David Brin filters the list so that he only sees subject lines containing "Brin:". To get Dr. Brin uptodate seven regulars have contributed to the thread so far. Steve Sloan, Vilyem/Medievalbk, Gary Nunn, and Robert Seeberger have all expressed interest in participating. They have not specified whether they are interested in the demo or using HC as the platform for the weekly chat. I am assuming that everyone implicitly understands that the order would be demo first, then discussion of the demo on the list, then (assuming concensus) going to an HC chat basis.
Gary Denton, Alberto Montiero, and Trent Shipley have contributed to the thread, but have not expressed any _per se_ interest in participating. On Saturday 2005-01-15 12:19, Steve Sloan wrote: > Trent Shipley wrote: > > Furthermore, the Holocene Chat investors would LIKE to host > > our weekly chat on HC since it "would be wonderful and really > > help [them] along". > > > > http://www.holocenechat.com/ > > > > How open will it be to new users, who weren't signed up ahead > of time? With the number of chat regulars so low these days, > it's always good to add a surprising new face occasionally. I do not know the answer to this. The basic idea is that the HC principals are not willing to put any more substantial resources of their own into the project at this time. (NOT a good sign.) So the basic idea is to generate a) proof of concept (See! see, you really can use it because these people do, every week. And what's more they LIKE it. Now please invest some money or sign a development contract.) b) Buzz (OHHH! you should see the chat interface we use at the Brin chat. Scoop up some quotes like this and have investors eating out of your hand.) > Will we have to sign some form of non-disclosure agreement to > try it out? I'm OK with that, since I've signed an unrelated > one before, but it may add some hassle to signing up. Given that they regularly demo the program without NDA, and their goal of "weak viral marketing", I would be very surprised if we have to sign NDAs. They WANT all the (good) disclosure they can get. (On the other hand, there is an implicit agreement that if you have nothing nice to say, you will take precautions to keep potential customers or investors from hearing about it.) Also, the "no new investment rule" could put us in a pickle. The current version of HC is promising, but there remain SERIOUS user interface issues. A good programmer conversant in whatever it is they are programmed in could have them put away inside a week, but the "no more resources" rule means we could well find ourselves in a catch-22. If we decide either the core code (read server-side code) gets hacked or we leave, the HC folks are likely to counter with "hack the code yourself, for free, to our benefit." If someone takes them up on it then they will surely be looking at an NDA. > > News from Wm. T. Goodall would be particularly apropos. > > Depending on how open the early Holocene Chat test is to > newcomers, we may still need William to set up the IRC server > we discussed. What IRC server that "we" discussed? Who be this "we"? On Sunday 2005-01-16 14:10, Gary Nunn wrote: > > I can see one problem: the regular chatters are Mac or Linux > > users, and I imagine that the holochat software is > > Windoze-based. We may be killing the old chat and _not_ > > creating a new one. > > Alberto Monteiro I am using SuSE Pro 9.1, Mozilla 1.7.5, and Shockwave Flash 7.0 r25. During the demo on Tuesday I had to switch from Linux to Windows XP to get logged in. (Note that Mozilla and Flash are very recent releases.) Last I heard, DB uses Mac, so it should work with Mac OS-X. But yes, because of the Linux issue (and poverty), I will not be participating if the chat moves to HC. (Low desktop market share for Linux combined with the "no new resources" rule implies that there will be no efforts made to accommodate Linux. The culprit is probably in the Flash programming.) > Maybe. > > I must admit that as much as I like chatting with all of you, I get > frustrated with the MUD interface and have trouble following conversations. > I guess that I am lazy and am used to the more "standard" instant message > interface. Maybe there is a more intuitive interface available for MUD? > Honestly, I would participate more if I used a different interface. If we go to Brin Chat, maybe we should go to a real IRC system so that we can compare HC with IRC? (We could do HC one week, then IRC the next. This might be particularly helpful if HC ever goes back into development.) > I was just reading over the Holocene website again looking for a few > things. Will this require client software or it is strictly a web based > interface? I just glanced over the site, so I probably missed it. For one > of the options, the term "Meetingware" implies an actual software client. > Just curious. No. The only application you need to have resident client-side to use HC is a Flash Player. According to Mark B., all the presentation stuff is done in Flash. Any user customizations or extentions (like pay-per-click kiosks) would also be written in Flash. As for the overall architecture of HC, I know VERY little about it. From some of what Mark has said and the PowerPoint show, it must be very server-centric. I would not be surprised if the current version were written in a combination of Flash ASPs for presentation, some Flash scripts, and C# or Java. > Even if it does require client software, I can't imagine that they won't > create a Mac compatible version, if they haven't already. > > I assume that we have been using MUD because of compatibility between > different O/S's and browsers? Is anyone here still using a text based > browser? Before anyone gets defensive or offended, I am genuinely curious > - not being critical :-) Not me. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
