Minutes: June 22, 2000    (01)

4-6pm, SRI Engineering Building, EK255
By Howard Liu <hliu@verticalnet.com>    (02)

Present    (03)

• Eric Armstrong    (04)
• Armando Busick    (05)
• Mary Coppernoll    (06)
• Lee Iverson    (07)
• Eugene Kim    (08)
• Keith Laderoute    (09)
• Pat Lincoln    (010)
• Brian Lincoln    (011)
• Howard Liu    (012)
• Liberty McGeorge    (013)
• Jack Park    (014)
• Joe Williams    (015)
• Su-Ling C. Yee    (016)

1) Action items decided:    (017)

• Su-Ling will send out URL to Doug's 1968 demo video.    (018)
• Pat will prepare a summary about the Washington trip.    (019)

2) Agenda:    (020)

• Announcements    (021)
• News: JavaOne Highlights, Doug's Washington visit    (022)
• Use Cases    (023)

3) Announcements:    (024)

• Welcome Brian Lincoln, Libby McGeorge, Armando Busick.    (025)
• Tuesday, June 27, 2000, is date for next meeting, or perhaps Monday, Jun. 28, 2000    (026)
• Doug's 1968 demo tape viewing party is canceled. Weekly loan is available. Video is also available online. Action Item: Su-Ling will send out URL.    (027)

4) Eric presents highlights from JavaOne. Eric is convinced that Java is the way to go for our project. It might make sense to go to a Python convention. Lee advised that we be careful not to compromise interoperability with nonJava platforms. Eugene said we need to talk about language choice.    (028)

Eric liked ViewletBuilder2, by a company called Qarbon, an interactive demoware, i.e. an interactive tutorial builder.    (029)

Eric also noted a collaboration engine, by CrystalGate, contact person Eric Jones, that allows for real-time collaboration for Windows programs. Integrating the collaboration engine into your Windows program will allow multiple users to use the program simultaneously. Eric suggested inviting Jones to a future meeting.    (030)

Also, Eric mentioned the Pluglets API, by Netscape. They provide a standard platform, run on local Java Virtual Machine, for extending browser capability, in order to overcome interoperability problems.    (031)

Eric mentioned WebStart, an application server from Sun.    (032)

5) Pat and Doug at Washington with Software Consortium. Discussed things with ARPA's WebHabitatproject, a potential funding source. It's a long process to obtain funding from them. Timing is the issue. Pat felt it was somewhat disappointing. Action Item: Summary is in order, by Pat.    (033)

6) Eugene hasn't registered the OHS project on SourceForge. SourceForge requires that we have an Open Source license, and we haven't chosen one yet. Reminds us about our July 6 deadline for choosing a license.    (034)

7) Use Cases. Eugene has seven basic use cases for the system, and they are highly general. Among other things, the use cases are about linking, browsing, and commenting a document. We'll go through a high-level use case. We'll map our system requirement into the use cases.    (035)

Looked at Use Case "Develop document." Reaching consensus and relating documentation to code are common open source problems. Based on our discussions with Brian Behlendorf, our goal should be to fill those gaps, said Lee.    (036)

The OHS system will support UML diagram collaboration, since a UML document can be expressed an XML document, as described by the XMI DTD. (Cf. ArgoUML.) The use cases should address multiple writers of a doc, said Lee.    (037)

Eugene asked, do we want to manage IBIS style documents in the 1st cut? IBIS is not the only option. IBIS style discussion is a way for summarizing issues and allow people to vote on it.    (038)

Eugene asserted that linking to other documents is a basic feature of OHS, and that we need categories. Lee noted how IBIS fits here. The user should be able to discuss a given node. The user should be able to isolate the section of the document, and initiate an IBIS style discussion of this, and lead to a change of the original document. Either the IBIS discussion is a separate document that refers to a given node as origin -- hence no need to categorize the node -- or IBIS discussion can be part of the original namespace. Joe suggested that the user may want to view document without the comments.    (039)

Eric observed that an outliner would support many views. It can determine what view to present the user when the user arrives at the node. Lee suggested visiting the Silicon Graphics documentation website for reference. There, one can expand the table of contents. A CGI argument determines the viewing parameter for the document.    (040)

Eric stated that the system definitely needs categorization of nodes. Eric expressed the need to distinguish between document and its views (i.e. links to comment, etc).    (041)

Someone asked, what's IBIS? Issue-based Information System.    (042)

Eugene illustrated an idea. Suppose someone sends email. Links are made by humans or system. Summarizing is hierarchical; discussion is anarchical.    (043)

Eugene asked, is a view a document? What is a document? Long discussion ensued. At the end, agreed that further discussion should continue on the mailing list.    (044)