Open Source Meeting/2007-12-20

Transcript for Open Source Meeting on 2007-12-20
* [14:01] Squirrel Wood: Hey Rob :)
* [14:02] Michelle2 Zenovka: Hi ya Rob
* [14:02] Rob Linden: hi folks
* [14:02] Harleen Gretzky: Hi Rob
* [14:02] Squirrel Wood: short agenda again today
* [14:03] Squirrel Wood: Hi Q
* [14:03] Q Linden: hey. what the heck is this?
* [14:03] Squirrel Wood: perlin noise ^^
* [14:03] Q Linden: awesome.
* [14:04] Harleen Gretzky: Hi Q
* [14:04] Harleen Gretzky: HI Donavan
* [14:04] Rob Linden: I let the folks in Icehouse know about the first (only?) agenda item on rather short notice, and fortunately, they're representin'
* [14:04] Michelle2 Zenovka: Hey Q, Donovan
* [14:04] Q Linden: got drunk with Ken Perlin once.
* [14:04] Q Linden: (shameless namedropper)
* [14:04] Rob Linden: loves saying "representin" with this av
* [14:04] Squirrel Wood: Oooo!
* [14:04] Michelle2 Zenovka: Yea thanks for being here Tess and Donovon :-)
* [14:05] Michelle2 Zenovka: I seem to cause a little excitment with the curl log on this week
* [14:05] Rob Linden: should we start?
* [14:06] Q Linden: / does it do Conway's life? :-)
* [14:06] Rob Linden: Michelle2, I think you were the one who added the first agenda item, so I'll let you start off
* [14:06] Michelle2 Zenovka: Well i added a patch to allow login without llmozlib but with web auth and it kind of kickedoff from there
* [14:07] Rob Linden: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Open_Source_Meeting/Agenda
* [14:07] Donovan Linden: I replied to a couple of posts to sl-dev talking about what we can do to make it easier for non llmozlib clients to log in
* [14:07] Michelle2 Zenovka: I had previously been speaking to Tess about various login options as Tess had added an option to specificy the login web page but then we hit a mozlib snag and added a work around
* [14:08] Donovan Linden: (also any non-linden clients such as bots or scripts written in other languages)
* [14:08] Michelle2 Zenovka: I saw some of the more recent posts and it looks like you had some conclusions on handling the http error codes
* [14:08] Squirrel Wood: I got a "could not connect" page today while trying to log in... it really needs a "retry" button of sorts..
* [14:08] Donovan Linden: squirrel: rc2 has a reload button
* [14:09] Squirrel Wood: <= windlighted
* [14:09] Donovan Linden: yes, the thread about error codes was one part of it
* [14:09] Donovan Linden: that part is adding llsd support to go.php, which I hope to do today
* [14:09] Michelle2 Zenovka: ok cool sounds good
* [14:09] Donovan Linden: this way the non llmozlib client can just use HTTPClient to authenticate with the web service
* [14:10] Donovan Linden: instead of having to generate multipart mime
* [14:10] Michelle2 Zenovka: that saves a little hastle
* [14:10] Donovan Linden: another short-term improvement I'll be able to pull off is to extend login.cgi and transform.cgi to support LLSD as well as xmlrpc
* [14:11] Donovan Linden: this means it would be able to log in with a client using only llsd and the udp message system
* [14:11] Donovan Linden: right now we require multipart/mime, xmlrpc, llsd and the udp message system
* [14:11] Michelle2 Zenovka: this all sounds good, looks like i did some good with my inital idea :-)
* [14:12] Donovan Linden: anyway, those are my plans. probably won't be available today or tomorrow, which means not until next year because of the break
* [14:12] Michelle2 Zenovka: np, people who are desperate have my curl patch for now and we have a proper solutino thanks to you and tess now
* [14:12] Donovan Linden: right. sounds good.
* [14:13] Mahoraz Munro: wht is this.....land develoers meeting?
* [14:13] Donovan Linden: I can also talk about some changes we made to the splash page to make it easier to skin
* [14:13] Donovan Linden: for non-linden viewers that want to have a custom splash page, there will be a query argument ?splash_page= which can be passed to the /app/login.php service
* [14:13] Michelle2 Zenovka: Oh yes that reminds me of a very related issue
* [14:14] Donovan Linden: which will cause your splash page to be shown above the linden-supplied https login box
* [14:14] Tess Linden: donovan: that code isnt out yet right?
