Archive-name: comp-groupware-faq/products3
Last-modified: 1994.3.20
Version: 2.0
Copyright: 1994 (c) David S. Stodolsky, PhD


Groupware Products - Part 3
===========================


Business Process Reengineering Tools
------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems
From: Jerome Kreuser OBPIE 32796 <JKREUSER@worldbank.org>
Subject: BPR Tools ~#
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 15:33:12 GMT

          We are not a manufacturing company but produce 
          intellectual products and financial products.  Most of the tools 
          I have seen are discrete simulation tools.  Among these are:
          
          
           SIMAN plus ARENA from Systems Modeling Corporation
          
           SIMSCRIPT products from CACI including
                   SIMPROCESS their BPR product  and
              MODSIM for more flexibility and detail
          
           HOCUS from P-E International
          
           Extend+BPR from Imagine That, Inc.
          
           ithink from High performance Systems, Inc.
          
           Micro SAINT from Micro Analysis and Design, Inc.
       
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems
From: babcock@cc.gatech.edu (Jim Babcock)
Subject: Re: BPR Tools ~#
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 16:00:45 GMT



Here are a few more tools used in US ..  I have no evaluation data... sorry.

 Business Design Facility (Texas Instrumants, Dallas  TX)
 Dynamic Business Modeling (Digital Equipment, Bosoton MA))
 QSNAP/SIMPAL  (TEchno Sciences Inc  & Ameritech Greenbelt MD & Hoffman 
   Estates, IL))
 SPARKS (Coopers Lybrand, Chicago)
 TASC [Plan, FlowSim, Control, Station], (TASC, Reading MA)
 WITNESS (AT&T, Cleveland OH)

Newsgroups: comp.infosystems
From: Carl Petter Swensson <cepe@taskon.no>
Subject: Re: BPR Tools ~# 
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 16:16:36 GMT


Jerome Kreuser OBPIE 32796 <JKREUSER@worldbank.org> wrote:
             
             Are there other useful tools available for BPR?

You should consider RDD-100 from Ascent Logic Corporation, CA, USA. This is 
a system engineering tool, but many concepts in Systems Engineering and BPR 
are common. 

I have used this tool for doing reverse-engineering of software _and_ for
modelling
business processes, the latter case was a military organization. In the case of 
organizational modelling both reverse-engineering, i.e. figuring out
what people really
are doing, and forward engineering, i.e. what they should do, was done.

It worked well.

It is a comprehensive tool with a its basis in a methodology called
Requirements Driven Development. It has very good support for traceability,
dynamic
simulation/verification facilities etc.

Newsgroups: comp.infosystems
From: "Susanne Strahringer" <SUSANNE@bwl.bwl.th-darmstadt.de>
Subject: Re: BPR Tools 
Date: Wed, 9 Mar 1994 11:29:13 GMT


In SPURR, K., LAYZELL, P., JENNISON, L., RICHARDS, N. (edts.), 
Software Assistance for Business Re-engineering, John Wiley 1993, 
several tools are described. These include:

APACHE (Electronic Data Systems): proprietary
Business Design Facility (Texas Instruments): commercially available
Business Improvement Facility  (Virtual Software Factory): 
commercially available
CADDIE (Logica Cambridge Ltd): research tool for consultancy support
iThink (High Performance Systems): commercially available
PROCESSWISE WORKBENCH (International Computers Ltd, ICL): 
commercially available
RADitor (Co-ordination Systems Ltd): commercially available
SES/Workbench (Scientific and Engineering Software): commercially 
available
TOP-IX (TOP-IX Ltd): commercially available

Apart from these I came across the following products. All but the first 
of the following tools are of german or suisse origin and therefore 
probably not available in an English version.

ProcessWeaver (Cap Gemini Innovation)
BONAPART (UBIS GmbH)
ARIS-Tools (IDS Prof. Scheer GmbH)
MOSAIK (sietec consulting GmbH  Co. OHG)
Workflow Analyzer (C.I.T. GmbH)
INCOME (Promatis Informatik GmbH & Co KG)
PACE (Grossenbacher Elektronik AG)
GRADE (Siemens Nixdorf)


Newsgroups: comp.infosystems
From: jpt@jytkoson2.jyu.fi (Juha-Pekka Tolvanen)
Subject: RE: BPR tools
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 14:20:23 GMT

One tool that can be added to the list of BPR tools is a metaCASE tool 
called MetaEdit (MetaCase Consulting Inc.,metacase@jsp.fi). 

