Opened Academic Middleware Shifts Culture

Opened Academic Middleware Shifts Culture

ACM News Service: Science Middleware Initiative Goes Open-Source.  There is expansion of the NSF Middleware Initiative (NMI) to include other open-source contributions from academic researchers.  It is particularly interesting that unusual distributed collaborations are arising among institutions to handle common middleware requirements. "Collaboration is ongoing between university middleware and grid programs and corporate-world counterparts, such as the Liberty Alliance and WS-Security, says Internet2 middleware and security director Ken Klingenstein."

Nancy Weil's 2004-05-31 LinuxWorld article provides more detail and potential links.  The fascinating aspect for me is that this is fostering new cooperation models in academic research communities that don't seem so bound to grantsmanship and perishable publishing.

posted by orcmid at 6/05/2004 10:32:58 AM

Recycling Laptops as Picture Boxes

Recycling Laptops as Picture Boxes

Channel9 Wiki: JunktopRevival.  Well, now I know what I want to do with my aging Inspiron 7000 with the 15" display.  Turn it into a picture box that accepts images over Wi-Fi.  This is good, because the hinges on the laptop lid are failing and I am nursing it along until my scheduled upgrade to a tablet convertible next year.  Of course, that's just what I need: another project to distract myself from all the things I say I'm up to.

posted by orcmid at 6/05/2004 09:41:20 AM

Finding a Home for Atom

bestkungfu: Atom/W3C redux.  The Atom folk convened at Sun last week, and this is Matt May's take on finding a home for development of Atom specifications on someone's standards-track process.  Tim Bray provided a running report on the meeting, with photos, and there will be more precincts reporting in, I'm certain.  Sam Ruby's blog entry is attracting useful comments.

In Matt's account I noticed some possible confusion in the Atom community and elsewhere about the anointing process of the IETF versus the W3C.  In the IETF, as I understand it, the first stage is Proposed Standard, and that means just what it says.  A few years later, a Draft Standard can appear, and that will be based on the existence of independent, interoperable implementations (I-cubed?) and winnowing of the specification to account for the reality of what interoperates and what was changed to make it work.  More years later, IETF Standard status (as in standard light-bulb sockets) is recognition of an established fact.  A common feature of both processes is that the early public specifications are communal articulations of a good idea (but perhaps with more requirement for early implementation and a test suite of some sort in the W3C case), with development and adoption in practice governed by other forces.

I favor the IETF process, having seen it at work.  I also fancy the way the W3C works to make some sort of coherent organism out of all the different pieces (and infection models) that have arisen around the World-Wide Web.  It is interesting to me that the Atomists fear high-jacking in the W3C. It does seem easier to avoid that in the IETF process, except someone can come up with a competing solution there without much difficulty (using Informational RFC specifications, for example).  You pay your money and take your chances.  W3C specifications are easier to handle -- they are Hypertext documents, of course, and they are on the web.  For some, that's a sexier result.  Waffle, waffle, waffle.

Matt May is a W3C wonk.  He has interesting things to say about W3C activities and, thanks to this Scoble spotting, I also find someone with an interest in glossaries.  I will have to talk to him about the Feuding Lexicographers game (and track his feed if I can find a way to stop NewsGator puking on it).  It might be a benchmark use case for Atom.  That would not have occurred to me without all this blogosphere connection-making.  And I can't keep up with 100 news feeds, I don't want to think about 1400.  Requires a breakthrough in my non-use of heavyweight technology.

posted by orcmid at 6/04/2004 07:32:26 AM

If It Says Libbys Libbys Libbys on the Label Label Label ... That's Not an Identifier!

If It Says Libbys Libbys Libbys on the Label Label Label ... That's Not an Identifier!

.  I uttered that expression in a giddy moment in the early 1970's when we were attempting to introduce identifiers for some purpose into some then-called middleware software.  I can no longer remember why we cared and whether I thought there to be some profound truth captured in my exclamation.