* [14:14] Donovan Linden: no. none of this is out, but all works so should be ready early next year
* [14:14] Michelle2 Zenovka: other web pages such as search etc in the client, and may be should not be hard coded and should use the same web root as the login web pages
* [14:14] Donovan Linden: are the search pages hard coded?
* [14:14] Michelle2 Zenovka: if you understand at all what i just ment
* [14:15] Donovan Linden: I think the search pages should probably be returned through a capability
* [14:15] Donovan Linden: that way, the server can decide how the search services are handled, or an agent proxy
* [14:15] Michelle2 Zenovka: Yea i think it is, you can logon to os grid and search the secondlife grid , lol
* [14:15] Donovan Linden: well, I don't know the technical details of how search is implemented so I can't comment
* [14:16] Michelle2 Zenovka: I will try to have a look and file an approprate JIRA if needed
* [14:17] Michelle2 Zenovka: Rob, i think that might be the *topic* delt with :-)
* [14:17] Donovan Linden: as far as the future of the login protocol beyond now, I think we can continue to iterate it, addressing feedback from the community
* [14:17] Rob Linden: cool, I guess that leaves things open
* [14:18] Michelle2 Zenovka: Can i insert a quick ajenda item?
* [14:18] Donovan Linden: and we'll be breaking the monolithic login into multiple steps at some point, for sl2008
* [14:18] Rob Linden: Michelle2: what's your item?
* [14:18] Michelle2 Zenovka: um.. cmake?
* [14:19] Rob Linden: k....I'll get to that in a sec, but one thing I want to touch on first
* [14:19] Rob Linden: before we stop talking about login
* [14:19] Rob Linden: the login pages on the wiki are kind of a mess
* [14:20] Rob Linden: anyone here willing to help reconcile this: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Login%20Protocol
* [14:20] Rob Linden: ?
* [14:20] Donovan Linden: I think icehouse is going to take charge of documenting the existing protocol
* [14:20] Donovan Linden: but we could use help from the community too
* [14:20] Michelle2 Zenovka: agreeded, i had todig through the source to find out how it worked
* [14:20] Squirrel Wood: I'd like to see SL work in companies that have restrictive proxy and firewall settings... (no udp, limited port availability)
* [14:21] Donovan Linden: squirrel: that's theoretically possible with message liberation, every message could be set to http
* [14:21] Rob Linden: Lindens will have more time to get the raw info out there if community members can help organize and make sure it all makes sense and that we haven't sprawled out
* [14:21] Donovan Linden: but it's a very large feature effort and would have to be approached with care
* [14:21] Michelle2 Zenovka: Donovan, since i have made so much noise, i can maybe help with the login documentaqtion
* [14:21] Rob Linden: we actually need fewer pages with better info
* [14:21] Squirrel Wood: Aye. (your freedom client + openvpn is not the best solution even though it works)
* [14:21] Rob Linden: thanks Michelle2!
* [14:22] Mahoraz Munro: hope u dont mind if i bump in.....but our university has a firewall that blocks most peer to peer programs....which also means all kinds of games such as sl and others (would it be even possible to overcome this? as far as i know you cant since sl requires udp connection)
* [14:22] Ripley Oxbar: ive noticed this sim is titled linden open source project...is the referring to the grid code open sourcing?
* [14:22] Donovan Linden: again message liberation has made it technically possible, however there is currently no project taking place to make it actually possible
* [14:23] Squirrel Wood: 
* [14:23] Mahoraz Munro: k....ill try it but until now Nuuuu! proxy or other bypass has worked
* [14:23] Michelle2 Zenovka: Ripley, no this is currently focused on the client side of the code, but we would love tghe grid to open
* [14:23] Rob Linden: k....taking things (I think) in order. Michelle2: you also asked about CMake
* [14:24] Michelle2 Zenovka: Yes Rob, latest statment seems to indicate you are going for cmake 100% and completly dropping scons
* [14:24] Ripley Oxbar: well there is open source work being done now using ur open source viewer ur aware of that right
* [14:24] Eddy Stryker: cool, when is the cmake transition going to start?
