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Cougaar 10.4.6 Released With Source
Anonymous Software Agent writes "Cougaar release 10.4.6 has been posted .
As always, all source code is available via anonymous CVS.
Cougaar is an open-source Java-based architecture for the construction of distributed agent-based applications. It is the product of an eight-year DARPA-funded research project in highly scalable and survivable multi-agent systems. Cougaar is currently used in next-generation military logistics systems, commercial applications, and research projects.
Cougaar release 10.4.6 adds survivable yellow pages and white pages services, and multiple other performance and reliability improvements."
Not quite. Before you get your panties in a bunch, look closer.
It's quite explicit that you can "sell or give away the Cougaar Software or any Derivative Work". Case solved. You can sell it.
The second term is a bit puzzling. "If Licensee sublicenses the Cougaar Software or Derivative Works...Licensee does not charge for the Cougaar Software or Derivative Work". The key word here is "sublicenses".
You can sell the software or its derivatives all you want. Only if you sublicense it are you forbidded to charge for the software itself (though you may certainly charge for the media, bandwidth, support, manuals, etc). When you sublicense, the recipient is getting the license from YOU, not from the original author. This is a subtle distinction, and one few ever make in the Free Software World. What does it mean?
Not being a lawyer, I suspect it's primarily to mollify the legal types. Note that sublicensing is required to offer indemnity or liability (even if it weren't explicitly stated in the license). I suspect that this means if you create a business off of the software, you cannot sell the software itself, but only the warranty and support.
The license is Free as in FSF. Don't worry about it.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
In those languages distributed programming itself is solved more elegant and error proof. Besides, they have very strong mechanism of constraint logic. Even more - distributed constraint logic. And no need to repeat that functional programming languages are more effective for complicated logical tasks.
Oppositely, in Java the agent developer feels like in assembly. Don't repeat me the mantra about the garbage collector: functional programming languages have it since 1957 (first Lisp).
Well, if brains of their project decision makers are already corrupted by procedural programming (or even worse - by merketing hype of Java) then nothing can fix that. It's just one more government-wasted effort.
Less is more !
> under extreme load.Piece of cake.
The Army reading list
Greetings from the University of Utah. My software practices class has been focusing on Multi-agent Systems the entire semester. Most of us probably would have preferred a first-person shooter, but the point is to learn about debugging, writing maintainable code, optimization, and the like.
The idea behind an agent is that you create a semi-autonomous piece of software that can communicate with other agents, get information from other agents and the surrounding environment, and take actions based on that information to fulfill some set of goals. We started out creating simple agents with JADE, but once we understood the basics of the system, the Prof started us working with someone else's codebase. Cougaar seems to be a separate implementation from JADE and the ACL (Agent Communication Language), so I'm still trying to figure out the advantages/disadvantages of their system.
I was going to advise you to force images of ninjas wearing business suits and sunglasses, but the agents of the Matrix are actually a good embodiment of the ideas behind multi-agent systems. Besides, with Revolutions being released today, such advice would probably be ignored.
It hadn't occurred to me that agents could be used for logistics and resource allocation, but to me the implications are fascinating. Once this final project is done, I'm thinking I'll play with this.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!