And the business of fretting about identifiers lives on.  A number of folk are working over (or under) Mark Pilgrim's recent "How to make a good ID in Atom."  I have my two-bits worth.

There's this thing about identifiers.  Like, exactly what is an identifier?  On the web it usually means a globally-unique identification for some entity, such as a resource or an element or a blog entry or something else entirely, very large or very small, tangible or not, electronic or not.  It is often affixed to or transported with an entity -- a data unit of some sort -- and can often be used to access it, if known.  It might be regarded as metadata.  Or not.  The entity that is distinguished by an identifier might be immutable or not (as when a web page, uniquelly identified, changes).  Does the identity remain fixed if the entity moves around, or are different copies each uniquelly identified for their different instances?  Are there multiple kinds of identity?  Inquiring minds want to know.  At some point, we all begin to squirm, throw up our hands, thrust a stake into the ground, and declare exactly what it is we are identifying and how.  And nothing else.  Period.  Go somewhere else for that philosophical crap.  Take it to the Semantic Web.  Please.  It doesn't take much devil's advocacy to overload and topple over any proposed identification scheme.

The still-sane among us proceed to introduce rules for identifiers and vow to keep it simple.  Deeper problems can be solved later.  Maybe.

By globally-unique is meant that the same identification will never be used by mistake for distinct entities.  The reverse problem of having more than one globally-unique identification for the same entity is considered not so weighty, mostly to avoid backsliding into the tarpit of "what do we mean by the same entity?"

The avoidance of identification collisions is often accomplished by using some centralized issuance mechanism like that for BookCrossing identifiers or International Standard Book Numbers, or international telephone numbers (a hierarchical but, for you and I, centralized authoritarian system).

In cyberspace there is a preference for decentralized mechanisms that allow people to fabricate unique identifications to their heart's content without having to rely on any issuing authority quite so much.  One way is to start with a single globally-unique identifier -- the seed element -- that one already happens to have some exclusive authority for using.  Adopt that as the basis for fabricating more identifications by concatenating with additional qualifiers of some sort that you will never duplicate.  Use a list of already-used elements or a counter or a clock or some other reliable technique.  You now have a family of globally-unique identifiers that will not collide with others produced using the same principle but different seed element.

A key requirement of decentralized schemes is agreement on the scheme and agreeing on the seed or a way to identify which one of several schemes might be used.  That, of course, is what all the fuss is about.

Mark Pilgrim addresses the creation of Atom IDs for Atom elements.  It's a nice read.  The IDs must be unchanging, globally unique URIs.  URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) schemes are governed by IETF specifications and a variety of URI flavors can be used to ensure global uniqueness using techniques of the kind I mentioned above.  Mark provides links to the relevant specifications.

The Atom specification allows any URI that does the job.  This happens in many W3C and IETF specifications where globally-unique identification is required, as in identifying XML Namespaces.  Mark goes on to address good choices for ensuring the "unchanging" aspect and also avoiding using a URI that might be used for a different and possibly changing purpose (such as the permalink of a blog entry).

Finally, Mark mentions one URI scheme that one can use as-is provided that you have something like a domain name or email address that you are willing to use as the seed. Mark also warns against URN (Uniform Resource Name) schemes because of registration difficulties that don't provide easy decentralization.

It's all clear enough.  You can (and might) start using the tag URI scheme at once, if you are that trusting in its not-yet-official adoption.

Tim Bray chimes in that he is not that trusting of the unapproved and possibly-never-to-be-approved tag-URI scheme that Mark favors.  Tim suggests an alternative already-open-ended and already-registered URN scheme that might serve as well.  That's all fine, there is room for this kind of flexibilty in choosing an unchanging, globally-unique URI scheme, and we don't all have to choose the same one because they can be comingled without collision.

Where Tim takes greater exception is with Mark's injunction to avoid using the permalink -- the permanent location, a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) -- as the unchanging, globally-unique URI.  I accept Mark's injunction on first principles.  I want an identifier to be just the identifier it is intended to be and have no other job.

