Michael van der Gulik <mikevdg at hetnet.nl> wrote:
> If anybody knows of any related existing systems or technology not 
> mentioned on dpon.sourceforge.net, I'd like to know.

Don't forget to check out the E language (erights.org), for
distribution, capability security, and concurrency ideas.

As Goran said, check out Magma.  A distributed image is similar to an
object database (a la Magma).  The main difference is that a distributed
image allows distributed computation as well.  With an object database,
all objects have to move to the client and all computation has to be
done on the client.  But there should be some common functionality, so I
would definitely look at it and contact Chris Muller.

Also, check out squeak image segments, particularly primitive image
segments that the class ImageSegment uses.  The class uses DataStreams
as well which clutters the underlying concept.  When I was playing with
distributed squeak a while back I extracted an object and all free
hanging objects it pointed to using the image segment primitive.  Then I
transported that segment to the remote machine.  To speed up the
primitive I only search young object.  I will try to package up my
code in the near future and send it to you.

> Also, feedback on whether this is actually a sane idea is greatly
> appreciated before I waste 6 months of my life :-).

I think this is a great idea.  I have the same dream of a distributed
shared image with automatic loading and unloading of objects/classes
accessed.

Cheers,
Anthony