Hi,
As some of you may remember, I've been busy with a Squeak project the past 9 months or so under the banner of the Digital Society of the Past (DGV), a non-profit that aims to bring (Dutch) private persons and institutions together by means of peer-to-peer software. We built the software in wxSqueak on top of a homebrew p2p layer (dubbed 'Gossip'). During the project, we decided to name the base software 'Kolibri', so that's what the project is going to be called from now :)
What the package does is organize the world in communities, which have files, members, etcetera. Also institutional collections can be made available, currently through the OAI protocol. Files serve as starting points for discussion threads, have Dublin Core metadata, and files, institutional collection items, etcetera can be linked together in relations (which themselves serve as starting points for discussions). Data travels over the network as required, and there's a (primitive) protocol to download blobs (file contents) from multiple sources at once.
The software has largely been completed, and I'm uploading new snapshots almost daily on SqueakSource (http://www.squeaksource.com/dgv). You'll need wxSqueak 0.4 for this (although 0.4.1 will work as well). We still have to formally license it, but it'll probably end up as SqueakL+MIT code or something similarly liberal.
I am biased, but I think this software is interesting from multiple perspectives: - it contains probably the most 'real' and most complete p2p layer for Squeak to date (using UDP exclusively allowing it to work through most residential broadband routers); - it is a real-world application with a native L&F using wxSqueak (currently the only one?); - even though the application was paid for by the DGV, nothing in the application is specific to the use of it for history. We're already having interest of a group of schools wanting it to disclose teaching materials, for example.
Therefore, I think it would be useful if some people outside the scope of the original project, i.e. from the larger Squeak community, would help out to make Kolibri more useful for a larger audience. Specifically, some items that I can think of which are clearly out of scope of the project: - Translation to English. The software is translatable (we send #translated to every string literal, and have some infrastructure in place to use that) but the actual translation work still needs to be done. Probably we want to reverse the current situation where the default strings are Dutch and everything needs to be translated into English; - A Seaside UI as an alternative for wxSqueak - I have some ideas on how this could look, and this would let people play with the software without requiring them to install it or to ask system admins to pierce holes in firewalls; - Testing on Mac and Linux, maybe build installers for these platforms; - A good review of the p2p layer, there are some weaknesses there that ideally need cleaning up (most notably the whole 'presence' stuff which was conceived as a quick hack to support instant messaging but has grown out of proportion, but the file download code could also use some reviewing because performance is under par); - Nifty stuff people come up with - both code hacks and new uses of the software. - And of course, I have a long list of ideas but this post is too long already :-)
Anyway, if you're interested, please shout.
Oh, and thanks to all the people who have helped out with advice and debugging during the project. Especially Rob Gayvert, who put a lot of hours in wxSqueak support.
I'm ready to test it on mac. Do you have a web page? Because I would like to show it to some students...
Stef
On 2 oct. 05, at 12:34, Cees De Groot wrote:
Hi,
As some of you may remember, I've been busy with a Squeak project the past 9 months or so under the banner of the Digital Society of the Past (DGV), a non-profit that aims to bring (Dutch) private persons and institutions together by means of peer-to-peer software. We built the software in wxSqueak on top of a homebrew p2p layer (dubbed 'Gossip'). During the project, we decided to name the base software 'Kolibri', so that's what the project is going to be called from now :)
What the package does is organize the world in communities, which have files, members, etcetera. Also institutional collections can be made available, currently through the OAI protocol. Files serve as starting points for discussion threads, have Dublin Core metadata, and files, institutional collection items, etcetera can be linked together in relations (which themselves serve as starting points for discussions). Data travels over the network as required, and there's a (primitive) protocol to download blobs (file contents) from multiple sources at once.
The software has largely been completed, and I'm uploading new snapshots almost daily on SqueakSource (http://www.squeaksource.com/dgv). You'll need wxSqueak 0.4 for this (although 0.4.1 will work as well). We still have to formally license it, but it'll probably end up as SqueakL+MIT code or something similarly liberal.
