[July 07, 2000] "WorldOS is a framework for distributed applications, comprised of an XML oriented application server and tools for peer routing similar to Freenet or Gnutella. The application server uses a new protocol distinguished by pluggable transports, XML message content, and asynchronous messaging. The rationale for doing a completely new protocol and codebase is that neither Freenet nor Gnutella lends itself to use as a platform. Freenet and Gnutella are advances in terms of routing, but compromise that achievement in other ways. They are more like applications than operating systems. The goal is not to serve MP3 or censor-prone content, it is to support the full range of programs that could make use of distributed routing. The code is open source under Verision 2 of the Gnu Public License. It is written in Java. The protocol and transport are lightweight, so should be easy to implement even with low power tools like shell scripts."
"This project uses a new protocol called WorldOS -- WorldOS separates message transport and content. There is a native transport, but others are pluggable; HTTP is supported out of the box. Content is XML. The reference implementation uses a new method for distributed routing, called stack routing, but allows for other routing schemes to be plugged in. (Differences between stack routing and message table routing are outlined in the documentation on stack routing). WorldOS' download size may be significantly larger than the typical Gnutella implementation. An XML protocol is not as fast as a binary one by any means. Java is still a bad platform for GUI applications. These problems are acceptable to me because I believe they can be improved on incrementally, as optimizations, so the base capability should not be limited by them. For example, a pre-compiled transport could be plugged in to eliminate the parse overhead of XML."
[the difference between WorldOS and BXXP]: "I should point out that wOS is closer to XP than BXXP, though. In some ways BXXP is a higher level protocol. BXXP is connection oriented. wOS accepts any byte source, including UDP and file streams. Both BXXP and wOS assume loosely coupled systems. Both BXXP and wOS are asynchronous. However wOS also supports one-way streams."
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