From: Pieter Hintjens Subject: Liberetto Vol I/10 . /|\ ------------------------------------------------------------------ / | \ -L- -I- -B- -E- -R- -E- -T- -T- -O- DECEMBER 1996 - ( . ) - \ | / The Libero Newsletter Volume 1 Issue 10 \|/ ------------------------------------------------------------------ ' Copyright (c) 1996 iMatix - distribute freely Back issues at http://www.imatix.com Comments to: editors@imatix.com Finite State Machines - News and Views - Reader's Letters - Tips & Hints == APOLOGY -..-.---...-.-.--....---..-.-....-.-..-.-.-..-.-..---...-.-..--.. * Headnote: Sometimes the Internet looks more like a muddy village road, potholes still filled with muddy water from last night's rain. What happened to the Superhighway, zapping bits 'n bytes across the known universe, and Brussels? Well, our service provider has a disk, called /var/tmp, that got full. So, outgoing mail didn't, so to say. Well, better late than never, in principle. In practice, reading this month's Liberetto again, it is not a sure bet. If you got this message several times, sorry. If you didn't get it at all, you are probably blissfully ignorant about Libero, Liberetto, and the staff at iMatix. Keep it so. So, our service provider (nameless, but probably in the message header) has cleaned-out /var/tmp, and we can get on with the show... == EDITORIAL ..---.-.-.-....-----.--.....----.-.---....----.-.-...-.---...-. The IP LAN is dead... Long Live The Intranet! We're coming to the end of 1996, and it's been an interesting year. One easy prediction for 1997 is that the "intranet" will become a hot topic, selling more machines, books, and consultant hours than even the Internet. Of course, technically, it's a bit ironic, since the internet protocol (IP) has been around since about 1980, about the same time that IBM produced that other unlikely revolutionary, the PC. So why the fuss over reheated porridge? Something is happening, but few people will be able to say exactly why the "intranet" is different from the already widespread IP local area network. Since people tend to understand computer systems in terms of metaphors and 'paradigms', we need to see how the network metaphor is changing. People used to be grateful if their network could provide shared disks and printers. Some 'groupware' products promised to do much more than that, but hey - things were complex enough already! Now, the Internet metaphor is completely different, and based mainly on the notions of cheap communications (e-mail) and cheap publishing (ftp and the Web). One more important metaphor is the 'business application'. This is a centralised way to collect and process that data that a business needs to serve its clients. This metaphor has the power to keep people dependent on large, outdated, expensive mainframe systems. The intranet promises to bring the cheap and cheerful Internet technologies in-house, and eventually, somehow, to handle the business applications. What's wrong with this picture? Two things. Firstly, setting-up and running a web site is not simple. One approach is to create a single website for the company... This is great for your 'shop window', but lousy for internal needs. The reason why Internet publishing is cheap and effective is that people do it themselves, so are responsible, and so do it better. I.e. if you create any kind of centralised website, people will not contribute as freely as when they run their own 'microsite'. Only, not everyone has a degree in webmastery... Secondly, there is no real solution yet for the business application on an intranet. Intranets will contain a mix of PCs, Macs, UNIX boxes,... We don't really believe that the answer is Java or Microsoft's flavour of the month. Never modest, we believe we have at least part of the answer. Our web server, Xitami, is simple and quick. It runs on lots of UNIX systems, 32-bit Windows, and could run on Windows 3.x, VMS, and Macs with a little more work. Xitami is fast (using our portable multithreading system), so you can easily let it run in the background on your PC. Imagine: people who need to publish documents can create a microsite on their own PC. After a few months, you'll have more information on-line, linked, and used, than ever before. You can index the lot using a robot indexer (like AltaVista); probably even cut a CD-ROM with the whole set of microsites in your company. A webserver on every desktop... Why not? Pieter Hintjens Antwerpen 1 December 1996* == HEADLINES --.-...---.-.-..--.-.-...--.-.-.-...--.-.-...-.-..---.-.-...--. TWSFKAC (The Webserver Formally Known As Cosmos)... News Update! The iMatix COSMOS webserver is dead... Long Live TWSKAC! Well, doesn't really roll off the tongue. We rejected a host of other names, including: JAWS (just another webserver), APACHE (already taken by some obscure group), BLIKSEM (Dutch for lightning, very clever, but not original)... Finally, we loaded-up our CD-ROM of "Schruberger's Dictionary of Multilingual Insults", volumes I thru IV, which together cover all current languages. A quick random word generator hack-up, and we found a word that is almost pronouncable, and definitely not an insult in any known language, always a good start. Yes, XITAMI was born. A name that promises exotic travels, tropical breezes, perhaps even bits of raw fish on a bed of shredded sea grass, but is actually just iMatix spelt backwards. Such is life. == TERMINATE THE PROGRAM -...---...-..----....-.---..---...-...---.-...---. People sometimes ask us how we have time to prepare such a fine and balanced journal every month when we are obviously so busy. Well, the answer is this: we don't, always. So, this time, that's all folks.