Personally — I feel that the ISO process saves a lot of problems in the jump start of this complex topic.

See this full invite here:http://www.dryesha.com/2008/05/call-for-requirements-iso-mpeg-v-mpeg.html

Here's a brief:

My dear friend, J.H.A. (Jean) Gelissen from Philips continues to work on MPEG-V. This is the major official (read: global) work on establishing standards. Most of you are aware of my "push" for global standards (see Five dimensions of standards, and the metaverse1)

I fear that the virtual worlds industry, will end up like the gaming industry — small islands that stifle large scale innovation. In contrast, the internet model, with its defined stack, is a much better example to arrive at the full 3D3C real virtual world.

1 Communications

While every virtual world has developed in world methods of communications, the problem of establishing communications between a person in one virtual world with another person in a completely different virtual world has not been solved. Virtual worlds provide an environment for rich communications not previously available thru avatar animation. Virtual worlds also provide a common environment for mixed modes of communications such as text and voice in addition to the gestures and emotional indicators presented thru avatar animation. Virtual worlds also provide private or public communications to occur between individuals or groups. The problem here is how to extend this beyond the confines of a single virtual world.

1.1 IM

1.2 Voice

1.3 Animation

1.4 Media streaming

2 Policies

Each owner of the virtual world needs to be able to specify what and what can not be done in their world. In a large world this may be subdivided down to account holders. Policies determine the rules of engagement between avatars and their environment. While this may be determined completely from the server side, we need to look at what needs to be done from the client point of view as well. Do we tell the client what it can do and what it can't do or do we just ignore requests from the client that is not allowed.
Along with defining policies as a capability of virtual worlds, we should also look at basic rights for visiting avatars. When we move from world to world, we must retain rights to control our avatars. We can not allow impersonation or hijacking of our avatars. We must always be allowed to leave a virtual world.

2.1 Avatar rights

2.2 World policies

3 Global presence

The are of global presence covers areas that are independent of the virtual worlds and answers questions such as if my friend online and if so where? Global presence is a manner of finding contacts beyond IM, telephone network and virtual world presence. We want to be able to locate our friends and associates no matter what service or virtual world they are connected to (with their permission of course). A global presence system will allow a user to move from one system to another without entering login information again and again. When someone wishes to find someone online, the global presence system will connect them to the desired party no matter how or where they are connected.

3.1 Identity

The global presence system provides a central authority for identity of users. Pseudo - identities are allowed and protected as one moves from one virtual world to another. A users real identity is always protected as securely as possible.

3.2 Login

When a user enters a new virtual world, the global presence system logs them and identifies to the virtual world the avatar and pseudo - identity that is to be used.

3.3 Location

When a user wishes to contact someone, the global presence system figures out how to connect the two parties without revealing either one's location to the other.

4 Content

Content is the most significant aspect of interoperability between virtual worlds. The issues surrounding the moving of avatars and other content between virtual worlds is the most challenging and will require the most effort.
The first thing we must realize is that avatar content can come from anywhere on the web. Just as images and other forms of content are distributed across the web, we need a way to allow people to own their own content and save it where they wish. In order to do this we need to provide a method of locating content similar to the way URLs are used today.
The specification of 3D content and more abstract content such as agents or presence may require more than just URL to well defined class of object such as an image or html page. Context will be important in determining the proper content that is sent to the requesting party. Context will include such factor as user preferences, owner defined properties, viewer capabilities and environmental variable on a global scale. In the future what each person experiences as they browse the 3D web will be different based on their user profiles. These profiles will be generated with or without the users knowledge.
We need to look at what type of content we want to support as we move from one world to another. 3D content is a given of course, but there are more complex data types we need to consider. The avatar itself is much more than a 3D object. It is an animatable object. It is tied to communications channels. It is also scripted. A major focus needs to be placed on how to move avatars between worlds of which 3D objects is only a small part of the problem.

