Hi list!
Today we (my company COM.lounge that is) launched
http://syntronik.de
which is the first native Agent Domain implementation for the Open
Grid Protocol.
What this enables is the ability to move with only one avatar across
different virtual worlds. Think of the Open Grid Protocol maybe as the
HTTP for the 3D internet.
The Open Grid Protocol is developed by the Architecture Working Group
which was initiated by Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life. The
goal of the group is to define a standardized protocol which allows
the above: Going from world to world without having an account
everywhere.
Agent Domains in the protocol are sort of like the social networking
parts of it, they store accounts, profile information, group
memberships, friends, do IM and so on. On the other hand there are
Region Domains which contain Regions, the actual 3D environment to
which you can connect with your avatar. The protocol allows you to
connect from any Agent Domain to any Region Domain (there might be
limits in terms of permissions and trust of course).
There are now open source implementations for the region (OpenSim) and
the client (the official Second Life client is open source) but there
wasn't so far one for an Agent Domain. We now have closed that gap.
The Open Grid Protocol is right now at the very beginning. This is
also the reason why
syntronik.de is right now a proof of concept. The
only thing it does at this point is allowing user registration,
logging in an avatar with a special version of the Second Life client
and to pass the name of your avatar to the region you choose to
connect to. Right now no inventory and no appearance information is
passed.
We are dedicated though to bring this project forward. And not only
this but also to do that in an Open Source fashion.
syntronik.de is
build on top of the CMS Plone and the pyogp library which is a python
library for the Open Grid Protocol we are also heavily involved in. We
have choosen Plone because we wanted to test how this fits into
existing websites (because existing social networks might want to
transform themselves into an Agent Domain). Both, the Agent Domain
component for pyogp and the component for Plone will be released
shortly. We might also implement an example based on Django (and no,
it won't run on the Google AppEngine unfortunately).
For more information check out these URLs:
http://syntronik.de
http://tinyurl.com/syntronik
http://tinyurl.com/syntroniknews
My personal interest in helping to specify the protocol is of course
also to bridge the gap between the web world and the virtual world.
They seem to be disjunct at times but they also seem to have similar
problems to solve. So I am promoting XRDS-Simple, OAuth and other
stuff for use in OGP and I would like people to have a look on how
Second Life residents try to separate their first from their second
life and how this is important to support in technology.
The structure of the Open Grid Protocol might also serve as a model
for how a personal data storage might look like on which you have
tight control.
If you are interested in this project feel free to email me or meet me
on IRC (MrTopf on
freenode.net, e.g. #pyogp). Of course you might also
meet me at one of the many Architecture Working Group meetings inside
Second Life.
cheers,
Christian
--
http://comlounge.net
http://mrtopf.de/blog