[ba-ohs-talk] Towards an OHS Manifesto
Pepper sounds like an effective Knowledge Management tool that everyone has been
seeking, and the open source model seems to satisfy the need to generate revenue
to pay the bills and enable folks to meaningfully contribute in the process of
system development. (01)
In a separate letter today Todd Palmer explains R-Objects is broadening the
application which will demonstrate work product and cost savings. In the
meantime Pepper provides a foundation for engineers to build and experiment on
creating the OHS/DKR that Doug Engelbart envisions. (02)
Rod (03)
******************* (04)
Johannes Ernst wrote:
>
> Thanks Jack, for the friendly introduction.
>
> Let me clarify slightly. Pepper is a commercial Personal Knowledge
> Management Product developed by R-Objects Inc, a startup company in
> silicon valley. It's based on an easily-extensible, semantic object
> model, and peer-to-peer technology. It allows you to create what we
> call Personal Knowledge Networks that may include arbitrary
> information from the web -- and not just full files, but "pieces"
> from files (e.g. one paragraph from an article on a news site. We
> call those Peppercorns) and always keeps them up to date. Yes, the
> semantic information model in the box supports IBIS, among many other
> things. Sharing all or part of your Personal Knowledge Network is as
> easy as sending e-mail, and from that point in time, everything
> shared is automatically collaborative. Because it's networked, you
> can easily relate "your" and "my" Personal Knowledge Networks, eg
> because we work on slightly different aspects of the same project.
> And because it uses object replication, you can unplug any time, keep
> working on it on an airplane, and it will automatically sync with the
> rest of the world when you are back on-line.
>
> Pepper is currently in beta 2. You can try it at http://www.r-objects.com.
>
> We are currently incorporating some JXTA (www.jxta.org) functionality
> including chat and group chat capabilities. Use cases: "I need to
> talk to the person who created this Peppercorn" or "I want to host a
> chat with all people who are interested in that Peppercorn".
>
> The Open Revenue model refers to a number of things. First, we give
> 3rd-party developers complete access to our source code, bug tracking
> system etc. You can take Pepper as is or modify it or customize it
> for a certain application etc. similarly to what you can do under an
> Open Source license and deploy it to your users. There are a couple
> of (we think small) restrictions compared with an Open Source
> license, the thrust of which is that commercial users (i.e. those
> that use Pepper to gain a commercial benefit) of Pepper or a Pepper
> derived work owe us a licensing fee. So it takes the benefits of open
> source (access to source code, anyone can innovate, ...) and the
> benefits of commercial software (there's money to be made) and brings
> them together in what is a new package. There are several companies
> out there building Pepper-based applications for certain customer
> verticals.
>
> I know that many people are on this list who have been working in
> this area for much longer than virtually anyone, and we'd be thrilled
> to get your opinions and feedback on Pepper. Feel free to contact me
> any time.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Johannes Ernst
>
> At 7:54 -0800 2001/12/27, Jack Park wrote:
> >For those who are interested in personal knowledge management and
> >want to get their "hands" dirty, so to speak, visit
> >http://www.r-objects.org/ which is a web site of Johannes Ernst,
> >this one for an *open revenue* version of his commercial PKM Pepper.
> >With this plan, you get access to the source code for Pepper and you
> >can share in the revenue generated by adding features to it.
> >
> >BTW: Pepper supports IBIS.
> >
> >Jack
> >
> >At 07:36 AM 12/27/2001 -0800, you wrote:
> >>Jack,
> >>
> >>Education is indeed a major use case. Software development is a s well since
> >>it is software developers who will create the software to further education.
> >>
> >>It is necessary to teach children who are more adaptable than adults. Let's
> >>not overlook, however, that any KM or OHS system we propose or develop will
> >>be adopted by adults who do see the value of the new approach - the 10:1
> >>improvement requirement is likely to be nearly correct.
> >>
> >>This is one of the reasons that I have argued strongly for the individual
> >>perspective of KM. If there is to be any knowledge to share, I must be able
> >>to organize my own knowledge and provide it in a way that makes it
> >>accessible for sharing. This is not distinct in any way from either
> >>education or software development use cases. Any system that is actually
> >>accepted will be used first and foremost by individuals, and those
> >>individuals must perceive the benefit to themselves of using such a system.
> >>
> >>I want to be able to do collaborative knowledge building with small teams.
> >>My focus is primarily software development since that is what I do, but
> >>there are other collaborations that I would undertake if I could get a
> >>decent resolution to that one.
> >>
> >>Thanks,
> >>
> >>Garold (Gary) L. Johnson (05)