Marimba pushes DRP to W3C

Rohit Khare (khare@mci.net)
Tue, 26 Aug 1997 15:19:34 -0400


[meetings on two weeks' notice? Who's setting whose agenda?? and the DRP
sounds like it has more to do with metadata for diffing content packages
than any transport protocol issues.

In fact, from http://www.w3.org/Submission/ there are three components
available.=20

GDIFF, the generic diff format. It's a byte-oriented generic 'patch' like
system that can insert, delete, and replace spans of bytes. Ideally, it's a
MIME type registration only.=20

DRP is really a set of approaches to using Content-ID in HTTP to reference
files by-name and also by-hash (as well as referring to diffs by-hash).
By-hash references moves the burden for marshalling a package of related
resources to the _receiver_. The fetcher has to assemble a coherent cache
of parts, not the publisher.

OSD, last week's news, is a DTD for a vocabulary descirbing executables:
language, processor, memory size, etc. --RK]

August 26, 1997 1:45 PM ET=20

Marimba submits push protocol to W3C
By Michael Moeller, PC Week Online

=A0 NEW YORK -- Marimba Inc. kicked off the Java Internet Business Expo toda=
y
by announcing it has submitted its application, distribution and
replication protocol to the World Wide Web Consortium.
The proposal was submitted along with Novell Inc., Netscape Communications
Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and others.=20

DRP (Distribution and Replication Protocol) is the heart of Marimba's
Castanet push architecture. It enables applications, Web pages or any Web
content to be updated incrementally over the Internet. The key to DRP is a
technology called check-sum, which enables fine grain updating of
applications and content.

In two weeks, the W3C will hold a workshop on push technology during which
officials will look at how DRP can be augmented with other push proposals
and examine how DRP will work with other Internet protocols such as HTTP.

Once a final specification is released by the W3C, several of the endorsing
companies plan to implement it into their software. For example, Netscape
plans to add the final DRP version into its Communicator and SuiteSpot
products. Sun also is looking at how it can implement DRP with Java.=20

In addition to providing incremental updating, DRP also improves the way
Web pages are downloaded by enhancing a browser's cache.

DRP augments other protocols used for content distribution such as the Open
Software Distribution Protocol announced earlier this month by Microsoft
Corp. and Marimba.

---
Rohit Khare /// MCI Internet Architecture (BOS) /// khare@mci.net
Voice+Pager: (617) 960-5131  VNet: 370-5131   Fax: (617) 960-1009