Re: [aaloa promoters] Preparing a Joint announcement with the OpenURC community
Dear Joe, Thomas, and All, 1) "focus" in this context the term focus is used to say that this is not the only investigation carried out by such communities. 2) "will" the future tense is perhaps motivated by the AALOA community status, that's just starting. However, as far as I know, OpenURC community is more or less in the same situation. Note that the URC consortium is another thing (@ Antonio you know better than me the situation) 3) "rely" In principle I would say that we will adopt existing standards when it is possible, otherwise promoting new standards or extending old ones if needed. 4) "AALOA components" I fully agree with Thomas. My concern was about the non availability of such components and the long process that indeed they entail. By reading the text, it would seem that the roadmap about the architecture of AALOA components is already fixed (by someone). On the contrary the AALOA is striving to create an open process, where analysis and comparison of different solutions is an inspiring tenet. However if we consider this as a "pre-marketing" action, to create expectation, then referring to AALOA components could make sense. Joe I would suggest you to provide an alternative version or rephrasing of the announcement ( of similar size) . Francesco Il 27/09/2010 10.02, Joe Gorman ha scritto: Dear all, I have read the proposed statements about URC/AALOA. I support the idea that the tow organisations should seek to co-operate while at the same time each having their "own" field of activity. However, I am a bit concerned that the existing wording is not clear enough. I found I had to read it several times, and in the end was not quite sure where the boundaries would be. Some specific issues: 1. It says "URC will focus on". URC has existed for a long time, and a lot of people know it. When you use the word "will", as future tense, it raises a question about whether URC is now going to change direction. Is that the case? I am not sure. 2. Use of the word "focus". I have learned that this word can sometimes be imprecise. Does it mean "will spend most if its efforts working on - but still be allowed to do other things" (in the same way that when you "focus" on something in a photograph, the other elements are still visible, even if a bit fuzzy) OR does it mean "will work on this and nothing else"? I feel unsure which is meant in the context of this message. 3. Both say "it will rely on standards". This may just be an issue of the use of English: "rely" gives the strong impression that URC and AALOA will have to hope that other people develop then needed standards. Is that what is meant? So, even though the parties involved may have a clear idea what they mean, I fear that an "outsider" reading this will still be unsure of where the boundary is. JOE On 27/09/2010 01:07 , "Francesco Furfari" wrote: Dear All, I have a question of interest for the temporary governing board of AALOA and all the promoters. I will call a vote on that, so I kindly ask all the promoters to read carefully the content of this message, and to post here any doubt about this operation. Below you find also my personal comments At the AAL Forum, Antonio Kung, Stefano Chessa, me and Jan Alexandersson ( Head AAL Competence Center DFKI GmbH) had an interesting discussion about a joint announcement to publish during the MonAMI workshop at the 5th European Conference on Smart Sensing and Context (14-16 Nov, Passau, Germany) You can read the story in the attached message, but for your convenience below there is the agreed statement - (1) As an initiative for the building of an open source accessibility framework, OpenURC will focus on features for personalised and accessible user interfaces. This involves discovery of devices and targets, and flexible deployment and management of adaptors. It will rely on the specification of standards for device descriptions and user interface descriptions. (2) As an initiative for the building of an open source service framework, AALOA will focus on features for ambient awareness, and for the flexible deployment and management of assisted living services. It will rely on the specification of standards allowing services to interact with ambient environments. (3) Integrating each other contribution The two initiatives see a potential for sharing developed features and specification so that OpenURC-based platforms can integrate AALOA components, and AALOA-based platforms can integrate OpenURC-based components. (4) Towards convergence They further agree to undertake a discussion in order to work towards a common architecture. - We decided that the consequent actions of the parties would have been: * OpenURC to check (1) * AALOA to check (2) * All to check (3), (4) * Open
Re: [aaloa promoters] Preparing a Joint announcement with the OpenURC community
Dear all, I have read the proposed statements about URC/AALOA. I support the idea that the tow organisations should seek to co-operate while at the same time each having their "own" field of activity. However, I am a bit concerned that the existing wording is not clear enough. I found I had to read it several times, and in the end was not quite sure where the boundaries would be. Some specific issues: 1. It says "URC will focus on". URC has existed for a long time, and a lot of people know it. When you use the word "will", as future tense, it raises a question about whether URC is now going to change direction. Is that the case? I am not sure. 2. Use of the word "focus". I have learned that this word can sometimes be imprecise. Does it mean "will spend most if its efforts working on - but still be allowed to do other things" (in the same way that when you "focus" on something in a photograph, the other elements are still visible, even if a bit fuzzy) OR does it mean "will work on this and nothing else"? I feel unsure which is meant in the context of this message. 3. Both say "it will rely on standards". This may just be an issue of the use of English: "rely" gives the strong impression that URC and AALOA will have to hope that other people develop then needed standards. Is that what is meant? So, even though the parties involved may have a clear idea what they mean, I fear that an "outsider" reading this will still be unsure of where the boundary is. JOE On 27/09/2010 01:07 , "Francesco Furfari" wrote: Dear All, I have a question of interest for the temporary governing board of AALOA and all the promoters. I will call a vote on that, so I kindly ask all the promoters to read carefully the content of this message, and to post here any doubt about this operation. Below you find also my personal comments At the AAL Forum, Antonio Kung, Stefano Chessa, me and Jan Alexandersson ( Head AAL Competence Center DFKI GmbH) had an interesting discussion about a joint announcement to publish during the MonAMI workshop at the 5th European Conference on Smart Sensing and Context (14-16 Nov, Passau, Germany) You can read the story in the attached message, but for your convenience below there is the agreed statement - (1) As an initiative for the building of an open source