The open source community says that standards arise first from code. Without the code driving things, there are no policies, standards, identity systems, content protection, or ability to tag and flag grids for their level of privacy or whether they’re G or X-rated or any of that stuff - it all starts from bytes, baby, and what brilliant little bytes they are.
OK, so some context, because the geeks had their own table at the recent Virtual World conference in LA. Two tables in fact - one a booth in the exhibit hall, and the second a panel discussion on the main agenda, unfortunately slotted in the last spot on the last day but well-attended.
The panel was facilitated by Tish Shute of UgoTrade and included Ubergeek Adam Frisby of Deep Think, Mic Bowman of Intel (who, Trish took great pains to tell everyone “has actually written code” as if the writing of code was a critical entry pass to even be ON a panel like this), David Levine of IBM (Zha Ewry in SL), Justin-Clark Casey who’s currently ‘unemployed’ but is about to start work on the Fashion Research Institute project, and Mike Mazur working with 3Di in Japan (and who had that endearing Japanese way of giving you his business card).
Super Geeks
Now, before I go on, I should say that I use the word “geek” in the most endearing possible way. This being an open source discussion, I’ll rely on the open source Wikipedia and choose one of their definitions of geek (leave it to Wikipedia, by the way, to point out that we can all join in the celebrations of Nerd Pride Day on May 26th in Spain…I didn’t know there was such a day and I really didn’t know that Spain was such a hot bed):
“A person with a devotion to something in a way that places him or her outside the mainstream. This could be due to the intensity, depth, or subject of their interest.”
In fact, these aren’t your usual geeks. These are super geeks. Brilliant people who live in that netherworld of code and deep thought and IRC channels that put the SL forums to shame with a kind of rough-and-tumble energy and, well, geekiness.
OpenSim Booth Babes Photo by way of Adam Frisby
And I mention the fact that these are super geeks because, well, I’m not. Or maybe I’m just a geek in whatever way a non-coder can be a geek, but it’s a tough call because I can get intense sometimes but I don’t have much depth and I don’t have a particular subject of interest, in fact my attention span is that of a gnat, so I was thankful that the session on “open source and virtual worlds” was kept on schedule, because an hour is really pushing my ability to pay attention.
What They Said
OK - so, you can see what’s happened here. I have a point but it takes me 30 minutes to get to it. With the VW panel on the other hand, they get to the point, and they arrive at it with the ruthless efficiency that only bright minds can. But because of that efficiency - and you know what I mean if you know any geeks, sometimes the message gets a little lost in translation, it gets lost in words like “extensible” and my favorite new phrase “computational fabrics” and the fact that for some reason, and I don’t think it’s because it was a public forum, these folks TALK really fast which makes it all a bit of a blur.
Now…thank goodness for Tish from UgoTrade who managed to bring some structure and purpose to the conversation - plus, she talks at a speed I can follow.
And this is important: because I think that lost in all the code talk is a message that I can buy into, or at least understand, but the thing with people with passion is that they can be SO passionate, and they can get SO excited about how OpenSim is a “tight kernel” (whatever the heck that is), that you sort of lose track of what they’re getting at. So I can only give a kind of impressionist take on half of what was said, or at least what they intended to say, although frankly I might be making some stuff up here as well.
OK, so here’s what was said in a very broad, general way:
- OpenSim is driving innovation for virtual worlds (being a VW conference, they assume I guess that everyone believes that virtual worlds are important)
- Open source is better because it helps to establish standards, a code base, and that innovation thing again
- Insert lots of code-type structural talk here such as “modular components” and “browser neutral” and all that. They SORT of made a connection between why this was important and examples, but they kept getting side-tracked.
- Justin Clark-Casey for example is doing some really interesting stuff, but he merely touched on it without really explaining why it’s an example of why OpenSim is important.
- Likewise Mike started to talk about what they’re doing at 3Di which is also interesting stuff - for example, a browser-based client, one that WORKS (mostly), load balancing so that you can exceed avatar limits and reduce lag, things like that. But he got side-tracked on some codey discussion of some sort.