A specific feature of Metaedit is that the modeling methods included can 
be customized to different purposes (e.g. to modeling of logistic processes
or to workflow modeling), or even new methods can be created. Current method 
support for BPR include value process modeling and activity modeling. 

-- 
Juha-Pekka Tolvanen
Department of Computer Science and Information Systems
University of Jyv a:skyl a:
P.O.Box 35, 40351 Jyv a:skyl a:, Finland
E-mail: jpt@jyu.fi
Tel: +358 41 603039, fax: 358 41 603611


Collaborative Multimedia Scientific Design 
------------------------------------------
SHASTRA is a X-11 based distributed and collaborative multimedia 
environment for cooperative problem solving. Licensed and sold by the 
Purdue Research Foundation. For info contact Prof. Chandrajit Bajaj
(bajaj@cs.purdue.edu), 317-494-6531 fax 317-494-0739.


Internet conference to Notes database
-------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
From: joe@netcom.com (Joseph Jesson)
Subject: Re: Converting internet conference to Notes database
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 23:07:49 GMT

  Our product(s) does exactly that without the intermediate import
requirement.  A UNIX spooled file injected into a Notes Database is
available for $320.00 (use your UNIX shell account and rn to collect
the newsgroups of interest.

 A full-blown NNTP-to-Notes production gateway goes for $8,700
per Notes server and completes a real-time translation of an NNTP
newsfeed into Notes.   

We have now been in production for over 6 months now and have many
satisfied customers!

Let me know if you want additional information...

   Joe Jesson,  708-356-6817  joe@netcom.com

MeetingWorks
------------
Subject: Windows-based GSS
Date: Fri, 20 May 94 15:52:00 PST

MeetingWorks is a Windows-based GSS that has just been released for 
commercial use. [..........]  It is currently 
designed for small to medium sized groups who meet in a face-to-face 
setting.  However, the software does not have a built-in limit on the number 
of participants, and the current version could be used along with separate 
teleconferencing software.

It is essentially a modular toolkit that can be used to design meetings for 
almost any purpose.  It includes tools to support idea generation and 
commenting, discussion and organization of ideas, exploration of 
relationships (cross-impact analysis), and a variety of evaluation 
approaches (voting, selecting, ranking, rating, multi-attribute utility 
analysis).    Almost any other Windows or DOS program can be added to a 
meeting script, and executed at the appropriate time during the meeting. 
 The MeetingWorks modules create a variety of reports, tables, and graphs 
which can be distributed during the meeting, and/or used to document the 
activities of the group.

Licenses for an unlimited number of participants are $15,000 for commercial 
firms, and $10,000 for educational and non-profit organizations.  A 
"teaching only" version will be available in the Fall, packaged with a 
supplemental text on GSS.  This version will be fully functional, but the 
screens and reports will included messages that it is not for any use other 
than teaching.

For further information (demo disks and brochures are available), contact me 
at:

Dr. L. Floyd Lewis
Decision Science Dept.
Western Washington University
Bellingham, WA  98225-9077
lewis@cbe.wwu.edu

IBIS, gIBIS, CM/1
-----------------
Newsgroups: alt.hypertext,comp.groupware
From: kcby@netcom.com (K.C. Burgess Yakemovic)
Subject: Re: Looking for Designs for Mapping Logical Arguments
Date: Sun, 1 May 1994 14:56:15 GMT

In article <9404291127.AA10463@rx7.intercon.com> doc@intercon.com (Dave Kosiur)
writes:
>In article <pjohnson.1.2DBDDB08@hookup.net>, pjohnson@hookup.net (Peter 
>Johnson) writes:
>> I'm interested designs for representing information organized around 
>> the deconstruction of logical arguments. 
>
>Take a look at the IBIS and gIBIS systems. 
>.... gIBIS had been a long-term project at MCC 
>in Austin. I believe the principals have since started their own business, 
>but, for the life of me, I cannot remember the company or product name.

Jeff Conklin was the primary researcher in this work at MCC.  He can be 
reached at:

     Corporate Memory Systems
     8920 Business Park Drive
     Austin TX 78759
     phone: 512-795-9999
     fax:   512-794-5921
     email: conklin@msi.com

The product name is CM/1.

I am not connected with this company, but I did work with Jeff while he
was at MCC... so I've kept up a bit with his more recent work. 

