KOSH [Kommunity Orientated Software Hardware] Weekly Summary Week Commencing: 13th February 1999 Number: 008 Mailing List: kosh-general In the mailing list this week, the following items were discussed. Please do not email the scribe regarding any of these topics, it is not his job to answer these questions but merely to report the topics of conversation. If you have any queries about this summary, please email ben@kosh.net, stating the Summary Number, and Mailing List Name, and he will try to answer your queries. a) Subject Object Ocean Summary of debate: An object ocean made up of many object seas plus network objects which belong in no particular sea, but are accessible from all was suggested. An application server could send out precompiled binary across just such a network. This may not be a "physical server" but instead a function of the operation of the sea. If a machine is isolated from the sea and then becomes a part of the sea then all the common resources of the sea should become available to it. b) Subject: Cloning Summary of debate: A variation of migration is where a task is duplicated on another machine but the original remains in place. c) Subject: More book text Summary of debate: The Macmillan Personal Bookshelf has a "side service", Betabooks which has current text of books-in-progress available online. The URL is http://www.mcp.com/betabooks d) Subject: Character sets (continued) Summary of debate: Alternative character sets such as Japanese or Chinese should not be treated separately, but instead we should use UTF-8 or Unicode which could support such character sets. e) Subject: Slim binaries and anti-piracy Summary of debate: Fixing slim binaries will also solve some serious problems in anti piracy, it will enable a portable keyfile system to be used across various platforms. f) Subject: UTF-8 or Unicode instead of ASCII? Summary of debate: Would it be possible to use UTF-8 or Unicode instead of where conventional systems use ASCII? The two main problems with ASCII are that it is a vaguely defined standard and only has 256 characters which is not enough. Unfortunately most other systems use ASCII and programs would need translators. Alternatively make a new character code standard, "KOSHKode". Each letter would be 32 bits. The low 16 bits are standard Unicode but the upper 16 bits could be used for font size and font selection. This could help make a standard for wordprocessing. However only "KOSH-aware" software would be able to read the new standard. The general consensus seems to be that such a new standard would produce a number of problems including compatibility, and over-large files etc. See http://unicode.org/ for further information on Unicode. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201483459/joelnewkirk (shameless plug for Joel's agent thing there) is a URL with a book called "The Unicode Standard, Version 2.0", ISBN 0201483459, cost $63. See: http://www.cs.monash.edu.au/~jono/ISIS/Solo-bio.html which is a URL detailing Ray Solomonoff and his invention of Algorithmic Probability - and was involved with setting up ASCII originally. Scribe's note: Please see Paula Lieberman's (paal@gis.net) post dated 16/02/99 "Re: Character Codes" which is 19k's worth of excellent text relating to this thread and includes numerous URL's like the one above - but which would double the size of this summary if included here:P g) Subject: Distribution and precompilation Summary of debate: Code that is generated and distributed could be either precompiled on the host machine or compiled on-the-fly depending on the CPU. Perhaps a basic form of this could be built into KOSHv1 to see what the response to it is. This would be tied into the ability of the software to be migrated from one machine to another. Such abilities would eventually allow a home network with transparent resource sharing (including distributed processing) and free and transparent migration across machines. h) Subject: Uninterruptable Power Supply Summary of debate: How about a 10 second UPS on KOSH machines - which should be enough for at least a partial shutdown (including finishing disk activity)? i) Subject: Software disk ejecting Summary of debate: Suggested that software disk ejecting (a-la-Mac) could be implemented to reduce the risk of disk corruption. Alternatively make it so the manual disk eject button is disabled until disk activity is finished. Both these ideas could cause problems if the system crashed and locked out the floppy drive (although a "paperclip" eject like Macs could also be used). j) Subject: Delayed messaging Summary of debate: Could include a delayed message send feature in KOSH so that when a file/email/whatever is sent from one KOSH machine to another on a LAN/WAN and the recipient machine is turned off, it receives the "thing" the next time it is turned on. k) Subject: KOSH timekeeping Summary of debate: Instead of an internal timeclock for KOSH machines on the internet we could implement an online-timekeeping device instead to maintain correct system time. l) Subject: Proposed Working Groups Summary of debate: Joel Newkirk has proposed the following working groups: Marketing - the what and how of KOSH production and sales. Object Distribution - slim binary/ANDF, security, licencing, anti-piracy, etc. Nomenclature - document and as needed devise naming conventions used within KOSH and to monitor usage of such terms, etc. Informational/Educational Resources - track expertise of KOSHans, identify deficits in the community as a whole, maintain resource references, etc. Host OS Resources - subdivided into teams dealing specifically with particular OSses to move towards being able to host KOSH on such systems, etc. Host Hardware Resources - would determine the level of hardware support available within and outside of KOSH and make attempts to increase this. Industry Standards - Identify and assess various industry standards available and their impact on KOSH. Migration - research and propose a system of modems allowing objects to be transferred from one KOSHer physical system to another. Object Model - (perhaps already covered in KOSH) to try to develop an organic modem of /what/ an object needs to encompass. Also emphasis on container objects for data import from other platforms. Scribe's note: Full details of the above that were proposed can be found in an email by Joel Newkirk dated 21/02/99, entitled "WorkingGroups..."