4.1 Context

4.2 Plugins

4.3 Translation

4.4 Scripting

4.5 Characteristics

4.5.1 Temporary

4.5.2 Transient

4.5.3 Dynamic

4.5.4 Static

4.6 URL

4.7 Access rights

Interoperability between the backend servers of current virtual worlds providers will only make the walled garden bigger.
We must not constrain the evolution of the 3D web.
We should be looking at how we enable the evolution of the 3D web, not trying to solve the interoperability problem. Making existing virtual worlds interoperable is not the goal here. We did not integrate CompuServe, AOL and Prodigy to create the web. Instead we created HTML to allow anyone to create a web experience. I think we should be doing the same thing, enabling the 3D web not conglomeration Second Life, Active Worlds, There etc.
Currently each virtual world manages the content present in that world including avatars, objects, sounds, animations and scripts. As we move between one virtual world to another, we must allow content to come from anywhere.
Each virtual world developer must be able to define their policies without regard to the client. In other words, the client must be independent of virtual world policies.
If we want to enable the 3D web, we must create an open standard that allows for reuse of server code plus the divesture of common standard services.

Scope

Reuse of current standards
Let's not create competition among standards
Enablers, not solutions
Let's create a process for solving problems and not focus on solving them
Should not be limiting
We can't anticipate what will be created
Examples
URLs for locating content
OpenID for establishing identity
XML for descriptors
Virtual World policies
Each VW must be able to define its own policies
Transient, persistent and permanent content
Avatar abilities
Scripting
Content creation
Content and avatar formats
Like audio and video files, formats should not be defined. But a method of identifying formats should created.
When entering a VW, the appropriate content types will be loaded and rendered
Content can be converted from one format to another or be produced from a master content format such as Collada by a third party service

What should we do?

Create a way of locating content
So that content may be distributed across the network allowing users to be responsible for their own content
Create a way of specifying context for content
So that the appropriate content can be loaded and rendered at the client
Create a method of describing policies
So as to specify what can and cannot be done in a virtual world
Create a method of managing identity
So as to make the annoyance of login every time we move from one world to another lessened
Suggest that the client be as thin as possible and decoupled from the virtual world itself.
Virtual World balance between client and server. Online multi player games load more functionality to the client side to reduce server load. Lets discourage this as it makes the client tightly coupled to a particular virtual world (game).

Attendees

Terri Ertlmeier

Chuck Powers

Mike Danielsen

Peter Haggar

Suzy Deffeyes

Mic Bowman

George Goodman

Paul Fahn

JP McCormick

Rick Knowles

Mark Lentczner

Jon Watte

Summary

The meeting was hosted by Motorola with Terri providing dial in and Mike taking notes. Mic provided an analysis of our positions on forum policy which was the focus of the meeting. Mic provided a document to all ahead of time for the discussion. This document, everyone should have but it is copied at the bottom just in case.

Three things we agree on

1) We want specifications and standards that are, to the best knowledge of all forum participants, free of IP encumbrances. Note, however, that we cannot guarantee that a specification is unencumbered because we do not know when a specification touches on IP owned by a company that does not participate in the forum (and at some point we probably need to think about how to address that situation).

2) We agree that any IP generated as part of the activities of forum are “owned” by all members of the forum. More likely it means that all members of the forum are granted RF licenses to all material that is generated, for example, during working group sessions, and wiki or forum posts.

3) In order to limit liability, activities in the forum should be explicitly scoped (at some level). The goal is not to encumber the standards & specifications, but to be “intentional” about handling IP.

Can we define a scope of activities that determine first set of work items that is sufficient for lawyers to agree on RF?

One of the things holding back approval of the alliance proposal is that the scope of alliance has not been specific in its definition. There are many views of what the scope should be, but Peter said that the scope is balanced between open ended and too tight because of the unknown. Others pointed out that overall forum charter can be broad, but the working group charter should be more focused. (I think we are all in agreement with this. If not please follow up.) But at this point no working groups have been defined. It is the fear of many participants that membership in the forums will require close monitoring of the WG's even if the forum participant is not a member of the WG.

Scope (1.8 of the Alliance proposal)

1.8 "Purpose" means the development, enhancement, and promotion of programming technologies and techniques,

implementation profiles, testing software or scenarios, development toolkits, runtimes and other relevant material to enable

interoperability between heterogeneous Virtual Worlds including the publication of Forum roadmaps, Specifications, testing

materials, and sample implementations that can be used to promote Virtual World interoperability technologies and techniques.

Can we define a scope of activities that determine first set of work items that is sufficient for lawyers to agree on RF.

Chuck replied that the devil is in the details but if we have sufficiently well defined scope, then members of the WG can agree to RF with withdrawal before WD draft.

The forum asked Mark if he would be willing to write a more specific scope than was provided in the proposal.