- OpenSim will work because there’s lots of people, well, working on it….and they’re very smart people, and some of them are adults (which doesn’t make them smarter, it just means they have IBM and Intel on their cards)
- Standards will be a critical component of OpenSim IN ADDITION to open source code, although the point got somewhat lost in explaining the technical stuff about how OpenSim is coding a very granular list…something about “disaggregating architecture” and “articulating boundaries between modules”.
- Policy will arise from all this coding.
- And, oh….the OpenSim development community “doesn’t bite”, according to David Levine.
What I Think They Meant
So I went back to my hotel room and sorted through everything and had two feelings: one, that I was highly impressed, and two, what I heard and what they were saying were, I think, two different things, especially when it comes to standards and policy.
Now admittedly, this was a panel discussion, not a presentation. Which means it had permission to meander a little. To get lost down little side roads and to use words like “articulating boundaries” and “expressing virtual worlds across various computational fabrics” (huh? You mean use it anywhere?) and “decomposing virtual world activities in order to create innovation ecosystems”.
So here’s my own version:
OpenSim is a large group of very smart people that may have used Second Life as its jumping off point, but that has moved well beyond that. OpenSim has broken down all the stuff you DO in virtual worlds: how your avatar appears, how architecture and objects rez, how identity is managed, how the viewer works.
By breaking it down into the smallest possible “chunks” it means that you can create your own “world” out of whatever Lego blocks you want - prefer mesh to prims? Go ahead! Want to integrate with enterprise systems like Lotus? Go ahead! IBM already has! Want to prototype fashion and then turn it into real life clothes - fantastic! That’s what we’re doing already!
Now - if people can make their own “worlds” (or virtual environments) in any way they please, that means that it will give people more options - and more options are better, it will mean more metaverse for everyone, it will mean you can use it for more things, and you won’t be limited by whatever business models and code the “closed worlds” like Second Life restrict you to, and thus through innovation and a robust community we’ll see a more ubiquitous technology.
(Hmm…I take back the word ubiquitous, sounds too geeky. How about “we’ll see virtual worlds everywhere…work, home and play.”)
Are Standards the Same as Policy?
Now, I made a mistake, because I was curious about this very clear and, hmmm, entrenched view they seemed to present. The one that says “standards arise from code”. And maybe I don’t understand the difference between standards and policy - or how the code will enable policy, in any case, and so I asked a question about this philosophy comparing it to e-mail.
Because e-mail, I said, doesn’t really “work”. Which of course elicited one of those quick technical briefings about how e-mail actually does “work” including something about protocols or something, but my point wasn’t that you don’t GET or have the ability to SEND e-mail, my point was that e-mail is a standard that TECHNICALLY works but that wasn’t developed with some thought as to identity POLICIES which, if it had been, might be a solution for all this spam I wade through every morning.
And sure, e-mail came out 100 years ago before anyone dreamed of spam. But my point was, how do we avoid similar mistakes, and the response was that without the mechanisms FIRST, you shouldn’t really bother with policy discussions because standards should never arise from the top down, they should always arise from the code up, anything else is, hmm, Betamax I guess?
See….we have a communication issue here. And it’s really my point about them being geeks and me not being geeky. Because the immediate response is “No, there’s only one way to do this that will work” rather than, you know, showing that you can relate to the kitchen table issues of the common user, and you can do that Bill Clinton thing and say “I feel your pain” and then show that you actually DO get it and trust me, we’re not oblivious to these issues, which is what they WERE saying just not in a way that seemed particularly reassuring.
Levine said something for example about needing to create some sort of “Grid entry” panel so that before you teleport into one of these mini OpenSim grids you’d know what their policies are or whether the content is X-rated or what the dress code is (funny what they give as examples, I’m more worried about privacy and content protection than strip clubs). So, it’s not like they don’t understand the issue, it’s that they figure it’s better to get the code base up and running and then start testing policy and standards AGAINST the code instead of bothering with it ahead of time.
And you know - maybe that’s fine. Because I think what they’re really saying is the following:
Standards and policy arise when the code is tested against the “real world” applications of the code - because if it can’t be used in a way that won’t piss people off, then it won’t reach that “innovation/ubiquity” thing which is the promise of all this open code.
And thus, we’re invited to join the community - whether as coders or investors or hosts of our own mini sims. And Levine tells us not to worry, because the OpenSim development community “doesn’t bite” which is a slightly different pitch than “they don’t bite, and in fact WANT to work with people who not only want to test the code, but also the models and standards and policies that could arise from it”.
