I'm very impressed with the Web version of the product, and with the documentation. I've not used the Unix client version so don't know if the functionality and interface is richer.

It implements something I've been describing for a long time, in a semistructured (halfway between a database and a document) environment, which is key to building and maintaining dynamic knowledge bases to support situational context awareness (i.e., any executive, manager, and worker's dream). Lotus Notes and some of the newer XML applications (and my own Context Management and General Enterprise Management designs/prototypes) are the only other products that work in this space, while LDAP provides an interface between semistructured and structured data. You can build a deep "tree" of categorized topics (hierarchical logbooks), you can build a "star" of associations between entries (cross-post logbook entries, and you can track change (e.g., "arrow" of time) (versioning). This ability to support tree/star/arrow data structures is at the heart of object management.

Roebuck Object Model

The underlying technology is apparently some form of programmed database (perhaps a text DB) on Unix. Critical points for this product are: how is the data stored; how is it maintained, is it scalable to enterprise or global levels, and is Logbook's metadata and data accessible via other technologies like XML, ODBC, LDAP, and SQL. If such interfaces are available, it's a definite "keeper". If not interfaceable, then it has utility, but only as an isolated branch of the functionality being sought by your clients. I'd personally like to see this implemented in our clients' organizations. It would save them a fortune and lots of manyears by avoidance of reinventing the wheel, and by providing a means to optimally inform everyone involved (situational context awareness).

Logbook performs functions, as described above, I've not yet seen in the commercial market. It imposes a structure/order and discipline that all but the military, legal, project control, database management, or knowledge management communities might find onerous. People, outside of these and other informational disciplines striving for consistency and maintainability, would seek to break out of Logbook's structure/rigor and add costly/complex variances to the design and content. That's why the dynamism of the object model, which Logbook seems to implement, is important.

The documented collaboration requirements you've shown me may drive added functionality into Logbook (supported by integration with whole applications or just licensed/developed modules), or drive Logbook into interoperability (using the interfaces described above) with other Applications such as Netscape Collabra (NNTP), Lotus Domino, MS Exchange, Sun Forum, and other collaboration environments. I'd personally like to see the Logbook application put into the commercial domain either as opensource or costed.

The key is to usability of Logbook is: 1) open metaschema (design principles), metadata (design), and data (interchange) as in UMI (Unified Modeling Interface = XML + LDAP + DMTF/CIM); and 2) interface to LDAP V3 servers as source of user accounts and groups (instead of redundant-labor and costly separate user/group administration in current Logbook).

A potential Web Logbook weakness: I'm unsure as to whether Attributes can be added by Web users, which I consider essential for a tool such as Logbook to be able to adapt to the dynamism the users encounter in their activities. Constraining their ability to categorize (e.g.,add attributes and organize hierarchically) and to associate (e.g., cross-post to other categories/logbooks) is like putting constraints on their thinking and perceptions.

The ability to tag a particular element of an existing post, and then refer to that tag via a link from another post would also be extremely valuable as a means to refine the user's and group's knowledge (e.g., via XLL - XPath/XLink/XPointer).

The techniques for inserting URL, Images, and HTML formatting tags in Logbook is awkward. The Logbook developers might consider using a technique similar to the Ultimate Bulletin Board's UBB Code (http://ultimatebb.com and http://www.scriptkeeper.com/ubb/ubbcode.html), or consider licensing the UBB codes for Logbook use.



roy(AT)one-world-is.org