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."

Comments

Re:Not free

[Brandybuck]

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.

Java was a mistake for this project

[axxackall]

Java is not the language designed for distributed agents. For that I would use Erlang or Mozart or even Mercury, but not Java.

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.