-- kcby
   KC Burgess Yakemovic
   Group Performance Systems Inc.        phone / fax: 404-395-0282
   4776 Village N. Ct.                   email : kcby@netcom.com
   Atlanta GA 30338   USA

k-lendars
---------
From: leon@crios.inria.fr (Jean-Michel Leon)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x.apps,comp.windows.x.motif,comp.groupware
Subject: ANNOUNCING k-lendars: multi-user, multi-calendar diary.
Date: 28 Apr 1994 17:02:41 GMT

DESCRIPTION :
----------
k-lendars is a multi-user / multi-calendar diary. 
It is a MOTIF user interface to a distributed calendar manager.
Communications are based on email and require a dispatch mechanism 
(procmail, slocal,...)
Anyway if you do not want to use the multi user capabilities, you can use 
k-lendars in single-user mode, with one or more calendars.

Features of version 1.1 are:

- multi/calendar support
- multi/user support, with group managment mechanisms
- select/unselect any calendar
- Year view
- Day view
- repeating appointments
- alarms (up to 1 week before an appointment)
- MOTIF 1.2 interface
- mouse oriented interface
- customizability

AVAILABILITY :
-----------

k-lendars sources are freely available, read the  COPYRIGHT file.

ftp location:
 avahi.inria.fr:/pub/k-lendars-1.1.tar.gz
 ftp.x.org:/contrib/k-lendars-1.1.tar.gz
-- 
Jean-Michel.Leon@sophia.inria.fr - Groupe Bull
<A HREF="http://zenon.inria.fr:8003/koala/koala.html">See the Koala team</A>.


Schedule Publisher
------------------
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
From: hillelm@psun (Hillel Meyers)
Subject: Re: Looking for Schedule Publisher
Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 22:27:21 GMT

Schedule Publisher is from Lucas Managment Systems.  You can contact
Anndee McManus in Detroit at 810-353-4080.

I have no experience with the tool, so I can give no comment.
==
Hillel A. Meyers - Motorola - SMTP:  hillelm@cadsun.corp.mot.com


Collage for the X Window System
-------------------------------
From: gbourhis@void.ncsa.uiuc.edu (Gilles Bourhis)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Collage for X release 1.3
Date: 21 Apr 1994 22:00:25 GMT


The National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is announcing the 1.3 release
of Collage for the X Window System.

Contacting address: softdev@ncsa.uiuc.edu

Quick overview:
Collage is a tool with both scientific data analysis capabilities and
collaboratives capabilities.
Collage can read scientific data from HDF files and produce 2d images
from them, annotate this images, view in a spreadsheet the actual datas,
analyse them with some tools (profiling, histogram, contouring).
Collage can also view images from various file format.
Collage can be viewed also as a collaborative tools since several instances
of collage can be linked together via a server (collage_server),
exchanging message through the DTM protocol: what the end user will see is
that each action of any participant in a Collage session is immediately
propagated to the others, for example there is whiteboard where you can
doodle things: everybody can watch what the other draw of write.

New features in 1.3:
. Full support of int16 (short) HDF type.
. Support of int8 HDF type.
. Backspace works when doodling text in image or whiteboard.
. contour works for all data type.
. animation of a 3d data along an arbitrary axis can be generated from
  the 3d panel.
. Fix bug when the default number of colorcells is less than 256.
. Add options for naming of SDSs (use of annotation or not...).
. Screen capture on SGI works better.
. Delete buttons added so that you can recover some memory.
. Add private copy button on the spreadsheet.

Distribution:
The software is available through anonymous ftp for both binaries and
source code. ftp ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu (141.142.20.50) and answer anonymous
to the Name question. Than cd /UNIX/XCollage/Collage1.3, get DOCS,
quit ftp, read DOCS and download the binaries that you need.
Enjoy !

--
Gilles Bourhis   Software Development Group
gbourhis@ncsa.uiuc.edu  NCSA, U of I at Urbana-Champaign


DEC's LinkWorks
---------------
From: arndtr@cs.bu.edu (Randy Arndt)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: Is Lotus Notes REALLY groupware????
Date: 1 May 1994 13:23:08 GMT

Philip Leung (philip-leung@cuhk.hk) wrote:

: Also, so far, I haven't seen discussions on DEC's LinkWorks.  I do find it
: quite impressive, especially on the document workflow capability.  Any details
: from anyone?

: Philip Leung

LinkWorks is one of the most impressive products that I have seen.  I don't
think that it is even in the same category as Notes.  I recently attended a
conference called Crossroads '94 (Hosted by the company I work for, I must
add) where Digital was one of the main sponsors.  The technology that they
chose to exhibit was Linkworks.

