KOSH [Kommunity Orientated Software Hardware] Weekly Summary Week Commencing: 18th September 1999 Number: 027 Mailing List: kosh-general@iconimaging.net I'm happy to receive comments on this summary (and corrections if I have made mistakes). Email me (Bridge) at kosh-scribe@mythicz.u-net.com In the mailing list this week, the following items were discussed. a) Subject: KOSH is back! This is repeated and expanded from last week in case anyone missed it. Summary of debate: It never really went away, it just went a bit quiet for a while. Please note the following items for KOSH: 1) Email address is kosh-general@.iconimaging.net (thanks to Jason Radford for fixing this). 2) The KOSH website is located at http://www.iconimaging.net/kosh/ http://kosh.convergence.org/ while http://www.gpwebb.freeserve.co.uk/kosh/ is probably dropping out of use fairly soon - assume that to be the case unless told otherwise. Thanks to Icon Imaging and Convergence International for lending us server space. 3) The KOSH booklist remains at http://www.snowcrash.u-net.com/kosh/booklist.html and is incorporated into the main website at /booklist.index.html Book reviews are actively encouraged and should be e-mailed to metaljoe@snowcrash.u-net.com with "KOSH Books" in the subject line. (thanks to John Chandler for this) 4) If you have a query such as "where did that bit of KOSH info go?" then please email me (Bridge) at kosh.scribe@mythicz.u-net.com and I'll either have it to hand or know someone that does. b) Subject: Compatibility via KOSH Summary of debate: As there are many new "Operating Systems" in development it was mentioned that there could be compatibility issues between them. It was suggested that KOSH could provide a layer on -any- OS to intercept -any- file in ".kosh" format (whether picture, animation, text, sound, etc) and then convert it invisibly in the background to a native format for any particular OS and associated software to understand. It was immediately (and justly) pointed out that we should not need file dependencies (.kosh). Further, that this appears to be a universal datatypes and translation system which would be difficult to retrofit to existing systems. c) Subject: Consolidating KOSH Summary of debate: We have got lots of ideas sitting on file, but not a huge amount happening with a lot of them - or at least that appears to be the situation. It was suggested that the areas that we have information that needs to be furthered are (to quote): - The various ideas from the mailinglists, but not all formalised - The beginnings of the work of the FDE group - Explanatory documents from the LA group - Preliminary draft documents from the survey group - A simple website Suggested is that we start with the Working Groups listing page to get formal items completed. Further, the discussions we have had on the web site should be properly prepared and presented. It would be good to go through all the summaries and individual mails (where appropriate) to get a clearer picture of exactly what we all want. We could have people looking at individual topics (as we have with with migration for example) and then presenting them for us to see more clearly. It was suggested that the way that this could work is that the people interested in a particular subject would voluntarily be forming a Working Group to advance the subject further, and when finished present the result back to the general ML. Perhaps we could us an organic living document approach. Each person in an informal WG would hold the document for a week or two at a time, add their ideas and correct the previous holder's mistakes (agreed by both parties), then pass it on to the next person. When passed around a turn without getting any more changes, the document would be trimmed, signed and posted to the ML for a quick review (with any minor modifications if needed) and then finally posted to the website. This however could take a long time to produce final documents. It was suggested that such groups be kept between 3-6 people to allow working documents to be produced in a relatively short timespan. Alternatively, issue a copy to each person and then assign someone (not necessarily part of the work group) to compile the result and issue a new version until the cycle of feedback ends. If anyone would like to volunteer to get involved in any way with this please contact me at kosh-scribe@mythicz.u-net.com As this type of work is informal it is up to the participants of each IWG (Informal Working Group) to decide how they would like to proceed. All offers of help gratefully received. d) Subject: Introductory KOSH website Summary of Debate: Marcus Petersson has written some material for an introductory website to KOSH-OS (thanks Marcus). Watch this space for more information. e) Subject: Hello ta y'all Summary of debate: As kosh-general@iconimaging.net gets its feet planted firmly on the ground once more there is a definite trend for KOSHans all over the place to announce that they are back - which is nice and gives one a warm and cosy feeling. f) Subject: KOSH is not vapourware Summary of debate: Please can everyone keep an eye out for posts to newsgroups and mailing lists saying "KOSH is vapourware" or words to that effect so that we can reply and state that we do indeed still exist. g) Subject: KOSH Website new articles Summary of debate: On an almost regular basis Greg Webb is placing new articles on the KOSH website. Please go take a look as they are quite interesting. h) Subject: Phoenix Platform Consortium Summary of debate: A lot of information on Phoenix was passed across the KOSH website but seeing as its not KOSH unfortunately it's not getting scribed here except to say that readers are directed to last weeks summary ksum25.txt which contains some quotes on Phoenix. i) Subject: Lentil Summary of debate: This is a part of the LA group's work. The complete document library is at /workinggroups/la1/description/0000001.html but the specific LENTIL docs are at /workinggroups/ la1/description/lentil.html j) Subject: Palm OS Summary of debate: Continuing with the theme of giving credit to other systems, this week's brief interlude is directed towards Palm OS as featured in the rather nifty Palm Pilots. To quote one scribee "PalmOS is an elegant solution packed into surprisingly modest hardware, and a joy to use and program... an Amiga for the pocket". And there you have it. k) Subject: KOSH Website name lists Summary of debate: The KOSH website has sections to list developers, users, journalists and retailers etc. It was suggested that the names of all those known to KOSH at this time be listed on the site to show that KOSH does indeed have people involved. At the moment this information is "lost somewhere in the post" due to the problems we've been having. If people could go to /workinggroups/ individu.txt on the website, save the page, fill it in and email it to greg@kosh.convergence.org we can fill in all the proper details on the website again. l) Subject: Why KOSH? Summary of debate: A brief quote for you from one scribee that gives a further insight into the rationale behind KOSH: "KOSH tries to implement an object sea, which will be a rather radically new paradigm in operating systems and probably also the way of using a computer from the user's point of view - much more enabling than it used to be."