The OHS Project is developing open source tools for collaborative knowledge management, building on XML and other open standards as well as Doug Engelbart's groundbreaking NLS/Augment system. It is being designed to manage and create knowledge across the Internet, allowing users to package and share information for collaborative work. A scalable system meant for true international use, the OHS is being designed so that all groups and nationalities can build on top of its architecture.

The first component will be the Hyperscope, a browser-like tool that allows the user to access the features of the OHS. Its relationship to the OHS is the same as a normal browser's relationship to the Web -- but the Hyperscope will allow the user to navigate, access, and distribute information in new and powerful ways. (List of OHS/Hyperscope features, and technical details.)

Most of the www.bootstrap.org/ohs/ pages are technical. For general information, please see the FAQs (link on the left sidebar).
Specifics

The goal of the OHS Project is to build an open source Open Hyperdocument System (OHS) - the critical missing piece of the technology for enabling dynamic, distributed collective knowledge work.  OHS is designed to be:

• Open- provides vendor-independent access to hyperdocuments within and across work groups, platforms, and applications
• Navigable- provides flexible, bi-directional linking to any object in any multimedia file
• Customizable- allows users to select and create views of data best suited to task or preference
• Dynamic- end-user functionality automatically changes over time to accommodate new multimedia object formats and methods for viewing them
• Collaborative- enables users to synchronously and asynchronously create, use, and modify hyperdocuments and dialog about them.
• Platform-neutral- user interaction components are written in Java
• Interoperable- provides a unifying framework within which (future) multi-vendor applications can interoperate
• Reusable- knowledge stored in it can be used and shared across time, and across knowledge and organizational domains
• Extensible- new multimedia object types, means to interpret them, applications, views, and features can be added easily
• Standards-based- content formats are based on W3C XML standards