Innovation and Parallel Policy
In all fairness, again - the panel made these points. But they always start with what the code makes possible. And I understand that now - I understand that until you’ve sorted out all the granular bits of Lego that you’re not ready to have an intelligent conversation about policy - as Mic Bowman of Intel said (I think it was him) “You get the mechanisms in place first and then run policy in parallel” and others noted that social models, role transparency and trust were significant issues that would need to be addressed.
Whether decisions are being made at the granular level that will later restrict the range of policy I have no idea - I’m not a geek. And where the forums will be for testing various notions of standards and policy is somewhat unclear.
Maybe it’s time to find a geek and get him to code up some different permission systems or something - if that’s the case, let me know, I’ll fund it.
In the meantime I’ll say again - I may not have understood half of it, but compared to pretty much everything else on display at the VW conference, OpenSim is the true heart of innovation in virtual worlds today. Long live the geeks.
Tremendous recap - and great blogpost title btw. I have nothing but admiration for this lot. Thank you for posting this, Dusan. It’s the next best thing to being there.
Great article Dusan, I couldn’t make the event but this helped alot!
Kyle “G”
Hey,
I’d say as a speaker on that panel, those translations are very bang on - and despite David not finishing that sentence, yes we want people to come in, test code and submit feedback.
Our mailing lists are the best spot for more drawn out discussions, for code contributions (including alternate modules, implementations, etc) put them on our mantis tracker (and also the mailing list if it touches core code), the only consideration for submitting code is our coding policy (http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Contributions_Policy)
Um, no.
Standards do not “come from code”. First, people have to have a common understanding and an enterprise they find mutually acceptable, then they code what it needs.
Doing it backwards, as the geeks around SL keep doing, merely dooms it to irrelevance forever.
Here’s some thinner for your Kool-Aid.
1. OpenSim is not “driving innovation”. They have not produced anything different than an inferior reverse-engineered copy of SL. RealExtend isn’t interesting without a context of community and commerce, neither of which are present for OS.
2. Opensource isn’t about innovation; it’s about copying and taking things for free. I think the critique that Maklin Deckard keeps making on my blog, as a programmer himself, is valid: opensourceniks just make knock-offs of other people’s work, Gimp for PhotoShop, etc. They aren’t making anything that stands along as unique and original.
3. One of the shills that the OS people wield out for Firefox, or for their demand that VWs be “open” or have *their* standards, is that they want people to endlessly “build on modules” (like the muddle that is Moodle — God, a mess). But…these aren’t useful or valid because the general public only becomes annoyed with the excessive choices and lack of usability and fixability. The tabs of Mozilla are its most annoying feature, even though it’s supposed to be its unique proposition.
4. I detect a note of humour in your remarks about “OpenSim has a lot of people and adults” — well, so what? IBM is huge. It can afford to allow some of its long-timer programmers to go and play on SL and it doesn’t matter if they accomplish anything, they just keep their hand in.
5. Again, do NOT look to these people to make standards, they really can’t find their ass with both hands, as you clearly indicate in this discussion. They are unable to explain what they do even to an admiring geek or semi-geek public, let along the public at large, and it’s because they just fool around. Standards are made by grown-up real companies that have a stake in a real market, not rich people’s VC or their own money.
6. Policy should not arise from coding. Policies have to be for people, publics, stakeholders, businesses — and not coders. Coders should NOT make policy. Their voice is only one among many that have to be heard and sifted through, and often not the most practical or useful voice — they all took the economy, buy-sell, and IP out of their worlds, which make them useless.
In fact, David Levine is wrong. These people *do* bite. They bite *hard* and they grind institutions and values to bits and spit them out. They are destroying the economy and the successes SL enjoyed until now with community and commerce, and pretending this is “what disruptive technology does”. It doesn’t. They are not needed. No one needs interoperability at this point, and they are wasting their time.
It’s also a subterfuge to distract from the fact that LL doesn’t have its own business model lined up yet.
and to burn in another point:
Re: “You get the mechanisms in place first and then run policy in parallel” and others noted that social models, role transparency and trust were significant issues that would need to be addressed.