In addition to their exhibit, DEC also brought with them a customer (a
major Canadian bank) who put on a live demonstration of the product.  What
I saw was incredible.  As Philip pointed out, Linkworks does have extremely
robust (yet easy to use) workflow capabilities.  However, that is not the
products only strong suit.  What I was particularly impressed with was the
product allowed developers to create a desktop of functions for users.  I
would liken this to the way Notes lets you build a set of applications in a
folder.  Unlike Notes, however, Linkworks is not a development environment.
All of the applications are created with other products, but they are
collected and organized within the Linkworks desktop.  These don't even
have to be custom applications.  Products like Notes and Word are just as
easily integrated into the desktop as custom applications.

Another interesting feature is the portability of a user's desktop.  As
with Notes, Linkworks provides a custom desktop for each user.  This
desktop is also extremely portable.  In the demonstration that I saw a
remote user dialed into the home LAN and received the same desktop that he
would have received if he had been physically located on the LAN.  In fact,
for all intents and purposes he was on the LAN even though he was over
3,000 miles away.  What was even more interesting was that the process is
intelligent.  Developers can limit access to certain resources on the LAN
(such as multimedia apps that would be too slow over phone lines or high
security applications) for remote users.

I am not often excited about groupware, but I consider this product quite
good.  It is an extremely young product, but I think it has a definite
future in enterprisewide workflow.  If anyone would like more information
on Linkworks let me know and I will tell you who to get in touch with at
DEC.

Randy Arndt
Open Systems Advisors


From: tfee@vanbc.wimsey.com (Thomas Fee)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Lotus Notes .... LinkWorks
Date: 1 May 1994 09:22:04 -0700

I saw the DEC demo of LinkWorks two days ago and I agree it looks very
interesting.  It would be useful if we could come up with a succinct
characterization of these products so that when we talk about them we don't
make emotional speeches about with evocative visions.

I don't know much about LinkWorks but here is a start:

 LinkWorks is version control system with content
 routing cabability.  Routes are generally pre-defined
 but can optionally be ad-hoc.  A GUI presentation
 allows moderately powerful interactions with the
 system.  There is no API nor scripting capability
 and so, generally, administration and extensiblity
 is primitive or limited.  The system has some knowledge
 regarding the file-types under its control and the
 programs associated with these types.

This may or may not be accurate.  Any comments?

--------
Thomas Fee <tfee@vanbc.wimsey.com>
Greater Vancouver Regional District, IT Architect/Planner
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada


Workflow Management
-------------------
From: as99999@raver.sbil.co.uk (Andrew Stuart)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: Need product-infos on Workflow Management
Date: 6 May 1994 13:13:44 GMT
Reply-To: as99999@raver.sbil.co.uk

Which tool you use depends on your aplication, but some of the tools are
Lotus Notes, Action Workflow, Staffware, Teamlinks, Delrina Formflow,
Jetform, Wordperfect Informs and many others.  The US edition of PC magazine
reviewed Workgrouping packages in their June 93 issue.

For pure workflow, there isnm't alot out there at the moment.  Look closely
at Action Workflow in conjunction with Lotus Notes, or use its SQL connectivity.

It can be a good idea just to build your application using traditional tools
such
as Power or visual basic, but the use the add in libraries for Lotus Notes
for each product to enhance their workgrouping abilities.
Andrew

From: mfalexand@VNET.IBM.COM (Michael Alexander)
Date: Sun, 22 May 94 00:09:02 CST
Subject: Re: Need product-infos on Workflow Management
Newsgroups: comp.groupware

In article <2qdfq8$jh59offas_dike.sbil.co.uk> as999999raver.sbil.co.uk writes:

\deletionsp
> For pure workflow, there isnm't alot out there at the moment.  Look closely
> at Action Workflow in conjunction with Lotus Notes, or use its SQL
> connectivity.

There's good news; IBM Corp. has just announced the availability of FlowMark,
an industry-strength workflow manager.

FlowMark is a fully object-oriented client/server application with
functionality to do everything from graphically designing processes to
animating and operating them.

Persons involved in a FlowMark process see their assigned activities on their
personalized work lists on their workstation. When they perform activities
from the work list they are guided by appropriate help information, and
supported by seamless invocation of the necessary programs.

FlowMark is prepared to run with Lotus Notes, can be a front-end to 3270-
based host applications and work with IBM VisualInfo for image based
workflow, among others. It can be tailored for workflow management in
a variety of industries. Applications areas also include business process
documentation/improvement/re-engineering, ISO 9000 certification/Baldridge
and application integration.