Tim's proposal is unnecessarily brittle unless what one does is use the original permalink as the unchanging, globally-unique URI and never attempts to derive the Atom ID at future times based on (current) permalink URL.  One might handle this on an exception basis, but the requirement is clear: Either arrange to never change a permalink or arrange to allow the permalink and Atom ID to be different at some future time.

Tim's observations are useful and workable.  Tim makes great arguments for never (as in never say never) changing permalinks.  I bend over backwards to do that on web sites: If I've given out a URL, I don't know who may have bookmarked it and I want to preserve incoming links.  (That's why this blog uses *.asp permalinks, even though there is no server-side ASP processing at the moment. It's a cheap way to get redirects if I ever need to make one.)  I also want permalink impermanence to be a different problem not overloaded on the Atom ID (or other ID).  Now, we are still working within the Atom requirement for an unchanging, globally-unique URI, and I can have my druthers, and Tim can have his. (Of course, I also want my web sites to work when replicated on CD-ROMs and that means the permalinks are best generated from relative URLs and there, well, the brittleness bites.)

There is another architectural principle or two to add here.  The most important one is that one should not create a brittle arrangement that is too subtle and easy for future developers to forget or never notice.  There's a secondary and useful architectural-durability principle that I was shown by Dick Wilson as long ago (early 1970s) in a different context: Choose the approach that is the easiest to change in the future.

Danny Ayres notices Mark's Comments and Tim's Response.  It is recognized what is at issue, and something in a trackback from Chris Dent has me wonder about context.  What about context here?  It is certainly desirable that permalinks be permanent, so is the scope of that desire the same as for the Atom ID?  I think it depends on the use case, and mine about wanting mirrors on CD-ROMs that work means the permalink isn't that permanent or else isn't all that unique as an usable link.  Whatever.

Of course, now purple numbers come into the conversation, and I am not going to go down that road here, unless someone tells me that Atom proposes to satisfy the requirements for Englebart's Open Hypertext System (OHS).

Meanwhile, as Danny points out, Bill de hÓra strikes a new balance.  There's nothing very permanent about URLs based on domain names, and so we need to rethink the Atom ID URI candidates. 

It seems that the semi-permalink needs to be a URL simply because it is supposed to be a way to locate the entry.  It now looks to me that a UUID-based URI is more valuable as an identifier of the Atom ID sort.  Those come from the permanent ID in my network interface card, and I can arrange to destroy that puppy if I ever stop using it.  Whether or not I do that, the UUIDs that I generate while I have the card are ones that will never be generated again.

And this may still be beyond context for Atom IDs.

Listening to:

Teddy Wilson, Benny Carter, Red Norvo, Louis Bellson, Remo Palmier, George Duvivier, Freddie Green Swing Reunion, Disc No. 1.  Digitally-recorded CD, Book-of-the-Month Records (1985).  Listening on Media Player 9

posted by orcmid at 6/02/2004 09:29:14 PM

Whose Computer Is It: All Your BIOS Are Mine

Whose Computer Is It: All Your BIOS Are Mine

Slashdot | Intel To Release Next-Gen BIOS Code Under CPL.  The initiative is part of the Extensible Firmware Interface and it allows for the pre-boot software that operating systems can depend on to establish themselves above the hardware and, indeed, to be "booted" at all. While this goes on deep in the plumbing of PCs, it has an important and crucial role in providing platform-adaptable software that works across vendors (Dell, H-P, IBM, and the guys on the corner who build PCs in the back of their store). Here's more.

Buried inside every PC descended from the IBM PC architecture there is ROM-stored software code that starts things off.  Running at POST (Power-On-Self-Test) Time, the startup software (1) is the first program that runs when the CPU chip wakes up, (2) detects and connects the locally-installed devices and awakens whatever other firmware there is that needs to be operating in coordination with the processor, and (3) initializes a layer of software and data that can be used to access the computer's configuration through standard programmatic interfaces.  This procedure provides a rudimentary configuration and ready-to-hand software environment that is the basis for finding and bootstrapping the code for any operating system that will then be allowed to run, pretty display gui-gaws and all.

