
pl.comp.security, pl.comp.networking, pl.comp.programming :
-----------------------------------------------------------

W koncu stalo sie - po dlugich zmaganiach skonczylismy prace nad Argante -
dostepnym na licencji LGPL projektem, ktory, mamy nadzieje, rzuci nowe
swiatlo na tworzenie dotychczas skomplikowanych, nie zawsze odpowiadajacych
potrzebom i bazujacych na czesto niestabilnym, kosztownym kodzie rozwiazan.
Mamy tu na mysli hybrydowe, samoorganizujace sie clustry, wirtualne
routery i zapewnianie redundancji w obiegu informacji, a takze duzo bardziej
przyziemne wdrozenia.

Dlugo mozna opowiadac o tym czym jest, a czym nie jest Argante, jak dziala,
po co zostala napisana, w jakim stadium rozwoju sie znajduje i kto sprawuje
piecze nad calym kodem. Pozostaje mi wiec nie przeciagac tej zapowiedzi
i odeslac zainteresowanych pod adres http://agt.buka.org, gdzie mozna
zapoznac sie z podstawowymi zalozeniami projektu, szczegolowa implementacja,
pobrac kody zrodlowe, zapoznac sie z obecnym statusem i z "lista plac".

Skrot powodow dla ktorych "Argante jest lepsza" - przerysowany i niepelny,
lecz zapewne krotki i przystepny - mozna pobrac spod adresu:
http://agt.buka.org/advocacy.txt

To, czy ow projekt bedzie rozwijany, a takze w jakim kierunku bedziemy
zmierzac, zalezy tylko od Was. Choc wiec Argante jest jeszcze we wczesnej
fazie rozwoju, liczymy na kazdy, doslownie kazdy glos ze strony osob,
ktore nie skasowaly tego postu po przeczytaniu pierwszego zdania :) Chcemy
tylko zwrocic uwage na to, iz staralismy sie mozliwie wyczerpujaco odpowiedziec
na pytania, ktore moga nasunac sie programistom przywyklym do innych
rozwiazan w samej dokumentacji, staralismy sie takze dokladnie wyjasnic
kazda decyzje, ktora stanela u podstaw Argante, zas kazde posuniecie
implementacyjnie dokladnie opisac.

                                  Michal Zalewski, koordynator projektu
                              Argante Development Team <argante@cgs.pl>



Info do magazynw komputerowych:
--------------------------------

25 listopada udostpniony zosta kod Argante -- nowego, wirtualnego 
systemu operacyjnego, stworzonego przez grup polskich programistw. 
Przy projektowaniu pooono ogromny nacisk na bezpieczestwo oraz
efektywno w zastosowaniach rozproszonych, jak niezawodne wirtualne
routery, rozproszone clustry czy podobne rozwizania - ale take na
moliwo wykorzystania systemu jako przenonej i efektywnej platformy
do bardziej codziennych zastosowa (grafika, usugi sieciowe). Wedug
autorw, Argante ma szanse sta si nieocenion i oczekiwan alternatyw
w zastosowaniach sieciowych, czynic wdroenia prostszymi, znacznie taszymi,
atwiejszymi w zarzdzaniu i stabilniejszymi. Pomysodawc
projektu, autorem wikszoci kodu oraz koordynatorem caoci jest znany
specjalista od bezpieczestwa sieciowego i systemowego, Micha
Zalewski. Do wersji 1.0, bedcej pierwsz odson wci rozwijanego kodu,
doczono liczne przykady (lekki serwer HTTP, wirtualny router rozproszony
pozwalajcy zbudowa dowolnie zoon, odporn na awarie sie prywatn, a
take wiele innych przykadw - np. demo graficzne), a take kompilator jzyka
wysokiego poziomu, oraz bogat dokumentacj.

Skrot powodow dla ktorych "Argante jest lepsza" - przerysowany i niepelny,
lecz zapewne krotki i przystepny - mozna pobrac spod adresu:
http://agt.buka.org/advocacy.txt

Wicej informacji o systemie, jak rwnie sam kod mona cign ze
stron projektu: http://agt.buka.org


Freshmeat, LWN, Slashdot - brief
--------------------------------

Argante 1.0

Argante 1.0 is a fully-operational, software-embedded virtual operating system
environment, designed for high security, efficiency and usability, reducing
amount of resources required to develop complex networked applications and
solutions. It supports Hierarchical Access Control, remote Inter-Process
Communication for distributed computing (easy clusters / virtual router
development) as well as many other features. It comes with comprehensive
documentation, many examples, a compact HTTP server and DVR (distributed
virtual router) examples.

