futrell@CORWIN.CCS.NORTHEASTERN.EDU (11/03/87)
I will soon be in Washington talking to the National Science
Foundation about the possibility of setting up a National Resource
Center for Intelligent Systems Software. The center would have as its
goal the timely and efficient distribution of contributed public
domain software in AI, NLP, and related areas. Below I have listed,
very briefly, some of the points that I will be covering. I would
like to hear reactions from all on this.
0. Goals/Philosophy: Distribute software. The motivations are practical
(easier on the original author and requester) and philosophical
(accumulating a base of shared techniques and experience for the field).
1. Scope: Limited in the beginning until acquisition and distribution
experience is built up.
2. Possible Initial Emphasis: Natural language processing, large lexicons,
small exemplary programs/systems for teaching AI.
3. Selection: Limited selection balancing importance vs. the robustness and
detailed documentation of the contributed software.
4. What to Distribute: Source code plus paper documentation, reprints,
theses related to the software.
5. Mode of Distribution: Small: e-mail distribution server. Large: S-mail.
6. Support of Distributed Items: The Center should not offer true
software "support", but it would assure that the software runs on one
or more systems before distribution (& see next item).
7. User Involvement: Users of the distributed items are a source of both
questions and of answers. So the Center would support national mailings and
forums on the nets so that problems could be resolved primarily by users.
If we don't partially shield the developer, important items may never
be contributed.
8. Languages: Common Lisp would be the dominant exchange medium.
Hopefully other standards will emerge (CLOS, X windows).
9. Hardware: The center would maintain or have access to a dozen or so
systems for testing, configuring, and hard(tape)copy production.
10. Compatibility Problems: The Center would work with developers and users
to deal with the many compatibility issues that will arise.
11. Staff: Two to three full-time equivalents.
12. Management: An advisory board (working via e-mail and phone)?
13. Cost to Users: E-mail free, hardcopy and tapes at near cost.
14. Licensing: A sticky issue. A standard copyright policy could be
instituted. Avoid software with highly restrictive licensing.
Where this is coming from:
Our college is rather new but has 30 faculty and a fair amount of
equipment, mostly Unix. We have a PhD program and a large number of
MS and undergrad students. I am involved in a major project to parse
whole documents to build knowledge bases. My focus is on parsing
diagrammatic material, something that has received little attention.
I teach grad courses on Intro to AI, AI methods, Vision, and Lisp.
I am very familiar with the National Science Foundation, their goals
and policies.
You can reach me directly at:
Prof. Robert P. Futrelle
College of Computer Science 161CN
Northeastern University
360 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
(617)-437-2076
CSNet: futrelle@corwin.ccs.northeastern.edu