Every PC operating system relies on this pre-existing ready-set-go stage as a way for being awakened and then drawing itself up to full, wakeful height, like a slumbering genie aroused through a startup incantation.  Linux distributions, FreeBSD, MS-DOS, Windows flavors, Solaris on Intel, and any other operating systems that might have a claim on your attention to a PC are all designed to arise under control of the same startup software, relying on its provisions to determine what's up and how to establish their own presence and operation as your eager servant.

In the usual manner of conceptual corruption, this permanently-installed setup and hardware coordination software is called the BIOS (Basic Input-Output System). The term has murky origins in DOS (Disk Operating System) for the original IBM System/360 1964 models and in other software exhibiting some fledgling qualities of operating-systemness before that. The particular arrival on your desktop traces its lineage back through CP/M realizations at the turn of the 1980s or the Apple II firmware of the same era.

You might not observe the influence of this software ever, unless you have some occasion to interact with what is called your computer's setup procedure, a program that is always there and gives you some influence over the basic processes of the computer and the startup rules that, with all-fingers-crossed care, can be varied to reflect special requirements you might have.  If (as is often controlled by such a startup parameter) your computer displays messages from the startup processes carried out before the OEM-installed operating-system software splashes onto your screen, you will see evidence of the configuration-determination process as devices and the BIOS itself are identified.  And you will have that wonderful affirmation that all of that bargain-basement RAM you upgraded with is present and every bit is accounted for.

Depending on the operating system, there are programs such as Norton Utilities that present the configuration details from the BIOS and those further accretions provided as part of operating-system richness.  You'll also see that the BIOS is someone's intellectual property.  Not yours.

Although it is the combination of processor, BIOS, and mother-board adapters that are the substrate on which your PC's capabilities are anchored, it is the BIOS and its protocols and interfaces that provide the fulcrum by which the operating system levers its way into operation.  It is the balance point on which the great wheel of hardware attracting operating-systems attracting application developers attracting users attracting commodity hardware spins.  The BIOS as critical point is not lost on those who see the opportunity of the commodity PC economy.

Others, recognizing the BIOS as a vulnerability to substitutions and competition, have worked to protect theirs. At one point, Apple Computer endeavored to close out unlicensed software developers from making direct use of interfaces to the Apple II BIOS (essentially the whole operating system at that time). Those who want to clone Apple computers have learned that the property rights to the BIOS code are jealously protected. The same goes for embedded computer systems, where automobile manufacturers are extremely reluctant to describe access to their computer interfaces by non-factory-authorized and -licensed service organizations.

Whether you ever notice where the BIOS is stored in your computer, and ever have any need to know its functions, the fact of its honoring an open or a closed specification will be reflected in the robustness of the developer community and the diversity of suppliers and users.

Listening to:

Carlos Santana Supernatural Live: An Evening with Carlos Santana and Friends live performance DVD, Arista (2000)

The Band The Last Waltz a Martin Scorsese film, 25th anniversary DVD edition MGM (1976, 2002)

May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
And may you stay forever young
- Bob Dylan

posted by orcmid at 6/02/2004 07:18:27 AM

Blogtrack Treasure Hunting. Be the First on Your Block!

Blogtrack Treasure Hunting.  Be the First on Your Block!

[I'm sorry, but I am reposting this entry.  I messed up the time-stamp and it is making me crazy that it is recorded in the archive and the current page as 12 hours later than when I actually posted it.  This will have it show up in the feed again.  It is a situation that bears on the difference between entry Atom IDs and Permalinks, though.]

Full Circle Associates Online Interaction & Community Blog: Feed Bleeps and Blops.  Nancy and I have been commenting on each other's blog as a way to have a side conversation because we don't know each other and have no other reliable means of contact.  (Here's an opportunity to look into presence support appropriate for blogging.)  The conversation, tucked into comments on the others blog, is very incoherent from the perspective of a lurker who sees only one side of it.

