From: Guido van Rossum <guido@cnri.reston.va.us>
Subject: RELEASE: Knowbot software 1.0 alpha 2
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 18:29:00 GMT

I'm pleased to announce the first public alpha release of the Knowbot
software for mobile code.  We have been working on this for a very
long time on here at CNRI.  This is release 1.0 alpha 2 (for various
reasons, alpha 1 never hit the streets).  The release URL is:

	http://www.cnri.reston.va.us/home/koe/

The Knowbot(R) software released here implements a research
infrastructure for mobile agents ("Knowbot programs") intended for use
in widely distributed systems such as the Internet.  The current
version is an experimental prototype; we plan to release new, improved
versions on a regular basis.

CNRI invites researchers and other interested parties to test drive
the Knowbot software.  We would like your feedback on the software,
and also welcome proposals for joint projects using the software.  We
plan to run the Knowbot software on one or more of our public hosts
and hope that others will do the same, thereby creating a widely
distributed network of connected public Knowbot "service stations"
(our words for servers running the Knowbot software).

The Knowbot software is written in Python, an interpreted
object-oriented programming language.  The software executes Knowbot
programs also written in Python.  However, the design of the Knowbot
architecture allows multiple programming languages; support for
Knowbot programs written in Java (in addition to Python) is planned
for a future release.  Knowbot programs written Python and Java should
then be able to interoperate.

The current version of the Knowbot software runs only on Unix and
requires Xerox PARC's ILU to run; in addition, Tcl/Tk is required for
certain components.  (For more details, see the installation
instructions.)

Knowbot(R) is a Registered Trademark of CNRI.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)