[exprla-devel] RE: [XPL] Re: [xpl-fog] To the Back Burner

[reid_spencer <ras...@re...>]

--- In xpl-dev@y..., "Richard Anthony Hein" <935551@i...> wrote:
Welcome to the group Lucas!  Or is it Mr. Lucas?

It was only about a week and a half ago that I came across 
WorldOS ... it's
still strange to me to see how small the world is, as Mark Wilson 
noted in
an earlier post!  To think that we made a connection through a
brand-spanking-new site, shouldexist.org ... it's just amazing!

I hope you stay to work with the group in the future, and we'll see 
what
"emerges".  It seems like we are gathering a nice pool of talented 
people,
with me being the least among you all.  Ah, it reminds me of 
something I
heard somewhere;  "if you want to be great, surround yourself with
greatness".  Not that I want to be great ... yeah, ok, I do. ;-)

More comments will follow concerning the meat of your post, as soon 
as I
figure it out.

Sincerely,

Richard A. Hein
  -----Original Message-----
  From: lucas@g... [mailto:lucas@g...]
  Sent: June 19, 2000 1:24 AM
  To: xpl@e...
  Subject: [XPL] Re: [xpl-fog] To the Back Burner


  Eric Hanson of shouldexist.org clued me in on the discussion
  happening here.  speaking as the author of WorldOS, I think that our
  projects are after the same thing.  I'm happy to discover this 
group.
  some thoughts that I hope are relevant:

  My main working principle is that very large scale distributed
  systems can't be programmed explicitly.  Their behavior is emergent.
  To get them to do useful things you have to look for existing
  behaviors and use them as leverage.  the converse is that you have 
to
  forget about fixed specs except in well controlled subnets.

  One of those behaviors is data clouds, which already exist in the
  form of usenet messages, chain mail, viruses, etc.  I believe that
  this will not be a problem once intermediate nodes have detailed
  control over what they pass through and why.  Uncontrolled message
  distribution like in Gnutella leads to big messes, but carefully
  controlled message distribution should lead to clouds that are only
  as
  big as they need to be.

  Another behavior is the mutation of protocols, because specialized
  vocabularies are inevitable.  Though worldOS nodes prefer their
  native transport and message format, they can also have converters
  for
  other transports and formats.  one immediate application for this
  principle will be an adapter for 7-bit ascii.  A 7 bit ascii device
  can establish a relationship with a node that understands it, then
  use
  it as a gateway to nodes that don't understand 7 bit ascii.

  There are a couple ways that WorldOS might be useful to your 
projects
  here.  One is that it's a flexible app server which is not bound by
  counterrevolutionary WWW thinking.  You can plug in transports,
  protocols, and functions fairly easily and not have to replicate 
that
  code all over the place.  Another is that it makes it pretty trivial
  to work with xml.

  > Can't WorldOS make it impossible for someone to force me to go to
  their site
  > to buy, when I can exchange freely with whomever I wish and not be
  > interfered with?

  you bet!  vive la resistance!

  If there are any problems using the system for your projects let me
  know.  mailto:lucas@g...




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