I am thinking that intentional (or coincidental) connected blog droppings would make for an interesting game and treasure hunt. Find the points of connection and string a conversation back together!  Amaze your friends!! Win great prizes??

I suppose there are tools for this, and then it might not be so interesting.  Or would it?

In the situation that provoked this thought, I did do the detective work to figure out an e-mail address and introduced myself on noticing her arrival in MSN Messenger. We are now more acquainted than at the beginning of this dance.  It was an ad hoc Friend-of-a-Friend experience: We were both comfortable having more conversation out of our respect for a mutual acquaintance, anderbill.  That strikes me as social networking at its best.

listening to:

Fleetwood Mac "Tusk" with the USC Trojan Marching Band, on The Dance live-performance DVD, Warner Reprise (1999)

Fleetwood Mac "Songbird" Christine McVie solo, on The Dance live-performance DVD, Warner Reprise (1999)

Billy Joel Greatest Hits Volume III - The Video DVD, Sony (1997)

"and the songbirds are singing like they know the score ..."

posted by orcmid at 6/01/2004 10:50:37 PM

The Relevant Irreverence of Blogging

The Relevant Irreverence of Blogging

Another Blog on the Fire.  Scott Petersen's 2004-05-31 (bloggers know no holidays) eWeek missive asks important questions about the Blogosphere as a phenomenon: "Blogging is red-hot, but just how constructive is it?"

I can't even find what I want in my own blog entries, which I tend to use like handy 3-by-5 cards, and I was happy to do that until it occured to me that many (or at least a few) strangers might be reading them.  And that is because of syndication and my increasing awareness of other blogs.  We are articulating something here, and it may simply be ignorable noise, per Scott:

"So blog on. If left to market forces, most blogs will live or die on their own. But get used to an era in which information becomes so ubiquitous it becomes almost useless. With a national election coming up, the stakes are high, so it's blogger—and bloggee—beware."

Meanwhile, this eWeek resource provides great coverage:

• Blogger congratulating themselves for user focus (my "Ewwww, ick - crap" is already on record), though widening the community is welcome.  It would be great if Blogger and Google got straight about their own agenda and what is being served here.  This might be useful advice for all movers into the social-computing, knowledge-management commercial space.
• The addition of blog searching as a separate capability of new MSN capabilities makes me wonder what MSN will do for logging itself.  I would welcome a comment/trackback facility that works simply and is not an echo of the IM wars.  (Blogger comments require you to have a Blogger Blog to comment non-anonymously and it is lame in other respects.)
• Efforts to blend and bend components for Wiki-blogging-publishing-chatting-listening-... .

The desirability of forming some coherent initiative is recognized.  No candidates have stepped forth.  Yet.

posted by orcmid at 5/31/2004 08:08:46 AM

Who Owns Your Documents?

Who Owns Your Documents?

Smoke, Mirrors and Silence: The Browser Wars Reignite.  This slash-dotted ditty has a lot to say about the difficulty of choosing and honoring standards in what is most important to many of us: the preservation of content and the information conveyed therein.  Because we use technology, lots of technology, as the enabler and mediator of access, the impact of tool choices and conflicting agendas can become invisible and problematic.

I don't subscribe to the attributions of motive and attitude that Nigel McFarlane peppers throughout his 2004-05-28 informIT article.  I do think that cognizance of the support for public standards, especially involving data and interchange formats, is important.  I am not sure how one accomplishes that in a commoditized community like the World-Wide Web.  The more there is to preserve and sustain over time and across purposes, the more that accountability for compliance with open standards will matter.  This is what led me to create DMware, with AIIM support.  It is the basis for my continuing tepid efforts there and for the nfoWare initiative.

The greatest challenge seems to be equipping those who are concerned about the preservation of their electronic documents and interchangeable materials with ways to confirm and safely apply standards-compliant tools in support of what they really care about.  The approach I favor is to demystify the plumbing and then demonstrate how to achieve useful results while de-risking the life cycle of our documents and other electronic materials.

posted by orcmid at 5/31/2004 07:21:16 AM

Listening to ...

