-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Mon, 27 Mar 2006, Hugh Perkins wrote:
Peter, Disclaimer: the only thing I'm sure about the problem is that I havent fully understood it ;-) The problem appears to be a stable way of identifying each machine? Could you use an IP address and port as seen by an (internet-based) STUN server?
That would be better than what we it does now, yes. However it relies on there being a STUN server that everyone agrees upon to use, which doesn't really scale. Also it doesn't really address the other multiple-protocol/multiple-networks problems I outlined in my mail. One of the goals of VOS is for the client/server protocol to be essentially the same as the server/server interconnection and sychronization protocol.
Actually, a little bit of background might be relevant here. VOS was originally conceived as a primarily peer-to-peer system. The world server would act merely as a broker which stored the static world geometry and then linked to the connected clients. When you joined the space, you would connect to each client and then exchange updates (position changes, talk message, etc) directly, without involving the server.
This turned out to be unworkable, for a variety of reasons but starting with the fact that lots of people are behind firewalls which don't allow incoming connections. Thus we have turned towards a more traditional server-centric model for the end user client. However, since by definition world servers are accessable, the peer-to-peer design is still very useful and relevant -- it allows you to create grids of world servers, or to knit several servers together to serve a single world!
The expectation is that VOS would form a dense grid of connections between clients, servers, appliances, hubs etc. Keep in mind that these are persistant connections, which is why it is so important to be able to associate a link with an existing connection: unlike HTTP, they are stateful connections.
[ Peter Amstutz ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ] [Lead Programmer][Interreality Project][Virtual Reality for the Internet] [ VOS: Next Generation Internet Communication][ http://interreality.org ] [ http://interreality.org/~tetron ][ pgpkey: pgpkeys.mit.edu 18C21DF7 ] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFEJ4uOaeHUyhjCHfcRAjKtAJwJRHtvPiw+OHqy9YsQODEaX3DKogCePEf+ WU//Cm26Q1V8gn0RCumGcvc= =1ImB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
