[jdev] Fwd: [vwrap] New progress in VW group IM interop: Jarilo

[Peter Saint-Andre]

FYI on bridging between XMPP and Second Life....

/psa

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[vwrap] New progress in VW group IM interop: Jarilo
Date: 	Sun, 2 May 2010 19:47:17 +0100
From: 	Morgaine <morgaine.dinova at googlemail.com>
To: 	vwrap at ietf.org



Over the last few days, *chat interoperability* between VWs has taken a
significant step forward.

Our AWG friend Latif Khalifa (who also develops the Radegast 2D client
and is part of the libomv team) has created a practical chat bridge
between VWs and classic IM systems, called Jarilo
<http://code.google.com/p/jarilo/>, developed as an open source
project.  This currently interoperates Second Life and/or Opensim group
chat and IRC and XMPP conferencing systems, and in principle could be
extended with other IM protocol modules.

Any number and combination of VW chat groups, IRC channels and Jabber
rooms could be bridged in this way.  These individual chat services are
topologically similar in the sense that each defines a flat or
single-level logical grouping of participants, even when implemented
across multiple linked servers.  Jarilo bridges these individual,
internally cohesive groups to form a /*metagroup*/ that does not have
the same uniformity, but instead reflects the diversity of its component
subgroups.  Two or more such metagroups could of course themselves be
bridged to create a hierarchical architecture if desired.

Currently we are experimenting only with triples of component services,
each triple consisting of one SL chat group, one IRC channel and one
Jabber room.  (This is just a choice, not a restriction in the
software.)  Two such triples are currently being tested:

    * The SL group *AW Groupies* (the community arm of the Architecture
      Working Group in SL that was created for interop), the IRC channel
      *#awg* on irc.freenode.net <http://irc.freenode.net>, and the XMPP
      room *awg* at conference.jabber.org <http://conference.jabber.org>.

    * The SL group *VWRAP Chat*, the IRC channel *#vwrap* on
      irc.freenode.net <http://irc.freenode.net>, and the XMPP room
      *vwrap* at conference.jabber.org <http://conference.jabber.org>.
      /[IMPORTANT:  these are informal chat groups and the IETF "Note
      Well" does not apply in any of them nor in the metagroup, despite
      their VWRAP-related names.]/



(Note that the Opensim-based OSgrid group chat is not currently part of
these tests only because it is non-functional after recent
infrastructure changes.  This is likely to be remedied in short order.)

Because it is an external service, it is easy to see Jarilo as leading
towards the kind of decoupled services that VWRAP will be gluing
together into VW deployments.  It is very noteworthy that this provides
chat interop through client-based interfacing, without requiring
interoperable chat services to be planned and provided by world
providers.  This independence is a very empowering property for VW
users, and highlights the point that David made some months ago about
services becoming independent seats of policy.

Althought Jarilo has only just come into operation and is still at an
early stage of development, it is already providing very valuable
practical experience about both the benefits and the problems of IM
interop among virtual worlds and conferencing systems.

It is important to note that two of the VWs in current use by AWG
members (OpenWonderland and OpenCobalt) employ XMPP for their chat
systems, and hence Jarilo represents real interop of one very important
component in current use by at least 4 different VW implementations.
(Tests between actual VWs are expected soon.)


Morgaine.


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