Listening to ...

Real Rhapsody tunes that I liked while cleaning up around the Miser Project on Saturday, 2004-05-30:

• Jimmy Hendrix "Are You Experienced"
• Lynyrd Skynrd "Saturday Night Special"
• Sheryl Crow "Steve McQueen"
• Heart "Barracuda"
• The Allman Brothers Band "Stand Back"
• Pink Floyd "Money"
• Neil Young "Come on Baby, Let's Go Downtown"
• Rush "Finding My Way"
• Kid Rock "Cowboy"
• Argent "God Gave Rock 'N Roll To You"
• Guns 'N Roses "Civil War"
• David Bowie "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" (complete album), first heard while I was staying in the Genesee Holiday Inn while moving to Rochester in September, 1972

Well, I was saying that it is album rock that I liked, yes? Moving along with more Miser Project cleanup the next morning ...

• Andrea Bocelli "Sentimento" album on Real Rhapsody, waking into US Memorial Day with a craving for some Tuscan soothing, and this is the Bocelli that they have and it still makes my eyes wet.
• Celine Dion "The Collector's Series, vol. 1" a Real Rhapsody affinity link with melodic warmth, but my cheesie headphones are killing me and I need to find another solution.
• Sarah Brightman "Time To Say Goodbye," with Andrea Bocelli on Real Rhapsody (another affinity link) that makes me want to play "A Night in Tuscany" in the nearby DVD player, later, when Vicki and I are into our day.
• Andrea Bocelli "A Night in Tuscany" Polygram Video in Centro's DVD Drive (with the great sound card, mixer board, and Bose speakers).  My own little affinity link.

When they show setting up for the live concert in the piazza in Pisa, with the roof lines and il Duomo beyond, I choke up.

Memorial Day Reminiscence. In November 1997 we spent our first night ever in Tuscany, at Hotel Victoria along the Arno in Pisa, before driving to an agriturismo outside of Firenze.  We had an introduction to Rosanna in Livorno and we loved the coastal area. When driving around Tuscany we kept gravitating along highways to the Pisa-Livorno area and began thinking of making a life there. Around Memorial Day in 1998 I had the opportunity of volunteering for early retirement and I took it, effective in December.  In 1999 we were in full preparation to move to Livorno but we failed to obtain residency thanks to my unwillingness to fully retire.  This would be the fulfilment of Vicki's life dream, and we didn't pull it off.  Since the South Bay wasn't that affordable for a semi-retired geek, we moved to the Seattle area instead, saying that we were driving to Italy.

While typing this and listening to the music, I realized that Memorial Days are memorial in many ways for me:

• Before Memorial Day in 1992 I had an offer to transfer to Palo Alto as the architect for a new software products team.  I sent in my acceptance at once because I couldn't stand to wait through the holiday weekend and I didn't want them to figure out they'd made a mistake.  It was memorable in other respects.  In making that move I dissolved a 21-year marriage, breaking a huge promise.
• On the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend in 1995, I met Vicki in a parking lot and asked her to coffee.  That began a series of holiday-related events: our first weekend date over July 4th, moving in together over Labor Day weekend, and marriage on New Years Eve.

That's when I realized that I hadn't taken Vicki out for an anniversary coffee this weekend.  I ran up the stairs and gave her a big hug, and then

• We had a conversation about how we aren't in Italy and she is afraid to dream again because it hurts too much when it doesn't happen.
• We listened to the radio coverage of Memorial Day and grieved for the fallen everywhere and the lessons that have been left for us to get.
• I snuck over to Barnes & Noble and brought home Piero Bairati's Wonderful Cities of Italy.  Hotel Victoria is on p.179.  We looked through it together.

I don't know, when I weep to the music, whether it is grief or sorrow for the soundtrack of my own life or compassion for our common humanity.  Either way, it is good to stop and listen to the music.

posted by orcmid at 5/30/2004 10:07:11 PM