I am biased, but I think this software is interesting from multiple perspectives:
- it contains probably the most 'real' and most complete p2p layer for
Squeak to date (using UDP exclusively allowing it to work through most residential broadband routers);
- it is a real-world application with a native L&F using wxSqueak
(currently the only one?);
- even though the application was paid for by the DGV, nothing in the
application is specific to the use of it for history. We're already having interest of a group of schools wanting it to disclose teaching materials, for example.
Therefore, I think it would be useful if some people outside the scope of the original project, i.e. from the larger Squeak community, would help out to make Kolibri more useful for a larger audience. Specifically, some items that I can think of which are clearly out of scope of the project:
- Translation to English. The software is translatable (we send
#translated to every string literal, and have some infrastructure in place to use that) but the actual translation work still needs to be done. Probably we want to reverse the current situation where the default strings are Dutch and everything needs to be translated into English;
- A Seaside UI as an alternative for wxSqueak - I have some ideas on
how this could look, and this would let people play with the software without requiring them to install it or to ask system admins to pierce holes in firewalls;
- Testing on Mac and Linux, maybe build installers for these
platforms;
- A good review of the p2p layer, there are some weaknesses there that
ideally need cleaning up (most notably the whole 'presence' stuff which was conceived as a quick hack to support instant messaging but has grown out of proportion, but the file download code could also use some reviewing because performance is under par);
- Nifty stuff people come up with - both code hacks and new uses of
the software.
- And of course, I have a long list of ideas but this post is too long
already :-)
Anyway, if you're interested, please shout.
Oh, and thanks to all the people who have helped out with advice and debugging during the project. Especially Rob Gayvert, who put a lot of hours in wxSqueak support.
No 'Kolibri' web page as of yet - only http://dgv.aardworks.nl/, but that's all Dutch etcetera. There is a user manual which is more a design document than a user manual (it was written to describe how the software should work, then we started building and of course caught up with reality ;-)). It is in English and should give a good first impression: http://dgv.aardworks.nl/KolibriUserManual.pdf
On 10/2/05, stéphane ducasse ducasse@iam.unibe.ch wrote:
I'm ready to test it on mac. Do you have a web page? Because I would like to show it to some students...
Stef
On 2 oct. 05, at 12:34, Cees De Groot wrote:
Hi,
As some of you may remember, I've been busy with a Squeak project the past 9 months or so under the banner of the Digital Society of the Past (DGV), a non-profit that aims to bring (Dutch) private persons and institutions together by means of peer-to-peer software. We built the software in wxSqueak on top of a homebrew p2p layer (dubbed 'Gossip'). During the project, we decided to name the base software 'Kolibri', so that's what the project is going to be called from now :)
What the package does is organize the world in communities, which have files, members, etcetera. Also institutional collections can be made available, currently through the OAI protocol. Files serve as starting points for discussion threads, have Dublin Core metadata, and files, institutional collection items, etcetera can be linked together in relations (which themselves serve as starting points for discussions). Data travels over the network as required, and there's a (primitive) protocol to download blobs (file contents) from multiple sources at once.
The software has largely been completed, and I'm uploading new snapshots almost daily on SqueakSource (http://www.squeaksource.com/dgv). You'll need wxSqueak 0.4 for this (although 0.4.1 will work as well). We still have to formally license it, but it'll probably end up as SqueakL+MIT code or something similarly liberal.
I am biased, but I think this software is interesting from multiple perspectives:
- it contains probably the most 'real' and most complete p2p layer for
Squeak to date (using UDP exclusively allowing it to work through most residential broadband routers);
- it is a real-world application with a native L&F using wxSqueak
(currently the only one?);
- even though the application was paid for by the DGV, nothing in the
application is specific to the use of it for history. We're already having interest of a group of schools wanting it to disclose teaching materials, for example.
