Thursday, May 24, 2007

Embedded Debian and Empath... Our 'Empath'? I dunno.

There are a number of items that are tantalizing and suggest the entire concept of embedded debian's empath is used to create child distributions from a single seed Linux installation to other systems.

That said, the definition of the word 'empath' would lead folks to naturally assign such a cool (and benignly ambiguous) name to a capability that allows for the creation of linked functional relationships between one party and another. I empathize with your consternation in attempting to discern an empathetic linkage to the emPath in NOW Solutions.

NOW Solutions emPath acts as a framework within which various applications may be connected for sympathetic (more than that actually in that the interconnection would be aligned in such a way as to provide seamless interoperation between applications). We do not know if NOW Solutions has provided emPath with the ability to interconnect (and thus interoperate) various Linux or other operating system installations so there's no way to say.

The HP empath has to do with distributions of Samba which is a distributable file/print server system. I've made a few posts at #2 about the various empaths that have been found at http://ajaxamine.tripod.com/index.blog/1644035/speculating-and-debating-the-significance-of-nuts-and-bolts/
and http://ajaxamine.tripod.com/index.blog/1633615/ive-seen-enough/
and I feel fairly certain both the IBM and HP empaths are related simply because they do the same things although applied to different application task sets.

Finding dates around the 1990's does not deter the speculation as Ross Systems (original creator of emPath) probably tried applying it in many places. NOW Solutions is the one that made a commercially viable business out of it. There may be many children with VCSY left to try to sort out their various uses and impingements or VCSY may be encouraging these uses simply to build out their ecology on a much larger scale that we can't see.

Given the many various orbiting entities that share many other coincidental markings and purposes, I would choose (without violating an intellectual honesty or infatuated detachment) to think VCSY has been fostering adoptions in many places without having to worry about who's going to get credit for it in the end. We see much that same issue in developmentgateway.org for SiteFlash like capabilities and it parallels the kind of strategies used in the Linux community as well, with the 'give it away and they will flock to you' philosophy.

Then again I could be completely wrong although I don't feel that I am. The circumstantial evidences I've seen over the years are much more than what I can put in writing but the sense is that yes it's the same system... just different users and creators.

If HP were using their own version of the NOW Solutions empath to interconnect things like Samba (and using it in the context of their vCSY campaign) I would say this is the best way to hide something in public view. You can always say "this is ours" while masking the idea you got permission to do so from the original thinkers on the subject.

I personally believe the IBM empath is a copy and the HP empath is a copy. I have no problem thinking the same thing for Debian (especially for embedded Linux distribution as that would provide an excellent way of automating the distribution of operating system facilities throughout different hardware bodies to create autonomous Linux amalgams - what'd he say?) but I have no way of proving that other than a preponderance of circumstantial evidence in that VCSY by nature of their association with IBM, for starters, would be more warm to Linux than to Windows although NOW Solutions emPath is built on the .Net framework (the framework does not have to be .Net and may thus be any sort of XML enabled framework, but .Net is what Kent Orgain and his people at pre-NOW used giving further indication of Microsoft's knowledge of Ross Systems work in this area and thus VCSY's inheritance).

It would make sense to adapt empath to Linux use as it would provide a beautiful balance to the .Net application gluing emPath.

Hope that helps jog your thinking.

Of course, that's the idea of an empath - one which may sympathize and facilitate cross-platform, cross-application, cross-functional, cross-entity interconnectiveness and interoperation... but, then, that's the problem with such an easy word to abuse.

In essence, I think so because these empaths we're finding all do about the same thing only in different areas (which I would expect). So is it? I dunno... read and think and we'll discuss further as we go along. Maybe we'll get lucky and hit a couple bingos.

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PS - Benjy, I will see what I can do although you're asking a tall order seeing as I can not explain this stuff to my own relatives without them giving me the stink eye so I don't really know how I could put the idea across in some other monkey's tree.

1 comment:

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