[Oberon] Commercializing Oberon: User Needs

[mcintosh at vima.austin.tx.us]

I expect some resonance from the rest of the community on your
answer.  If there are other items that should be on this list, I
think that it would be good to identify them early.

I think that I would identify these as philosophical underpinnings of
a project.  Cohesiveness at this level is likely to be important over
a long time frame.  I suspect that we have self-selected to be
cohesive at this level.

The most successful items that I produced in Oberon appeared
exceedingly simple.  A friend had made a tar file of several hundred
data files and burned it to CD-ROM.  It took a half hour to read the
CD and locate the file with standard tar utilities of the day.  The
TarDump program that was once distributed with S3 gave a directory of
the tar file in short time, and extracted any given file (with
renaming) in a responsive manner.

Another item was for my group that answered eMail.  I added a scanner
that read the directory of pending email, displayed a viewer that
contained age, from, and subject, and file name.  It allowed any of
my group to open the mail.  The simplicity and power of cut and paste
operations in Oberon was then available.  

The next item that I wish you, and others, would articulate are some
end user needs.  Perhaps if you read my examples, then disregard
them, we would get a good second list.

For example,

1.  I want to be able to write my own computer software.
2.  I want to write office documents and commit them to paper.
3.  I want to write office documents that are used (almost) exclusively on a computer.
4.  I want a program that displays the status of my network operations center with hundreds of users, in a easy to comprehend and navigate manner.  
5.  I want a comprehensive eMail communication program.
6.  I want an eMail environment that doesn't deliver spam.
7.  I want an eMail server environment where I'm paid for the eMail I "carry"
8.  I want a way to distribute music that is embraced by listeners and industry executives (Austin is a music center.)
9. I want an electronic classroom, with instructional and assessment support, confidentiality, authentication (signatures or micro-notary), gradebooks, and groupware support.
10.  I want a way to identify consensus, identify areas where discussion may be fruitful, and quantify and direct resource management.
11.  I want to be able to use my familar software environment on a public machine that disallows "installs"
12.  A file archive (disk backup) program that understands multiple CD-ROM images and version numbers.
13.  I want a document that I can open, and it adjusts itself so that it is current and correct when I look at it.

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