Pyogp/Background
Blurb from early summer, 2008
Linden Lab and its community based AWG (in-world discussion group page) are working together to develop a set of open protocols (called the Open Grid Protocol (OGP)) that can be used to create a virtual world where regions are independently operated (not only by Linden Lab). The project is aiming to allow people (organizations, individuals, and the like) to host their own regions in the virtual world and be able to interact and communicate with people in regions hosted elsewhere. In essence, the project's goal is to allow open-source region hosting.
AWG and Linden Lab plan to share the effort in writing a test harness which executes tests against implementations of the Open Grid Protocol. The intent is not to test SL or OpenSim (or gridX) themselves. Rather, the desire is to create a framework where the implementations of the protocols can be tested in any virtual environment implemented per the Open Grid Protocols as documented. The goal is to use the test harness to test the implementations to make sure that the virtual environment is interoperable with the other virtual environments that have implemented the OGP. However, we also plan to test the current SL protocols (the Legacy protocols). We plan to be able to test at the smallest functional level possible, akin to unit testing, and to have the ability to use the framework to sequence steps to enable state specific tests to be run.
The longer term vision is essentially a client library, capable of navigating the grid and interacting with the various hosts, sitting next to a testing framework, happily running along telling us what works where, and where something needs a little attention to work according to specification...
For a smidge more detail on OGP, see a visual representation of the upcoming projects and a general introduction.
Kickoff wiki
At the AWG meeting held April 29, we discussed what a test harness could look like that would be used to test the agent-domain, rez-avatar, and overall work being done implementing the open grid protocols. I'd like to summarize, and continue the discussion on the mailing list, in-world, and on the wiki. Chat log here.
The goal wrt testing, is to build a test harness that enables testing of published Open Grid protocols. The intent is not to test SL or OpenSim (or gridX) themselves. Rather, the desire is to create a framework where the implementations of the protocols can be tested independent of environment. We plan to be able to test at the smallest functional level possible, akin to unit testing, and to have the ability to use the framework to sequence steps to enable state specific tests to be run.
The longer term vision is essentially a client library, capable of navigating the grid and interacting with the various hosts, sitting next to a testing framework, happily running along telling us what works where, and where something needs a little attention to work according to specification...
Shorter term, how do we start?
Let's work on defining the test harness components (from the meeting):
- Login
- Caps (and while it's around the UDP pipe)
- Message Handlers (see chttp)
- Basic web server parts for the Agent, Region and grid bits (ideally a snap in framework)
- Test framework
- Test data (I put this here, not really as a component of the harness, more as a "i'm not telling you my test account's password and what are we gonna do about it" thing)
Python seems to be the flavor of choice here, with a requirement that it accommodate non-python components as needed. The repository for the code is proposed to be maintained by Linden Lab, distributed as an open source export, under the Apache v2 License (see http://opensource.org/licenses/apache2.0.php). The process and details here are tentative, and need more attention...
There is plenty to be figured out obviously. How to start, who wants to play, details are all tbd. My role is primarily intended as one who will facilitate dialogue and contribute as much as possible, but this is intended as a joint effort.
So, who wants to play?