No, no, no, a thousand times NO. Code may come in the form of Lego parts; people’s needs, institutions, requirements for business are not so many little components. They are complex systems and they have to drive the coding, not visa versa.
This is a ruse cooked up by extremist coders who want to weld into their code certain political and economic decisions, like “let’s not have copy/mod/transfer because it’s too hard to maintain, let people call their lawyers”.
So they reduce this vital, living, NECESSARY part of the SL economy to a mere “module” that can be “added on” — or not.
Re: “Whether decisions are being made at the granular level that will later restrict the range of policy I have no idea - I’m not a geek. And where the forums will be for testing various notions of standards and policy is somewhat unclear.”
Uh, yeah, Dusan. You got that right. Of *course* that’s what is happening now. And you are nuts to be so blase about it.
Anyone familiar with web browsers will tell you that Opera originated tabs. (Opera is a for-profit company; perhaps that, or the fact that IE7 now supports tabs, will ennoble them for Prokofy. In any case, there’s nothing in any browser that forces one to use tabs.)
Also common knowledge: IE started out as a hacked version of Mosaic, which was developed at the University of Illinois; what’s that again about open source only being able to imitate?
(I note also that here in the US we used to say that about the Japanese. Remember also Samuel Slater, who brought the Industrial Revolution to the US with what we might now call industrial espionage. Those darned Americans–they only knew how to copy things.)
Thanks for the comments. I’m going to follow-up with another post but I’d like to respond quickly to a few things.
The first is that I’ve found it impossible to discuss the idea of standards and code without first trying to grapple with the basis for the claim. And as I hope I made clear in the post, what I heard because of how it was communicated and what was meant are POSSIBLY two different things. On the one hand, there’s a dichotomy between two opposing views: standards versus code versus code from standards - but the openSim philosophy also injects more nuance into the debate by then injecting the “parallel policy” argument - so I’d rather also inject more nuance into the discussion as well….which is the subject of my next post on the subject.
A few very quick specific points:
1) My comment on innovation was compared to everything else on show at VW08. There is incredible innovation happening in OpenSim. I won’t list them all - you read UgoTrade, you’ve seen some of the innovations. And I’m not saying these innovations are appropriate for Second Life, but it really is a source of continual and significant structural innovation. Enhanced avatars, true browser-based clients, full integration with Web-based systems, procedural objects, artificial intelligence, mesh-based objects. Compared to the Lab, the level of innovation is continual and significant, but my point was in comparison to the other virtual world platforms at VW08 rather than as a specific reference to SL.
2. Yes, it was a knock-off, but as I said in my post they “may have used Second Life as its jumping off point, but that has moved well beyond that.”
3. I don’t believe I made a comment on whether I thought OpenSim was “right” or whether the modular architecture is a long-term solution to the objective of achieving ubiquity. Interesting, the guy from Intel said that part of their objective in working on OpenSim isn’t solely because they think it’s going to be the de facto standard, but rather that by being involved they get to test and learn about how virtual worlds work and, I assume, apply this knowledge to wider or other virtual world initiatives. So even the people involved in OS aren’t saying it will be THE standard, but they’re saying that the standards evolving from it may have applications elsewhere.
4. Yes, humor.
5. Yes, there’s a communication issue, I think. And again, what gets lost is the nuance - the heart of the matter is the comment that “policies evolve in parallel” but no one explained how, or who’s in charge.
6. I agree. And I don’t actually think they said that policy evolves from code. They said that standards evolve from code, and that policy then evolves in parallel. But again, this is the heart of the issue.
And to be honest, and I’ve posted about this numerous times, so it’s not a question of suddenly drinking the OpenSim Kool Aid - I haven’t changed my opinion that this sort of throw-away line or approach of letting policy “evolve” (in parallel or not) is a source of incredible concern to me, especially as it relates to identity and trust.
I don’t mean to sound blase - I’m not. But I really want to understand. And I want to understand because I really do believe that OS is a source of incredible innovation. And IF it’s a source of innovation then it’s not just going to sort of wither away - and so I’m committed to trying to understand it, as best as a non-geek can, and to frame the context from which they propose to derive policy so that I can contribute in a meaningful way even if it ends up being that all I can say is “NO NO NO”.