I have put up a pdf file at http://thinkalong.com/ohs/OHS-Core-Thoughts.pdf
<http://thinkalong.com/ohs/OHS-Core-Thoughts.pdf>
which allows me to discuss what I am thinking using pictures. As discussion
progresses, I can make additions and ammendments as necessary. Might even
do that by the clone and mutate system so that a permanent, ugly, history is
maintained. Not sure why I put a copyright on it, but my thinking is
motivated by the idea that all of this should stay within the OHS community
until our mission is fully underway. (Heck, it should be possible to paste
in commentary in the form of additional slides so readers don't have to jump
between there and the Unrev list. OTOH, it should be possible to paste URLs
of appropriate discussions right on the slides. Gads. What a concept!
The lone chart is a bubble diagram with OHS as the central balloon. Here, I
am thinking that the core represents more of an API than a huge investment
in software. I am thinking that what software will exist in the core will
be that which provides sockets for all the other widgets to plug into.
The core should provide services. For instance, I now have one of my topic
map engines talking to the Ozone database ( http://www.ozone-db.org
<http://www.ozone-db.org> ). That's a pretty nifty java open source
database that allows you to store XML classes directly. Thus, I think Ozone
becomes a candidate for prototyping a core system.
Another service is coupling to a server for web access. Here, we begin to
think about the architecture in terms of how one plugs into the core. It
seems reasonable to expect that both direct (local network) and internet
access is desirable. Thus, the nature of the arcs between bubbles is a kind
of socket-like affair in which protocols are established. There are
several, not the least of which is SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) (
http://www.develop.com/soap/ <http://www.develop.com/soap/> ) which is
being supported by IBM, MS, and others. Lots of open source software for
SOAP. Just a candidate, however. (I am cross posting this. Dumb question:
is the OHS-dev list archived in hypermail?)
What other services?
consider:
email handling (lists, etc)
forum handling
more (remember: doctrine of creeping functionality!)
Personally, I'd like to think of the core technology being scalable such
that individuals can have their own local copies, and server farms can
handle web-based access. It should even be possible to configure the core
such that (not illustrated), there can be arcs between cores.
Yet another 0.02 Euros.
Jack
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0.0 : Tue Aug 21 2001 - 17:58:01 PDT