eekim.com > OHS > SRI Meetings (May-Oct 2000) > Minutes

Minutes: June 8, 2000    (01)

4-6pm, SRI Engineering Building, EK255
By Su-Ling C. Yee <yeemailbox@yahoo.com>    (02)

Present    (03)


1) News.    (017)

2) Discussion about drafting the proposal for government funding. Pat says pieces from all contributions thus far on the list can be used to craft this. Eugene especially liked the first few sentences of Warren's proposal, because it set the context of the project. Pat agreed, and made the following points:    (028)

Doug added that we should mention in our pitch that we are seeking industry funds in parallel. Pat agreed, noting that DARPA expects technology transition strategies to be mentioned in proposals.    (033)

Pat said that in the "first steps" paragraph, we should say what we expect to accomplish over the next three years. We need to include the advantages of solving a serious problem. The OHS and DKR should be mentioned in this paragraph, along with parallel projects that we see growing out of these.    (034)

Pat and Lee explain that we are pitching a DARPA program, not a proposal. Programs provide funding for a multitude of projects. Proposals are pitched under the auspice of a program. Once a program is created, DARPA creates a BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) soliciting proposals. In essence, we are helping DARPA create a BAA with our proposal.    (035)

Marcello noted that the process of creating a program is a long one, typically around 18 months. Pat added that there are ways to shortcircuit the process.    (036)

Other notes on the "first steps" paragraph: We should include the maximum amount of interesting, useful info that will fit in the paragraph. Referencing standards (eg. XML, etc.) that we can build on top of is important. Also important to include scheduled breakthroughs.    (037)

Pat said that he has enough from the suggested summary paragraphs to piece together a paragraph of his own, and said that he will send it out to the mailing list for comments.    (038)

3) W3C has talked about getting Doug more involved, possibly as a fellow. Doug thinks if we move into the right place in W3C, it would be a terrific community. He knows Tim Berners-Lee well enough that when we are ready he will approach him.    (039)

4) Discussion of software development views in OHS. Storyboard it out. For example, it depends on the style people do their programming. Doug says it's important to have different options for views. Brainstorming follows on what would be useful views to have:    (040)

John proposes building IP protection into the architecture and discusses 3rd party escrow. Lee says verifiable journaling meets this need.    (049)

Doug wonders how long it will take us to make a little prototype. A very important thing to start with is email. Hypermail, adding linkability and citability. It is agreed that next week we will go through use cases so we can come up with targets for prototyping. John talks about WebMinds as a use case.    (050)

5) Demo of Augment. Doug brought in his personal computer so that he could demonstrate Augment. He showed its command set, context-completion, help, linking, multiple views, journal, editing capabilities, extensibility, etc. It was very cool.    (051)