I read an interview with some of the members of the FreeBSD team after seeing it posted on Slashdot. In high school I never really had a chance to toy with it as most of the geeks were Linux/BeOS/Solaris aficionados (at the time, Sun was just beginning to ‘give’ out copies of it’s x86 build).
FreeBSD is a pretty snazzy under-reported operating system that can be found primarily in servers and workstations (although there are a few desktop users out there). FreeBSD is a System IV Unix clone derived from the 386BSD distribution. It was created at University of California at Berkeley (BSD stands for Berkeley Software Distribution) to provide a freely customizable alternative to AT&T’s Unix environment. It’s networking stack is used as the basis for Windows NT and was most notably used in the Hotmail servers prior to Microsoft acquiring the popular webmail company.
Here is a quick historical overview of FreeBSD along with a detailed historical diagram of various Unix derivatives (I’m younger than some of them).
What caught my eye was xMach, which was originally a variation of Unix from Carnegie Mellon University (version 3.0 ended up in Mac OS X as a kernel along with FreeBSD 4.4).
I then started poking around to find more about this new project and came across another interview at OSNews (they did that FreeBSD one mentioned above) involving Mr. Joseph Mallett, Alpha Geek in the xMach project. However, that was done over 2 years ago so I set off to find out the latest. Googling his name pulled up several posts by him at FreeOS.com, the last of which was dated - Mon 30th Apr 2001 12:00:53[AM] UTC.
Then I visited his Amazon.com profile, of which his last book review was on January 16, 2002 (on MacOS X and OpenStep no less).
The Freshmeat entry for xMach states: “Invalid project ID.” SourceForge uses big red lettering to state: “This project has not yet submitted a description.” Now remember, this was started more than 2 years ago (3 really). Even the xmach.org domain was not renewed (ran out on April 5, 2003).
Pulling up a Whois query on xmach.org resulted in showing one Marc Fruchter whose name, when combined with “xmach” failed to produce any Google results. Similarly, his email address: smegnozzy@hotmail.com ‘did not match any documents.’
The only weird wrinkle I came across was this link at Advogato (they’re a community for ‘open-source’ developers) which gives a short description of xMach and team members. Clicking on the jmallet profile brings you to a Juli Mallett who apparently is not just any geek, but a geek engaged to a geek (most probably Joseph). I didn’t find any recent information regarding xMach on her Livejournal or her journal at Advogato.
I think at this point it is safe to say that xMach is currently not being developed at the level it was initially hoped to be at (hehe, an understatement). Additionally I think it is a good time to don your shiny aluminum-foil hats and chalk up another one for the Black Helicopter Brigade. Note: check out Gentoo sometime if you’re interested in a BSD-like Linux distribution.
Several days ago I mentioned the Semantic Web and have unearthed more data since then (I also linked to Web Ontology Language OWL, which is a key ingredient for the SW and needs further elaboration at some point). While out googling today I bumped into Semaview, a Canadian-based firm, “focused on creating the next generation of knowledge management tools using the latest technologies such as agent-based computing, machine learning and the Intelligent Internet.”
A quick note of interest: Semaview’s products combat information overload by collecting only relevant, personalized information from the web and displaying it in unique ways when and where the user wants it.
This simplified statement of intent is similar to what Applied Semantics focuses on, primarily for ads (whom if you recall was recently acquired by Google): Applied Semantics’ products are based on its patented CIRCA technology, which understands, organizes, and extracts knowledge from websites and information repositories in a way that mimics human thought and enables more effective information retrieval. A key application of the CIRCA technology is Applied Semantics’ AdSense product that enables web publishers to understand the key themes on web pages to deliver highly relevant and targeted advertisements.
In addition to staying in Santa Monica to lure employees at Overture, would Google acquire (invest) in Semaview to reach the engineering talent in Toronto?
The folks at Semaview also created an easy-to-understand flow chart as to how the Semantic Web will work in the near future (note: the flying men with rotary fans are default vanilla AI agents, in later variations you can add jet engines along with moustaches & muttonchops).
Their pictorial explanation of RDF & XML is the best that I have come across, Step 6 says it all: XML is the alphabet and RDF is the language. Note: I’m personally interested in what the OWL illustration will look like.
And they don’t stop there either:
- Here is a quick overview of the technologies they incorporate with the Semantic Web
- A list of simplified yet powerful (I can say that) explanations for XML, RDF, the Semantic Web and more (note: they reference the Scientific America article I’ve permanently linked to – it’s worth a read)
- Extensive consultation services which provide solutions by which software developers can now integrate standardized Semantic-based languages into their products (something the Mozilla and others are incorporating)
- Notice any similarities between these two pictures? Yea, that has no bearing on Semaview at all - neat picture though (Tangent: Pirated-Sites has a side-by-side comparison of sites that ripped designs & logos from each other)
Semaview also has a Google AdWords listing when “Semantic Web” is queried (as does another semantically inclined company, Intellidimension, but they do not have slick flow charts). However, what does strikes me as odd is that this 1.5 year-old company (Sema) fails to appear until page 3 on the regular listing when “Semantic Web” comes up (these things keep me awake). Search engine optimization is a Good Thing ™.
Additionally, it also appears that I’m not the first blogger to discuss Semaview, I was beaten by ekrsulov who posted on Julio 17, 2002:
Semaview una empresa canadiense que promete desarrollar productos para que las tecnologías de la Web Semantica llegue al ambito empresarial. Tienen un rincón para desarrolladores con un FAQ e índice de software y artículos. (Google translation)
Apparently, I’m not the first English speaking blogger to speak of them either (though that shouldn’t count against my score).
At any rate, Semaview appears to be a step (a mile even) ahead of the rest in terms of both know-how and deployment. They’ve positioned themselves in a soon-to-be booming market and can hopefully capitalize off that opportunity. With any luck they can also develop those advanced AI agents with rocket boosters in a reasonable time frame, I’ll let you know how that progresses.