We've provided a brief list of reasons why Argante, in our belief, provides
something new and less or more useful. This list has been dramatically
simplified, and, for sure, is not complete - but it's really short and
readable. You might want to start at http://agt.buka.org/advocacy.txt :)

Project Homepage: http://agt.buka.org
Download: http://agt.buka.org/download

***

BUGTRAQ, SECPROG, alt.security, comp.os.misc, comp.os.linux.announce, 
comp.security.misc, comp.security.unix etc
------------------------------------------

         a r g a n t e   p r o j e c t   a n n o u n c e m e n t
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


1. Brief introduction
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We - a small group of computer security and programming enthusiasts - are
proud to present a result of our hard work on making secure, functional,
portable and effective environment, called "Argante".

Although Argante is introducing completely new standards, architecture
concepts and design basis, we believe it can find its place, both in
dedicated and hybrid solutions, where Argante code is mixed with
traditional components - especially in server software, secure distributed
solutions / network monitoring and analysis software, distributed
self-organizing clusters (at management / request propagation layer),
virtual routers (for easy building of complex, fault-tolerant private
networks from scratch) and so on, making such solutions simpler, more secure
and stable - and, very often, more effective. So, in general, Argante might be
a revolutionary (and low-cost) open-source solution for modern distributed
network applications, allowing you to replace expensive, dedicated devices with
heterogenic cloud of cheap boxes, quite often improving overall performance,
and making management and development more intuitive and easier.

On the other hand, Argante gives you just a new concept of OS environment,
allowing you to develop any kind of code, including graphic applications
or any other solutions.

Why?


2. What is Argante?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you believe this GPL project is worth looking, we kindly suggest you
starting at http://agt.buka.org/concept.html - this document describes
fundamental Argante proposals, which, unfortunately, cannot be described
in such short announcement. Note - Argante is based on concepts that are
totally different from common solutions you should know - and quite often
it's just shocking for people that used to C/Unix conventions or
environments.

We've provided a brief list of reasons why Argante, in our belief, provides
something new and less or more useful. This list has been dramatically
simplified, and, for sure, is not complete - but it's really short and
readable. You might want to start at http://agt.buka.org/advocacy.txt :)

Then, you can follow Argante documentation as well - it can be found at
http://agt.buka.org/doc.html. This document explains how we reached our
goals, and how Argante has been implemented. It also covers details on
techniques offered by our solution and their use in complex applications /
systems.

You might find out Argante has some solutions similar to those used in eg.
Inferno project from Lucent / Bell Labs. This is just a coincidence,
because we tried not to base on any known solution. We believe we avoided
some strange half-solutions, like moving high-level functionality to
low-level layer with no good reason (and thus decreasing freedom of design
and making overgrown code); we decided for such step only in specific,
well-documented and explained cases, where we're sure it will offer some
real good for the programmer without enforcing static, complex solutions
where they are not necessary.

3. How can I download it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Current Argante snapshot: http://agt.buka.org/download.html
Official homepage: http://agt.buka.org

Downloadable tarball contains source code for Argante, which is ported to
IRIX, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Solaris and Linux; also, you'll find there
some fully-featured examples, complete documentation (including API
semantics) and companion tools.

Argante project is still in a very, very premilinary phase. Some functionality
still wait to be added - current code is a result of monthly loose
cooperation betwen small group of people. We agreed it has enough
functionality to be released to public, but - of course - we are still
working on it. Especially, we cannot guarantee the implementation is
completely bug-free, and we will appreciate any comments, suggestions and
bugreports. Current development status - including scheduled concepts -
can be found at: http://agt.buka.org/status.html.

Your feedback will help us, so just feel free to tell me what do you think
- even if you want to say "won't worth announcement". It's your decision
if this project will be left to die, or will be developed in future. I
have only one request - before asking a question, make sure you can't find
the answer in documentation. We are already getting quite huge feedback
from people asking "what is this for?" or "how XXX works?", while these
issues are clearly stated in README.

Thank you,

					     	  	          Signed:

			             Michal Zalewski, project coordinator
			   	    	         Argante Development Team
                                                    <argante@linuxpl.org>


