Date:         Fri, 1 Dec 2000 16:38:30 +0100
From: Michal Zalewski <lcamtuf@TPI.PL>
Subject:      Argante
To: BUGTRAQ@SECURITYFOCUS.COM

         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
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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>