Meeting
OHS Project ,
the unfinished revolution

June 15, 2000
previous meeting, next meeting. 1

Agenda: 2

  1. Announcements and New Business. 
    1. Joe's pictures from last week. 
    2. Lee: Zope/Wiki set up on bootstrap.org. 
    3. Eric: Report from JavaOne; free demo tool. 
    4. SourceForge seminar set. 
    5. Mozilla presentation. 
    6. Gnutella presentation. 
  2. Better synergy between online and Silicon Valley communities. 
  3. Bootstrapping: Developing XML Schemas. 
    1. Agendas. 
    2. Minutes. 
    3. Use cases. 
  4. Use Cases. 2A
Present: 3

Armstrong, Eric - TreeLight 
Coppernoll, Mary - Bootstrap Institute 
Deneen, John - Astounding 
Iverson, Lee - SRI International 
Kim, Eugene - Freelance Writer/Consultant 
Laderoute, Keith - SRI International 
Liu, Howard - VerticalNet 
Regev, Gil - Swiss Federal Inst/Technology 
Welch, Rod - The Welch Company 
Williams, Joe - Williams Publications 
Yee, Su-Ling - MilleniumProject/BI Intern . 3A

Minutes: 4

Minutes drafted by Su-Ling, technical notes contributed by Howard.
OHS Meeting 6/15/2000, SRI Engineering Bldg, EK255, 4-6:30 PM. 4A

(Pardon the grammar, etc. Had a 16-hour day at the WITI conference and too exhausted to beautify the text, but want to get this to the  list asap. \ Su-Ling) 4A1

1) Action items decided: 4B

  • Joe will sit down with Doug to figure which Augment capabilities to present and how to present it in a video/vignette of it. Joe will do the scripting and prompting. 4B1
  • Su-Ling will find out if and where the 1968 video of NLS is online (possibly at Stanford). 4B2
  • Eric will watch the video and summarize how it relates to the project's objectives. 4B3
  • Eugene will confirm the openness of our meetings with Doug. 4B4
  • Eugene will organize a viewing of the NLS video at SRI, probably on a weekend day. 4B5
  • Eugene will post a weekly reminder calling for agenda items and include the URL every week. 4B6
2) News: 4C

We had a guest from Switzerland: Gil Regev from the Swiss Federal Institute in Lucerne, which has been part of the Bootstrap Alliance for  3+ years. He works on component-oriented software engineering, and is doing a PhD on collaborative learning. He will demo Knoware - a  concept map editor supporting collaboration. 4C1

Lee suggests looking at The Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy Guide's site (www.h2g2.com). He says it's a DKR not an OHS, yet another open directory project, a huge unfocussed mindlessly open DKR. A good  example of a DKR that's not an OHS. 4C2

Doug will do an internal lecture for Source Forge on Friday, 6/30. 4C3

3) WIKI discussion: 4D

Lee decided to go with WIKI on the Bootstrap site. URL in his post on eGroups. It can be restricted so there's a users list. It's on a  separate port, can't be found unless person belongs to our list on  eGroups. User can put up pure text; WIKI will format it using html.  Anybody can edit these Webpages. It's not a model for what we want to  do, simply a means to putting everything together, organize thoughts  and ideas, and keep a record of that. It's just a tool for us to use  right now, a convenience. It has an infinite undo facility. Lee is the manager of the site. A login mechanism can be set up. 4D1

Drawback is that WIKI has no time stamp. So we must work on basis of social contract, users must abide by ground rules. Eg. all users set  up a homepage and use that as the mechanism. Each page be owned by  somebody, responsible for the actual text there, everyone else can add comments but not change original text. Can copy an original to a  version, will put suffix, and is linked to original.  WIKI is  anarchical, any order is user enforced. Everyone who wants to  participate must look at the ground rules, suggest changes is so  inclined. Eugene encourages all to visit WIKI and look at the ground rules. (http://bootstrap.org:8080/OHS/GroundRules). 4D2

Discussion of the format for the Glossary (already on WIKI), ground rules and procedures for editing it. Whoever signs the glossary should be responsible. Bill Bearden is going through it right now.  Break each item up into a separate page. Number of page is unique in  entire Zwiki. Every page has it's own page ID. Everything is in one directory of pages.  Have name anchor in OHS, so can refer to  glossary: so can do Glossary#OHS to take user there. 4D3

Rod asks many questions. Lee, Eugene and Eric emphasize that it's just a tool for us to experiment with right now. It's an online  collaborative tool and we should collaborate online. WIKI can serve as prototype for any kind of methodology, we can experiment with use  cases. Nice to expose anchors. Use purple numbers.  CSS style sheet  exists.  Html gives a tweak, but xml is better.  Can define  visualization style.  Infinitely cross-linkable. Rod proposes that  Eric should be the only one who makes changes to the requirements. 4D4