* [14:24] Ripley Oxbar: there r several Grids very similar to SL
* [14:25] Rob Linden: yeah, that's likely going to be the case. there may still be room for python helper functions, but the main bit is going to be cmake
* [14:25] Dzonatas Sol: asks again if anybody has tried this: 
* [14:25] Dzonatas Sol: oops..
* [14:25] Dzonatas Sol: this: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Dzonatas_Sol/Compiling_The_Viewer
* [14:25] Michelle2 Zenovka: Ripley, we are aware of the opensim project some of the login discussion was caused by the fact that 1.18.6.X has changed login system
* [14:26] Ripley Oxbar: well they say we must use .18.5 not the new upgrade
* [14:26] Rob Linden: there's going to be more of us (including myself) focused on CMake as well as reorganizing the source code in 2008q1
* [14:26] Ripley Oxbar: the place is buggy but it looks very much like sl
* [14:27] Donovan Linden: for opensim, tess added the -loginpage parameter to the new rc2 client (right, tess?)
* [14:27] Michelle2 Zenovka: Rob are we going to get a bit of a *warning* before cmake goes live?
* [14:27] Rob Linden: the latter bit is going to be helpful for making it easier for us to provide timely source updates as well as to actually start developing some of more of our code in the public repository
* [14:28] Ripley Oxbar: hummm
* [14:28] Donovan Linden: michelle2: bos has been reporting about his progress with cmake on the sldev list
* [14:28] Michelle2 Zenovka: it would be nice to get hold of the build system before its actualy upon us
* [14:28] Donovan Linden: michelle2: I thouht there is a public branch now?
* [14:28] Donovan Linden: thought
* [14:28] Rob Linden: Donovan: branch is created, but we haven't done a push yet
* [14:28] Donovan Linden: ah ok.
* [14:28] Michelle2 Zenovka: Yes i saw BOS's comments on sldev, but have not spotted a public branch yet?.. ah ok
* [14:29] Ripley Oxbar: what language is LL using to produce sl is it visual c# by any chance?
* [14:29] Donovan Linden: many languages, but not C#
* [14:29] Donovan Linden: well, some c# in Branch_MONO
* [14:29] Rob Linden: Bos may be procrastinating on figuring out my janky scripts, which I can hardly blame him for
* [14:29] Ripley Oxbar: well we r using c#
* [14:29] Dzonatas Sol: Donovan: have you tried this? https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Dzonatas_Sol/Compiling_The_Viewer
* [14:29] Donovan Linden: dzonatas: no
* [14:29] Ripley Oxbar: i say we ....
* [14:29] Ripley Oxbar: im just a tester
* [14:30] Mahoraz Munro: dunno why but recently the usage and twaching C# has increased quite alot
* [14:30] Mahoraz Munro: teaching*
* [14:30] Ripley Oxbar: well nice to meet all of you..i have torun the server is going do here ...
* [14:30] Q Linden: dzonatas...I think we see the pure cmake solution as addressing the needs -- why do you want the hybrid with scons?
* [14:30] Dzonatas Sol: Thanks for replying, Donovan.
* [14:31] Michelle2 Zenovka: Dz did work to get scons doing a lot more and generating projects ( i think) but it kind of got ignored
* [14:31] Eddy Stryker: i'm itching to commit this llsd login code, but bots that can only go on aditi are no fun :-p
* [14:31] Dzonatas Sol: Q: I haven't seen justification to do a wholesale switch. I listed on the jira reasons why. I'm not against either one, and I have not seen any reason to go with one or the other.
* [14:32] Dzonatas Sol: Jira: 
* [14:33] Dzonatas Sol: Michelle2, I wanted to make sure I can get feedback about the current implementation of scons before I integrate CMake. I have no problem to integrate Cmake. Frankly, I ish CMake authors and SCons author would work together to share features.
* [14:33] Rob Linden: Dzonatas: the problem with keeping SCons around is that it's more complicated than just Cmake alone
* [14:33] Dzonatas Sol: SCons, using python, can be very programmatic
* [14:34] Dzonatas Sol: Rob, I've been wanting to understand what exactly are th complications that LL has with SCons.
* [14:34] Rob Linden: scons is very unpopular among the developers at Linden Lab, and there's optimism that Cmake better solves the problems we're facing (e.g. supporting multiple IDEs)
* [14:34] Donovan Linden: it seems a bit much to have dependencies on 2 build systems
* [14:35] Dzonatas Sol: Rob could it be unpopular because there hasn't been a full implementation in SCons to build on all platforms?