Can we agree on a structure that is low overhead but allows us to grow?

Chuck will look into various organizations in order to report back with some examples for us to look at.

How do we ensure that there are no IP encumbrances from members of the forum?

It was suggested that a WG participant will withdraw from the group if it wishes to protect IP before the working draft is released. This was met with general consensus.

Mic will draft a new proposal

Intel will host next weeks meeting.

I would like to offer my factory as a place to socialize in Second Life. All are welcome to visit the above location. We will not discuss politics; that can be saved for Tuesday meetings. This is not meant to be an endorsement of Second Life. It is just my personal land in SL that I am making available as a meeting place.

Factory

IPR Policy Discussion Summary and Analysis

During the phone conference on 1/15/2008, the tentative Virtual World Forum members discussed a number of different approaches to structuring the Intellectual Property Rights agreement. This document attempts to condense the main points made, and do an analysis of the proposals in the context of the goals of the Forum. The document is based on notes taken by Jon Watte, Forterra Systems, during the phone call, and may not perfectly capture all the points made. Please feel free to add anything you find missing to the Wiki, or send me e-mail as jwatte at the company forterrainc in the com domain.

Glossary:
IP: Intellectual Property (typically patent rights)
RAND: Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory terms
RF: Royalty Free
SC: Steering Committee
WG: Working Group

Conflicting perspectives/goals

There are multiple perspectives that the procedures and IPR policy needs to take into account. During the discussion, at least the following perspectives were identified:

IP holder’s perspective
Wants to be able to monetize crucial IP
Wants low risk of inadvertently losing that right
Wants low cost of participating in the Forum
Forum’s perspective
Wants to develop standards without extensive terms/cost discussions
Wants to include as many market actors as possible
Wants standards to be adopted
Individual implementer’s perspective
Wants standards adoption to be uncomplicated
Wants known costs of adhering to a standard
… only possible WRT Forum members, not others

The current agreement (call it “Option 0”) has two deficiencies that make it unpalatable to IP holders:
1) It forces any member to make any IP available on RF terms, even if that member was not part of the WG.
2) The only way to opt out is to totally leave the forum, which does not lead to good co-operation; this can be used to effectively force people out.

Additional assumptions:
- Any disclosure from an IP holder should cite specific patent language, and how it applies to the standard. This is to avoid IP holders making statements like “we’re sure we have something that might apply, so we’ll just make a blanket statement and sort it out later, if we feel like it.” The possibility of making such statements will likely be a hindrance to developing and adopting open standards.
- Any IP holder must have some mechanism of opting out of providing their IP on an RF basis, even if that IP holder is not member of the WG. Else some IP holders may never join the Forum to begin with.
- Non-RF, Non-RAND terms likely are equivalent to vetoing a standards proposal. I have a hard time seeing how a standard could be adopted with someone disclosing their intent to discriminate and/or not license.

We have discussed two alternative structures: RAND default, or RF default.

Option 1: RAND default

Description:
Member on working group who has IP related to the standard will disclose what that specific IP is and what the terms will be:
- RF
- RAND
- Non-RAND*
Once the WG proposal is voted by SC, there is a waiting period. Any Forum member with IP related to the standard can during this period disclose what that specific IP is and what the terms will be:
- RF
- RAND
- Non-RAND
Under this option, a Forum member not disclosing within the waiting period, implicitly commits themselves to making any IP related to the standard available on RAND terms.
After the expiry of the waiting period, the WG and/or SC decides on whether the standard should be issued with the disclosures made, or re-worked. It is likely that non-RAND terms would be a deal killer.

Analysis WRT goals:
IP holder: This appears acceptable by most IP holders. An IP holder who does not wish to spend effort during the waiting period can do nothing, and later collect RAND fees if some infringement is detected, so exposure to giving up IP unintentionally is limited.

Forum: There is great risk that WG meetings will devolve into companies trying to get their particular technology legislated in a standard, to turn it into a money-making proposition. This is expected to add time to the standardization process, and might preclude certain standards from being formed or optimally executed.

Implementer: “RAND” is a big unknown for an implementer. What is “reasonable” for one person might be an economic infeasibility for another. RAND also likely excludes any open source implementations, as you couldn’t use them without paying license fees. Perhaps worst, even if a standard is currently thought to be unencumbered, any member can at any point in the future decide to enforce IP that was not disclosed during the waiting period, on “RAND” terms.

