viewer Documentation:
- http://doc.daleglass.net
There was also a discussion about what this would mean to the end user, how the architecture will handle DRM, IP rights, licensing, permissions, how portable inventories would work, and how the architecture changes might impact the overall SL economy. This is certainly an important conversation and one that needs to inform whatever decision-making goes on at the code level that will enable the most flexibility, but it seems to me that those issues are incredibly complex, vary by region, custom, and RL geographic law, and happen “on top” of the underlying system architecture. My primary concern for the moment is momentum for an open sourced, scalable, reliable system, because in my mind, we’ll be arguing about the IP and economic stuff for a very long time, and I don’t want to wait that long for an open source self-hosted sim that works with the existing SL world (I am shying away from the term “main grid” purposely).
Still, those issues are important points to consider and I look forward to the discussions about how to implement a permissions system that might make it easier to license content, cite works in-world (very important to the higher ed community), and retain my inventory across regions without compromising the income of do-it-yourself content creators.
It was a great meeting and when I hear about the next one, I’ll post it here. This is my own interpretation of what was said, feel free to correct any errors or misconceptions, and many thanks to Tao for hosting and to everyone who attended and participated.
Update: Tao posted the full transcript and slides on his blog. Thanks Tao!
8 Comments to “SL Grid Architecture Meeting”
Ok, so I hear you, what you’re saying is “the technology in the hands of an elite few gets to surge ahead and be developed for their needs alone ‘just because’.
Those who paid tier — and paid the bottom line for this software company for four years — then don’t get to have any say about the devaluation of their land and intellectual property because uh, revolutionary expediency trumps the need to take on board any of their interests.
Ok, tough guy, when you’ve made your brave new world, and it has no people in it, you’ll know why. The revolutionary always eats its children.
My primary concern for the moment is momentum for an open sourced, scalable, reliable system, because in my mind, we’ll be arguing about the IP and economic stuff for a very long time, and I don’t want to wait that long for an open source self-hosted sim that works with the existing SL world (I am shying away from the term “main grid” purposely).
See, this is just completely extremist. You’re saying that just because something is complicated and has many interests involved, it has to be stepped on, sacrificed, and even brutally removed precisely because it “gets in the way” or something that is supposed to be “more important”.
What is the point of scaling architecture for a world in which no one can rationally participate because their creations, their land, their work are all callously destroyed by the makers in the name of the greater glory of the platform? It’s insane.
Only script-kiddies, griefers, anarchists, mad artists, etc will want to play in such a place. And that’s fine. Except…who will pay for it? Do you imagine you can keep shilling people to pay for this?
I’m not sure why you interpreted my post that way, the point is to bring as many people into the conversation as possible so all points of view can be heard and considered. Or at least that is _my_ intent.
It just seemed that there were two separate but related threads – the system architecture and how assets and associated permissions are handled. I hope the system architecture will be designed with the most flexibility to implement asset permissions/licensing schemes that protect content creators while still giving consumers portability across regions.
It doesn’t appear that anything is set in stone yet and it will take time to develop in any case, so we can hash these things out.
Fleep, it is already a precooked conversation, and this illusion that you “bring in people” is meant to mollify people who are being screwed over. It’s a joke.
The idea that “nothing is set in stone” when a) you’ve already said that because the economy and the IP is too complex that it should just be ignored and you should press on with its destruction and b) because it takes awhile to do ths technology creates a total false impression. Because the entire construct of the thing is already hard-wired. It is hard-wired from the moment they first invite the maker and seller of Copybot to the table, and the reverse engineer of the server code to the table, when the TOS still says reverse-engineering is an offense.
Then you realize that the approach is one of destruction, theft, and crime, in the guise of revolutionary expediency.
And just because YOU might be willing to hear the different sides of this, that can’t prettify what Zero Linden and the rest of the Lindens are doing with this — precooking, fixing, sanitizing, driving to complex wikis, steering, filtering. It’s the usual Linden way.
I hope more people will start jumping up and down and screaming wildly about this, it’s really a travesty. And the worst thing is that WE will be portrayed as Luddites and backward, and they will be portrayed as progressive, when they are the ones destroying a world, not us.
Even if I assume that your assumptions are correct, I think there is value in the conversation. There was also discussion about Croquet and Multiverse and other virtual world platforms, and if LL implements something that truly penalizes the content creators, then I have every confidence that another system will take its place – and the issues of scalability, open sourcing, reliability AND the issues of permissions and property rights will be addressed on those systems as well.
I don’t know what the right answers are, hell, with the technical guts of it, I don’t even claim to understand what the _options_ are, but I hope by discussing it and participating, by doing my part to share that info with others, that it will spark good thoughts and conversation that will pay off, if not in Second Life, then in future iterations of virtual worlds.
I imagine something akin to the “laboratories of democracy” concept, many worlds with many systems and customs and protocols, that meet the needs of those who are using it. If I’m in a rush about anything, it’s getting the technology into the hands of as many people as possible with as much openness and flexibility as possible.
I DON’T want the experience of virtual worlds to be in the hands of the few, I want it in the hands of the many. You want a private Idaho, go for it, or you want a shared region of themed sims, or a sim where there is no currency or no gravity or a purple sky, go for it. I’m really at a loss as to what your objection is.
Also, you should know, I’m a Pollyana. I assume the best about everyone until proven otherwise. It’s what allows me to remain an idealist, and better foes than you have tried unsuccessfully to beat that out of me, so let’s not waste time on how naive I might be.
Fleep, there can’t be any “laboratories of democracy” when there is such an unequal playing field, and the world that was first created by the best democracy so far in the Metaverse — Second Life — kills off its creation in the name of a fatuous, giddy, hasty, and greedy rush to “become one with the Internet” and “compete with all the other geeks and game gods”.
There isn’t any capacity to “do what you want” when there is no way for people to pay for it. It means that only the rich can have their purple private Idahos, or the friends of the rich. People who need to monetarize what they are doing to have a presence on line cannot achieve this because there is no intellectual or real property rights. Communism doesn’t work, people should realize this by now, it always leads to crime and destruction.
I don’t think you can afford to be a Pollyana with these Lindens, not at all. Their track record has proven that they only understand force when it comes to the community’s interests. That is, they’re prepared to be the most generous and beneficient of all the game gods, and, as I said, create the best democracy (which is always the worst system…except for all the others).
But the minute you REALLY want to make a claim for what is said to be yours and you don’t want to play along with the fanboyz, then you are discouraged, if not penalized.
[...] bleeding edge, and much of what he said had the ring of truth to it. The bring you back to earth, stop being such an idealistic Pollyana, cold hard reality ring of truth. Thanks, Sibley, for ripping the rose colored glasses from my [...]