* [14:35] Donovan Linden: I think the main problem is the generation of VS and Xcode project files
* [14:35] Q Linden: seems like scons hasn't worked well on anything but linux for us, and i too am wary of scons on desktops. it has to be IDE-compatible
* [14:35] Q Linden: sorry, rephrase -- I am wary of multiple build tools
* [14:35] j3rry Paine: oh god not another neat tool
* [14:35] Dzonatas Sol: right now LL wants to put the effort to make CMake build on all platforms, so I don't see why that effort hasn't been done with SCons.
* [14:36] Dzonatas Sol: Q: please try this: 
* [14:36] Dzonatas Sol: ket me know what doesn't work well
* [14:36] Dzonatas Sol: *let
* [14:36] Donovan Linden: because scons is not capable of generating VS and Xcode project files
* [14:37] Dzonatas Sol: scons is... simply call cmake to generate the project files
* [14:37] Dzonatas Sol: cmake calls other tools
* [14:37] Dzonatas Sol: no difference
* [14:37] Donovan Linden: I see no point in having two dependencies
* [14:37] Q Linden: heh...seems like that's sorta saying "my car can plow the driveway...just load it onto the back of the pickup truck."
* [14:37] Dzonatas Sol: trying to say don't want multiple build tools is hypocritical when one realizes that is exactly what cmake does
* [14:38] Dzonatas Sol: cmake create input files... that's it
* [14:38] Dzonatas Sol: *creates
* [14:38] Donovan Linden: right, for the tools we want to use on each platform
* [14:39] Rob Linden: I think we may need to agree to disagree here
* [14:39] Eddy Stryker: well if it that is all you need... sounds like adding scons on top would not give you any new features or benefits
* [14:39] Dzonatas Sol: and any programmatic task to do beyond input files can be very difficult in cmake
* [14:39] Dzonatas Sol: that is where scons comes in
* [14:39] Donovan Linden: so we'll just do them in python :P
* [14:39] Dzonatas Sol: already using python =)
* [14:40] Donovan Linden: anyway... is there anything else we should be talking about?
* [14:40] Dzonatas Sol: and hey, python is not make language of choice.. but it is the most practical here
* [14:40] Dzonatas Sol: *my langauge
* [14:41] Rob Linden: k....maybe we can wrap up a little early. anything else people want to talk about?
* [14:41] Eddy Stryker: llsd
* [14:41] Dzonatas Sol: aks someone to gets transcripts since i was late
* [14:41] Rob Linden: Eddy: yes?
* [14:42] Dzonatas Sol: *asks
* [14:42] Rob Linden: can post transcript this week
* [14:42] Eddy Stryker: i don't know. sorry
* [14:42] Rob Linden: :)
* [14:42] Dzonatas Sol: ty Rob
* [14:42] Rob Linden: going once....
* [14:43] Rob Linden: going twice....
* [14:43] Michelle2 Zenovka: Here comes christmas...
* [14:43] Rob Linden: alrighty. thanks everyone for coming. Happy Holidays!
* [14:43] Dzonatas Sol: Merry Christmas... Happ Holidays
* [14:43] Michelle2 Zenovka: Whens the next meeting, next week or new year?
* [14:44] Dzonatas Sol: open discussion for next week?
* [14:44] Rob Linden: we can meet next week if there's an agenda.
* [14:44] Q Linden: is on vacation next week...far from the tooobz
* [14:44] Rob Linden: I'll be in the office. The more lead time we have on agenda items, the more lead time I have to get the right people here
* [14:45] Eddy Stryker: is zero going to have his normal office hour next week?
* [14:45] Rob Linden: doesn't know
* [14:45] Eddy Stryker: i expect him to be present at 1pm Christmas day
* [14:45] Michelle2 Zenovka: lol
* [14:45] Donovan Linden: haha
* [14:45] Rob Linden: heh
* [14:45] Michelle2 Zenovka: Some ones got to be grid monkey!
* [14:45] Rob Linden: he might do Thurs
* [14:45] Squirrel Wood: Keep in mind that you may get Zero Linden though ^^
* [14:46] Michelle2 Zenovka: Ok Merry Christmas and happy new year all