(MOOSE?) ORG: merging in progress

[Francois-Rene Rideau]

*THIS IS A CALL FOR VOTE*.
Please send me your vote (conditional votes accepted) and comments.
I'll summarize, and we'll have a second vote.

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CONCERNED PEOPLE (Exerpt from my ~/.elm/aliases.text file):
[Merlin]
jecel = Jecel Mattos de Assumpcao Jr. = jecel@lsi.usp.br

[MOOSE]
Fare = Francois-Rene Rideau = rideau@clipper.ens.fr
Kyle = Kyle Hayes = kyle@putput.cs.wwu.edu
jvs = Johan Van Schalkwyk = jvs@iconz.co.nz
bkyee = Ban Keong Yee = bkyee@mtu.edu
chris = chris Harris = chharris@u.washington.edu

[PIOS]
mp = Mike Prince = mprince@crl.com
rauldm = Raul Deluth Miller = rockwell@nova.umd.edu
PIOS = PIOS project = mp,rauldm,me,casas@cse.ogi.edu,A.J.Thornton@durham.ac.uk
        garrett@thunder.indstate.edu, jeremy@syslab10.cs.SunySB.EDU,
        luthers@bnr.ca, ravi@cwis.unomaha.edu,
        srini@aqualung.columbiasc.ncr.com,
        y85steda@und.ida.liu.se


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CONTENTS:
have a new kind of OS not like existing widely-available commercial ones:
- multi* (users, subusers, tasks, subtasks,  threads, subthreads, etc)
- persistence (indefinite system life span)
- distributedness (no low-level host consideration unless needed)
- lazy evaluation/optimization (no unneeded things; performant needed things)
- language independence (any kind of object in any model *as system object*)
- system-level object security together (parametrizable typing)
with
- a portable low-level language (with proper interpreter/compiler backends)
- a high-level OO language to describe the system.
HLL specs:
- Object-oriented: types and terms are in the same universe.
- allows any kind of object annotation dynamically, notably comments,
 equivalents in other languages (or the same language !), etc.
- allows easy lazy evaluation semantics.
- self-extensible syntax
- powerful module mechanism

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LICENSING:
- a fully operational version freely available under the GPL or such, to
 attract support from a the community of internet hackers (a la Linux).
- commercial/shareware versions with additional objects, apps, modules and
 whatever, and also support/warranties to satisfied the natural greed of
 the project members (not excluding myself ;). Shares according to
 work accomplished (if work can be measured !) or some equitable method anyway.

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ORGANIZATION:
- a democratic organization, with hierarchical division of work according
 to various subjects.
- a quick decision procedure (in cases democratic vote is not needed or asked,
 or did not end by an agreement) to ensure proper decisions will be taken

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EXISTING STRUCTURE:
- a mailing list (still manual at this time -- I'll open one @ens.fr as soon
as we've got a name, if we ever merge)

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SCHEDULE:
Once the major decisions (i.e. languages to use) are taken, everything should
go fast; but we do need make those decisions while knowing what they mean. So
we should:
- collect information from all other existing OS or language projects.
- write reports to compare those to each other and to our specifications
- choose what languages to use
- run for it
[in any way, it seems that SELF is a good starting point as for language
decision; but I'd still ask that we compare to other existing stuff]

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PROJECT NAME:
  The three projects are called (in alphabetical order)
Merlin, MOOSE, and PIOS. So we must choose a name.
I just proposed TUNES (Tunes is a Useful, Not Expedient, System); but
of course, the name should be democraticly decided.

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CONCLUSION
  So if no one disagrees, let's merge those three projects. We can still
split later, if we later disagree; but I think the more we are, the
stronger we are, and the less bugs and stupidities we say without being
corrected by others (when you're alone, you often commit mistakes, and are
very long before understanding it).
  But to work together, we must strongly agree upon the *goals*. If we do
not, then we cannot work as a team, whereas if we do, it'd be a pity not
to join our efforts. So, if you do not like these goals, then perhaps we
cannot merge (or we merge without you :( according to other people's vote).
If you have minor corrections to add, please do.

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  I'm waiting for your votes. Then I'll summarize for a second, definitive
vote.

--    ,        	                                ,           _ v    ~  ^  --
-- Fare -- rideau@clipper.ens.fr -- Francois-Rene Rideau -- +)ang-Vu Ban --
--                                      '                   / .          --
MOOSE project member. OSL developper.                     |   |   /
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