For information contact your local IBM representative/office and ask for
FlowMark/workgroup. If you need info on services around FlowMark or want
to provide them you can drop me a note.

Best Regards,

Michael F.Alexander
mfalexand@vnet.ibm.com


Electronic Forms
----------------
From: CARESS@infocomp.csir.co.za (ABU ABRAHAMS)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: Info on Electronic Forms please.
Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 09:12:37

  The following references to packages were made.

    References:
        1.  Staffware: a robust workflow application from a British
            company with over 30,000 seats installed around the world.
             in London:   +44 (0) 71 262 1021
        2.  AT&T ProcessIT: a new workflow product, backed by AT&T, and they
            also remarket DelRina's FormFlow software.
             Seems to require AT&T Unix.  Contact AT&T.
        3.  InConcert from XEROX.  A good looking  workflow application
            running on Windows or Unix clients, and Unix servers.
            In Palo Alto, CA: 415-424-0111 or 800-626-6775.
        4>  Reach Software Corporation has a package out  It's an e-mail
            based workflow manager, with a forms generation package included,
            and graphical workflow  design, for an all-PC environment.
        5>  Word Perfect INFORMS -Professional form handling,Network ready,
                                   Email enabled.

 //          //..\\                aabraham@infocomp.csir.co.za
       ====UU====UU=               CSIR - S.A


Natural Language Processing Based Group Decision Support
--------------------------------------------------------
From: MilamAiken@aiken.bus.olemiss.edu (mkaiken@aiken.bus.olemiss.edu)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware,comp.infosystems
Subject: Re: groupware + infosystems: any thoughts?
Date: 6 May 1994 16:33:37 GMT

    I developed a brainstorming program which enables participants to query
data and knowledge bases via English sentences.  The system then posts the
answers in the comment stream.   Studies have shown replies are faster and
more accurate than if a human searched for the answers.  Also, some 
participants believed this "intelligent agent" was actually a human posting
the answers.

     For more information:
  1.   "Knowledge-based Information Retrieval for Group Decision Support
        Systems," M. Aiken & C. Govindarajulu, Journal of Database 
        Management, 5(1) Winter 1994, 31-35.  
   2.   "A Natural Language Processing Based Group Decision Support 
        System," S. Conlon, B. Reithel, M. Aiken, & A. Shirani,
        Decision Support Systems, in press.

--- Milam Aiken
    Univ of Mississippi


ConversationBuilder
-------------------
Date: 7 Feb 92 02:51:08 GMT

We're pleased to announce the first release of the ConversationBuilder 
environment, a tool we've been building for `active'support of collaborative 
work.  A copy of the release announcement is enclosed.  If you would be 
interested in obtaining a copy of the system, or discussing the system or
related issues, please dont hesitate to contact me.

regards,

Simon Kaplan



                             Release Announcement

                          ConversationBuilder v 2.0
           An open environment for "collaborative process support"


                          ConversationBuilder Group
                    Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory
                  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

                        For more information, contact:

                                 Simon Kaplan
                    Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory
                  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
                         1304 W. Springfield Avenue,
                                    Urbana
                                  IL 61801,
                                     USA

                          email: kaplan@cs.uiuc.edu
                          fax:   +1 217 333 3501
                          phone: +1 217 244 0392

0.  Brief Summary

ConversationBuilder (CB) is an "open architecture" for the construction of
collaborative systems.  Rather than providing specific collaboration
models, it provides a family of mechanisms which can be used to construct
specific collaboration models (which we call protocols).  We have used CB
to define several protocols, including:

-       A simple IBIS model
-       A Negotiation model, based on CHAOS, which in turn is based on
        Coordinator 
-       Code Inspection support
-       Software Process support
-       Collaborative document and code development support
-       A host of smaller auxiliary protocols which are used in many of the
        others. 

Some of these protocols are quite robust and in daily use; others are
experimental.  Some were developed purely as demos; still other protocols are
under development.

The CB release includes several tools which can be used in a collaborative
environment, or independently, including the CB server, Message Bus for tool
interconnection, Widget Server for controlling and building user interfaces,
Graph browser for hypertext browsing, and Epoch editor for text display and
editing.  Other tools, such as a shared drawing tool, will be released in the
near future.  The CB system has been designed to be open, so that other tools
can be integrated with relative ease.  (Brief descriptions of all these tools
are included at the end of this document).