Option 2: RF default

Description:
Member on working group who has IP related to the standard will disclose what that specific IP is and what the terms will be:
- RF
- RAND
- Non-RAND
The WG will generally choose to work around any RAND or Non-RAND terms to keep the standard RF. Only in circumstances where there is no alternative would an encumbered standard be considered.
Once the WG proposal is voted by SC, there is a waiting period. Any Forum member with IP related to the standard can during this period disclose what that specific IP is and what the terms will be:
- RF
- RAND
- Non-RAND
A Forum member not disclosing within the waiting period, implicitly commits themselves to making any IP related to the standard available on RF terms.
After the expiry of the waiting period, the WG and/or SC decides on whether the standard should be issued with the disclosures made, or re-worked. It is likely that non-RAND terms would be a deal killer.

Analysis WRT goals:
IP holder: An IP holder that is part of a WG will have time during development of the standards proposal to analyze whether the standard necessarily infringes on its IP, and disclose it during the WG. Any IP holding member will have time during a waiting period to analyze whether any IP applies. This waiting period is intended to be in the 30-45 day period (and likely should be specified in the IPR).
A member of the forum who cannot do a full analysis during the waiting period runs the risk of having to make their IP available on an RF basis to any implementer of the standard.

Forum: When there is a requirement for WG members to disclose IP in the WG, and the WG favors non-IP-protected standards, then jockeying for revenue will likely not be a factor in the standards process.

Implementer: An implementer will know, after the expiry of the waiting period, that no member of the Forum will enforce non-disclosed IP against implementers of the standard after the fact. Free and Open Source implementations are allowable.

Discussion

Balancing the goals of IP holders, versus the goals of creating standards that will see widespread acceptance, is as much art as science. The W3C prefers royalty-free standards, and it is probably safe to say that the web we have today probably wouldn’t be nearly as open or widespread had it been RAND based. A standards policy based on RAND (Option 1) is safe and risk free for large and small IP holders, but is less likely to generate good standards in a timely fashion, and those standards are less likely to see widespread adoption on par with the 2D web.

Option 0 (the original agreement) seems to go too far in the other direction, making it possible for competitors to force others out of the Forum by proposing a standard that mimics core IP of those parties, and the only way to object to such a standard under that agreement is to leave the Forum. Given that the Forum could develop a large set of standards in different areas (from large-scale integration architecture, through virtual goods commerce, unified presence down to details like avatar looks), such an all-or-nothing approach probably will foment too much dissent.

I believe Peter (Haggar) is right: you join a standards body to actually do real work in the area of the standard. Part of that is the expectation that you have to give a little to get a lot. Thus, a system where members by default give RF rights to IP, but have the possibility to veto those rights, seems to strike the right balance. I don’t see how such standards can reasonably be accomplished without having a set calendar deadline, after which a proposed standard can be assumed to be RF from the point of view of Forum members. Thus, I believe a waiting period, with a default of RF licensing if nothing is said, is the right trade-off. If, as an IP holder, a standard concerns something you really care about, you’re likely either on the WG (and thus have lots of advance warning), or you know enough about it that you can find the proper IP during the waiting period.

Thus, a member joining the Forum, under Option 2, commits to review published standards within a given deadline, and takes the risk that anything missed during that review period will not be enforceable against implementers of that standard (or at least other members of the Forum that implement that standard). Although some IP holders may find that this is an uncomfortable risk, I believe it’s a risk we have to take, to achieve the greater goals of an interoperable 3D internet.

My thinking is that you need at least two formats: one for "static scenery," which supports things like mark-up for entity navigation, collision acceleration, on-demand paged downloading/loading, etc, and one for "dynamic objects," which means anything that animates or moves. Attempts in the past have been made to unify the two, but every successful, shipping virtual world actually splits these two.

For terrain, Forterra has taken steps in developing an open source, open specification format for the paged terrain use case; for more information see http://www.interopworld.com/members/ptf

For object meshes, however, there exist sufficient existing file formats. The two front-runner formats in my mind are X3D and COLLADA. Personally, I prefer COLLADA, because it has more robust support in authoring tools, and it does not over-extend itself in the level of specification. There may be others — MD5 and FLT come to mind.

I'd like to hear what experience you all have with different file formats that may fit the bill, and the pros/cons you've found with those file formats.