Therefore, I think it would be useful if some people outside the scope of the original project, i.e. from the larger Squeak community, would help out to make Kolibri more useful for a larger audience. Specifically, some items that I can think of which are clearly out of scope of the project:
- Translation to English. The software is translatable (we send
#translated to every string literal, and have some infrastructure in place to use that) but the actual translation work still needs to be done. Probably we want to reverse the current situation where the default strings are Dutch and everything needs to be translated into English;
- A Seaside UI as an alternative for wxSqueak - I have some ideas on
how this could look, and this would let people play with the software without requiring them to install it or to ask system admins to pierce holes in firewalls;
- Testing on Mac and Linux, maybe build installers for these
platforms;
- A good review of the p2p layer, there are some weaknesses there that
ideally need cleaning up (most notably the whole 'presence' stuff which was conceived as a quick hack to support instant messaging but has grown out of proportion, but the file download code could also use some reviewing because performance is under par);
- Nifty stuff people come up with - both code hacks and new uses of
the software.
- And of course, I have a long list of ideas but this post is too long
already :-)
Anyway, if you're interested, please shout.
Oh, and thanks to all the people who have helped out with advice and debugging during the project. Especially Rob Gayvert, who put a lot of hours in wxSqueak support.
-- Help my girlfriend's family after Katrina - http://swiki.cdegroot.com/katrina
Cees De Groot a écrit :
No 'Kolibri' web page as of yet - only http://dgv.aardworks.nl/, but that's all Dutch etcetera. There is a user manual which is more a design document than a user manual (it was written to describe how the software should work, then we started building and of course caught up with reality ;-)). It is in English and should give a good first impression: http://dgv.aardworks.nl/KolibriUserManual.pdf
On 10/2/05, stéphane ducasse ducasse@iam.unibe.ch wrote:
I'm ready to test it on mac. Do you have a web page? Because I would like to show it to some students...
Stef
On 2 oct. 05, at 12:34, Cees De Groot wrote:
I'll have a look on linux (ubuntu) as I could be interested by such a software (I'm more or less working on experience sharing etc...)
note: just a remark on squeak and linux... Ubuntu synaptic (debian packet manager) has squeak on one of the universe repository under multimedia application which make the install clean...nice icons etc... I was quite pleased to see that
On 11/3/05, Cdrick cdrick@free.fr wrote:
I'll have a look on linux (ubuntu) as I could be interested by such a software (I'm more or less working on experience sharing etc...)
You're free to do so, but note that the application has been tested and developed under Windows. It should work under Linux, but we've never even ran it...
On 10/2/05, stéphane ducasse ducasse@iam.unibe.ch wrote:
I'm ready to test it on mac.
OBTW, testing on mac will more likely be developing on mac - we have some OS specific code, mostly about file locations, that needs to be adapted. I would have done it myself, but my mac was stolen last summer :(
The code for the latest daily build (http://dgv.aardworks.nl/dailybuild.html ) is http://www.squeaksource.com/DGV/DGVwxUI-CdG.247.mcz + dependencies.
I really do not have time now. I hope that other will help. But this is good that you make that public.
Stef
On 2 oct. 05, at 13:24, Cees De Groot wrote:
On 10/2/05, stéphane ducasse ducasse@iam.unibe.ch wrote:
I'm ready to test it on mac.
OBTW, testing on mac will more likely be developing on mac - we have some OS specific code, mostly about file locations, that needs to be adapted. I would have done it myself, but my mac was stolen last summer :(
The code for the latest daily build (http://dgv.aardworks.nl/dailybuild.html ) is http://www.squeaksource.com/DGV/DGVwxUI-CdG.247.mcz + dependencies.
It's homebrew, to a large extent following research at the VU Amsterdam by Maarten van Steen. http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/5629 has some documentation on it.
On 10/2/05, Ron Teitelbaum Ron@usmedrec.com wrote:
What p2p protocol did you base kolibri on?
I've set up a minimalistic page for Kolibri at http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/5767
The latest version from SqueakSource has updated translation so should show a mostly english face..
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