The "products" of our research cover a wide spectrum of interests, including 

-       collaborative work (groupware?) systems
-       hypertext systems
-       tools for tool UI integration (widget server);  allowing multiple
        tools to cooperatively and dynamically build and share a common
        user interface 
-       support for  inter-tool communication; an
        extension of the message server concept in field and softbench.
-       some work in the area of active-object persistent object storage.  
-       multi-window, multifont text editors (epoch)

Portions of CB could be of interest to people in any of these communities;
we expect the system as a whole will be of interest to people in the CSCW,
groupware, hypertext, (software) process modeling and related areas.

CB is actually used at Illinois by our group to maintain itself as well as for
other activities such as writing papers (i.e supporting the "real work" of
research groups :-).

1.  System Requirements

We have tried to ensure that the CB system runs on as many variants of Un*x as
possible.  It is run regularly on Sun, HP and NeXT; it has been run on IBM
RS/6000's and 386 and 486 boxes under SysV/3.2 also.  It would (probably) run
under SYSV.4 if you could find an appropriate Common Lisp.

CB runs using a client-server model.  The server is written in CLOS, and needs
a fairly substantial machine (a sparc I+ with enough memory (> 24 meg if this
is the only application on it) should be ok.  The clients (user interface
clients) are all written in C and are fairly small.  A 16meg machine should be
more than adequate for the user interface part.

The components, and their requirements are listed below:

CB Server       Comon Lisp with CLOS to at least PCL Mayday Rev 4b (ie
                latest version) 

                Any version of Allegro CL from 3.1 seems to be OK
                (4.0 or better is preferred as it includes a native
                CLOS). 

                AKCL and CMU Common Lisp with the latest PCL seem OK

                Lucid lisp is almost certainly OK, but we dont have it, so we
                havent tried it.  I'd expect it would work with the usual minor
                porting hack problems.
                

Graph Browser   X11R4 or newer, Motif 1.1

Widget Server   X11R4 or newer, Motif 1.1

Message Bus     C

Epoch           4.0 or newer, depends on C and  X11R4 (actually epoch will
                work on X11R3, but as the rest of the system doesnt, this is
                moot). 

Space requirements for a complete installation will be at least 60 meg.
(including epoch).  Most of this can be cleaned away after installation, down
to around 20 meg.  Thereafter your usage will grow as the CB database gets
bigger.


2.      Getting CB

Some portions of CB are freely available: Epoch (under GNU license) and the
message bus and widget server (under X11-type license).

The CB server itself, which is needed for exploitation of the collaboration,
hypertext and persistent storage features of CB, is distributed under a more
restrictive license and is only available to members of the ConverationBuilder
consortium.  Membership in the consortium is free for Universities.  Other 
organizations should contact Simon Kaplan for information.

Once you've joined the consortium and signed the CB license agreement,
we'll give you a login so that you can FTP the restricted parts of the CB
system.  The unrestricted parts will be available from your login as well,
but will also be available for anonymous FTP from cs.uiuc.edu.  For those who
do not have ftp access, we can arrange to send a tape (streamer, reel or 
exabyte). 

To obtain more information about joining the ConversationBuilder consortium
contact Simon Kaplan

3.  Here is a very brief capsule of the functionality of the major CB
    components:

CB Engine:  Provides collaboration control, access control, hypertext
        and persistent object storage facilities.

Message Bus:  Allows tools to interconnect and send messages to each other.
        can be used independently of all the other tools;  arbitrary new
        tools can be connected to it and communicate assuming they "speak"
        the message bus syntax.  

Widget Server:  Builds user interfaces in response to UI expressions sent over
        the message bus.  Can be used in applications other than CB, with 
        the message bus.  Provides a high-level way of describing and
        evolving user interfaces as applications run.  The widget server
        can callback to applications using the message bus in response
        to user input events.

Graph Browser:  Displays arbitrary graphs sent to it over the message bus.
        supports callback to other applications over the bus.

Epoch: Emacs extended to be "better integrated" into X11.  Supports
        multiple X windows, colors, proportional fonts, read-only regions,
        zones (buttons in buffers, including graphical buttons).  Can be
        used independently of any other CB component (and often is).


David S. Stodolsky, PhD      Internet: stodolsk@andromeda.rutgers.edu
Inst. of Political Science               Internet: david@arch.ping.dk
Univ. of Copenhagen, Rosenborgg. 15            Tel.: + 45 32 97 66 74
DK-1130 Copenhagen K, Denmark                   Fax: + 45 31 59 76 44