Action:
I'm in Virtual World L, and want to talk to Totally VIrtual.  Through some mutual agreement about displaying presence (such as a Friend List), I can see that Totally Virtual is available.

Discussion:
Virtual Worlds are a communication medium. The key element is presence - knowing that people on my contact (Friends) list are available and I can contact them by text or voice. This would enable presence to be visible in both directions - seeing on my cell phone who has their phone on or is available in a virtual world, or from the virtual world, which Friends are available via text or voice channels. As with other services, this requires a way to find the Friend and for the Friend to agree to have presence visible to me.

Standards: presence

Discussion:
This lets the company manage my account status through its existing employee management tools - when I leave the company my name won't appear on the OpenID server and any accounts established with that identity will no longer be available.  Rather than a company having to manage employee lists in multiple virtual worlds, this lets them manage their existing employee accounts and simply makes those securely and privately available to virtual worlds to verify identity when creating accounts.  (Note: the virtual world would be unable to directly obtain any information from that server other than verifying the person did exist and was on the server's list.)

Standards: data exchange that verifies server and passes data about accounts

2D GUI applications running on Windows and Linux (or on the Gnome desktop, at least) can be made accessible to blind users via an underlying mechanism that allows developers to embed special attributes into their widgets. Things like a name and a description of a text field, for example, can be made available to a screen reader. The state of a pushbutton (is it depressed?), and the "labeled by" relationship of a group of radio buttons to a nearby text string in the GUI are examples of accessibility attributes. We need to be sure VW architectures make it possible to embed similarly useful information into 3D internet apps. I'm attaching an image below to give an example of the kind of metadata you might want to have available.

Most mobile phones have Bluetooth which allows them to discover other Bluetooth devices in the near physical area. This discovery capability has enabled users to open communications between people who are in physical proximity with active bluetooth devices (called toothing).

Bob is in Starbucks and his avatar is in the virtual Starbucks. Bob notices that there are other avatar enable devices nearby. Bob can attempt to contact one to establish further communications.

As efforts develop to overlay portions of the virtual world onto the real world (a concept called dual reality), we can use location sensing feature of mobile phone to place ones avatar in the virtual world.

Bob walks into a real Starbucks that is mirrored in the virtual world. His cell phone can sense his physical location thru base station triangulation or GPS. This information can be used to locate his avatar in the virtual Starbucks mirroring the real life location.

When a users mobile phone is connected to the internet, the users presence should be available to others.

Bob is away from his computer but has a mobile phone with IP connections. Bill who is in a virtual world or simply online, can see that his friend Bob is online and can contact him if desired.

Whether it is text or voice, both public and private communications are desired. Within a virtual world, communications can be established based on virtual proximity or thru a buddy list. As we move between VW's independently of the people we are in contact with, the communications channel should remain open.

A participant in a private conversation should have the option of handing off there side of the conversation to another client or device such as a mobile phone.

Bob is chatting with Bill in a virtual world. Bob needs to leave the virtual world, but Bill is staying. Bob can hand off his private conversation with Bill to his mobile phone as he leaves the virtual world.

Presence tells us if someone is online somewhere. Current IM systems maintain their own user registry and provide presence to registered users. As we move away from private solutions we need a service that provides online status regardless of whether the user has an IM client open, in a virtual world or on a mobile phone. The presence server does not release information about a user unless the user wishes it. The status information expands from just online status to include how to connect to the user no matter how they are connected.

Bob signs on to the internet. He wishes to contact his friend Mary who is on his buddy list but he does not know if or how she is connected. Mary may have a standard IM client open, she may have her cell phone on or she may be immersed in a virtual world. Bob finds her online status thru a common presence service, which can then notify Mary that Bob wishes to communicate with her. She can then (automatic if preferred) release information to Bob that will allow him to communicate with her.

Motorola Terri Ertlmeier Second Life Nevada Beattie
Terri Ertlmeier ProtoSphere None Yet
Motorola Jay Williams Second Life Disco Brewer
Motorola Matt Beveridge Second Life M4TT Hax
Motorola Mike Danielsen Second Life Nathan Zetkin

The link may have a 2D web representation and/or a VW representation. The user is taken to that site from his client and the page/location represented. In the case where there is a 2D and VW representation, the user is either prompted and asked where he would like to go, or based on his client preference settings is taken to the version of the site indicated by this preference.