accessibility framework, OpenURC will focus on features for personalised and accessible user interfaces. This involves discovery of devices and targets, and flexible deployment and management of adaptors. It will rely on the specification of standards for device descriptions and user interface descriptions. (2) As an initiative for the building of an open source service framework, AALOA will focus on features for ambient awareness, and for the flexible deployment and management of assisted living services. It will rely on the specification of standards allowing services to interact with ambient environments. (3) Integrating each other contribution The two initiatives see a potential for sharing developed features and specification so that OpenURC-based platforms can integrate AALOA components, and AALOA-based platforms can integrate OpenURC-based components. (4) Towards convergence They further agree to undertake a discussion in order to work towards a common architecture. - We decided that the consequent actions of the parties would have been: * OpenURC to check (1) * AALOA to check (2) * All to check (3), (4) * OpenURC to prepare a specific press release announcing its creation to the press * AALOA to prepare a specific press release announcing its creation to the press * * Make a press release for the joint announcement * * Make sure that AALOA and OpenURC websites will include the 3 press releases and link to each other Thus this mail is to open the discussion about such common action to do and any further collaboration with OpenURC community. Here a reference about URC http://myurc.org/TR/urc-tech-primer URC stands for Universal Remote Console Standards (ANSI/INCITS 389-2005 through 393-2005). - my personal comments At the moment it may sound strange the wording : "AALOA components" in (3). In AALOA we don't have any reference to a common architecture yet. AALOA will grow initially as the aggregation of different projects, and a convergence process will be "somehow" created in the long run. Nevertheless it is right to say that the purpose of AALOA is to compare the diverse solutions available, in this respect URC has to be taken into account and we can encourage its evaluation. However we may only advertise all the members of such initiative, any adoption or integration of URC standards in this moment is let to the autonomous decisions of single projects or individuals of AALOA. As member of universAAL project, I can on
Re: [aaloa promoters] Preparing a Joint announcement with the OpenURC community
Dear Francesco, all, I would like to support the proposed operation. I think there will be a benefit for both initiatives if it is possible to define a common interface. I also highly recommend to work towards a component based architecture. This is something what we are trying to stimulate in the FLOSS in health care area but with limited success due to a missing governing body. In the AAL arena this role should be filled by AALOA. Best regards, Thomas Am 27.09.2010 01:07, schrieb Francesco Furfari: Dear All, I have a question of interest for the temporary governing board of AALOA and all the promoters. I will call a vote on that, so I kindly ask all the promoters to read carefully the content of this message, and to post here any doubt about this operation. Below you find also my personal comments At the AAL Forum, Antonio Kung, Stefano Chessa, me and Jan Alexandersson ( Head AAL Competence Center DFKI GmbH) had an interesting discussion about a joint announcement to publish during the MonAMI workshop at the 5th European Conference on Smart Sensing and Context (*14-16 Nov*, Passau, Germany) You can read the story in the attached message, but for your convenience below there is the agreed statement - (1) As an initiative for the building of an open source accessibility framework, OpenURC will focus on features for personalised and accessible user interfaces. /This involves discovery of devices and targets, and flexible deployment and management of adaptors. It will rely on the specification of standards for device descriptions and user interface descriptions./ (2) As an initiative for the building of an open source service framework, AALOA will focus on features for ambient awareness, and for the flexible deployment and management of assisted living services. It will rely on the specification of standards allowing services to interact with ambient environments. * (3) Integrating each other contribution* The two initiatives see a potential for sharing developed features and specification so that OpenURC-based platforms can integrate AALOA components, and AALOA-based platforms can integrate OpenURC-based components. * (4) Towards convergence* They further agree to undertake a discussion in order to work towards a common architecture. - We decided that the consequent actions of the parties would have been: * OpenURC to check (1) * AALOA to check (2) * All to check (3), (4) * OpenURC to prepare a specific press release announcing its creation to the press * AALOA to prepare a specific press release announcing its creation to the press * Make a press release for the joint announcement * Make sure that AALOA and OpenURC websites will include the 3 press releases and link to each other Thus this mail is to open the discussion about such common action to do and any further collaboration with OpenURC community. Here a reference about URC http://myurc.org/TR/urc-tech-primer URC stands for Universal Remote Console Standards (ANSI/INCITS 389-2005 through 393-2005). - *my personal comments* At the moment it may sound strange the wording : "AALOA components" in (3). In AALOA we don't have any reference to a common architecture yet. AALOA will grow initially as the aggregation of different projects, and a convergence process will be "somehow" created in the long run. Nevertheless it is right to say that the purpose of AALOA is to compare the diverse solutions available, in this respect URC has to be taken into account and we can encourage its evaluation. However we may only advertise all the members of such initiative, any adoption or integration of URC standards in this moment is let to the autonomous decisions of single projects or individuals of AALOA. As member of universAAL project, I can only anticipate you that further meetings will follow in the next months between universAAL members and OpenURC community. Of course it would advisable that an URC-based project was incubated in AALOA, it would increase the visibility of URC to all the member joining AALOA. This is something I already suggested to Jan and that he will further discuss with URC members . Said that, aware of the limit of the announcement, I think it is useful to increase visibility of our actions and to confirm that AALOA is working as catalyst of interesting initiatives. Best regards, Francesco ___ Promoters mailing list Promoters@aaloa.org http://aaloa.org/mailman/listinfo/promoters -- Thomas Karopka Head of ehealth Department chair EFMI LIFOSS WG vice chair IMIA OS WG IT Science Center Rügen gGmbH Circus 14 18581 Putbus, Germany Tel.:+493830188290 Fax.:+4938301882959 ___ Promoters mailing list Promoters@aaloa.org http:
