Members:

This year at SS 2002 I will be reviewing JXTA a set of peer to peer
protocols and discussing the implemenation of Smalltalk bindings to
JXTA.

I have started an open-source project under the JXTA.ORG umbrella and
would like to invite those interested in this technology and in the
potential beneficial impact that it will have on Smalltalk to
participate. Please read on for further info:

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You have been invited to participate at some level in the open source
JXTA project entitled SmalltalkJxta. The purpose of the project is to
build a core Smalltalk implementation of the JXTA protocols.

Check our project out at:
http://smalltalkjxta.jxta.org/servlets/ProjectHome

Why a Smalltalk implementation of the JXTA protocols?

Peer to peer computing is the next stage in the evolution of
computing and it is already here. Naptster, Gnutella, Jabber and
Freenet are the first examples of P2P in some form. JXTA is an effort
spearheaded by SUN to generalize and standardize the P2P space. The
benefits of a Smalltalk implementation are obvious -
interoperability. Smalltalk applications will be able to talk to any
application implemented in Java or for that matter any language that
speaks the "JXTA lingo". This of course includes any of the Smalltalk
dialects as well.

Why have you been invited?

You work for a language vendor.
You understand the Peer to Peer or distributed application space.
You are known to have contributed to Smalltalk in the past.
You are known to be a knowledgeable Smalltalker.
You are known to have project organizational skills.
You are known to have great design ideas.
You are interested in promoting Smalltalk.
You are interested in promoting JXTA.
All of the above.

How can you contribute to this project?

Code of course. Coding includes not only the core and services layer
but also applications.

Other contributions would include:

Test beyond the Sunits because of course we write those first.
Document
Build tutorials.
Review implementation.
Coordinate a CampSmalltalk effort.
Coordinate a specific dialect effort.
Help organize the overall effort.
Provide access to a source code repository and other resources.
Influence your companies to pay attention to this effort.
Participate in a discussion of this issue perhaps at the Opentalk bof
at Smalltalk Solutions 2002.

Thank you for your time. Any comments can be mailed to me:

charles@...