4) Joe showed the photos he took of Doug doing the Augment demo last week and explains his idea on how we should do the video demo. He says we need to do a planned production of it. (see Action items) He  proposes the tutor files, user manuals, and that the chordian is made  USB. 4E

5) John suggests we get hold of the Augment manuals / tutorial documents and study them, mine them for our requirements. 4F

6) Eugene suggests an approach to our meetings: announcements at the beginning, and for the purpose of focus, items not directly related to OHS development should be taken offline. All in agreement. 4G

7) Eric's talk on Java One postponed for next week. 4H

8) Eugene reports that Mozilla enthused about OHS project, one of their main engineers spent last few weeks reading Doug's papers on his own time. Collaboration potential is very good . A Gnutella  presentation can be scheduled for one of our meetings. 4I

9) Eugene raises the issue of the dichotomy between the online and offline - there is a larger community that is interested. We need to  be inclusive as much as possible. Minutes are important to keep  everyone in sync. Misconception that this is a Stanford project and  that no commitment to Open Source.  We don't have a good tool for  people in remote locations to participate. They should be able to  participate in creating the agenda. 4J

Gil points out that people like him in remote locations perceive these meetings to be closed. (We agree we need to confirm with Doug the  openess of these meetings - see Action items) Gil points out there's  also the problem of  time differences, but that it should be possible  for people not local to contribute to the agenda and participate in  some meaningful way. 4J1

Eugene mentions the possibility of audio conferencing. (NB. Currently it is possible to teleconference in) Eugene: We should make clear to  all list subscribers that they're welcome to stop by when in area.  Most Open Source projects don't happen face-to-face.  Most work is  done online.  So this issue is important in future, when we have code  base, requirements, etc. Once we reach the point of design  implementation we will shift to being online. 4J2

Current way the agenda is set: Eugene (meeting facilitator appointed by Doug) solicits agenda items, this is posted on his Website,  http://www.eekim.com/ohs/agendas/. Eugene talks to Doug the night  before and asks him what he wants discussed in the meeting. Rod and  John request Eugene post a reminder calling for agenda items and  including the URL every week. Eugene agrees. 4J3

10)  Eugene talks about our Bootstrapping strategy  - doing bottom up things while top down stuff is being discussed. Develop basic XML  schemes for what we're doing, can generate html automatically and  build in the features Doug wants. Helps us focus, refine out thoughts  about building DKR. Minutes, agendas, glossary, use cases/requirements  give us content that can be sucked into the system. Develop basic XML  schemas for current docs. Find existing DTDs, Howard has found a  Minutes DTD. Once we commit to a license will put any of our own  created schema into Open Source under the group license. Xpointer,  Xlink, Xinclude---link of Joe's wiki glossary---everyone should study it for xml knowledge. Neil Bradley, The XML Companion, 2nd  Edition. Martin Fowler, UML Distilled, 2nd edition. John points out  John Bosack would be a good person to point us in the right direction. 4K

11) Requirements and Use Cases: 4L

Eugene: Most of the group has done UML, some have done requirement ellicitation. Purpose of Use Cases is to describe from very high level black box point of view. Eric: We should keep a good separation  between design tangents and goals.  Eugene mentions Rationale  methodology, we do not Rational Corporation champions the cyclic  development model follow Waterfall model of development. UML. Cyclic  development model: feedback. Gil points out the different ways of  doing Use Cases, particularly "Essential Use Cases" - Constantine,  Essential Modeling. What is the user's goal, design a different system with that in mind..  There are development methodologies such  as Catellisis (sp?). Do mindmap and concept map of Mind map, i.e. concept map domain, get to shared understanding, share with users,  then use case diagrams. Exist in Eric's links. 4L1

Eugene goes over one a Use Case, says not to get down in methodology and formal stuff so just keep that at the back of the mind rather than have it XMI is a DTD for UML upfront. Lee: XMI dtd for UML  available at Argo. Eugene: People can contribute use cases for the  DKR. Rely on intuitive idea of knowledge. 4L2

12) Gil demos Knoware: 4M

A collaborative concept mapping tool of server and client - Java 1.1. Currently working on the version that requires 1.2. Server is not open source development right now but there is a project underway to make  it open source.  SQL server db, firewalls. Goal of this is to get  shared meanings. Most other mind mapping/concept mapping tools are  desktop tools and not real collaboration. Idea is that it is an  informal modeling tool. There are 2 public spaces (will send URL to  the list), however these are not very structured. Putting Doug's docs  that are on the Bootstrap site onto this system will take Gil only a ½ hour. A cool tool, check it out. 4M1



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 ---
 
 

















Above space serves to put hyperlinked targets at the top of the window
Copyright 2000 Bootstrap Institute. All rights reserved.