Does anyone know if there is a formal specification, or protocol, for
inter-robot communication?
One of the many uses of software robots could be as a supply agent, indexin
g
the web for specific topics, and then conveying that information to user
agents who
are looking for specific information. After all, a WWW search engine isn't
the
only use for the knowledge gained by a robot.
If there are currently no formal specifications for a robot communication
protocol, I'd be very interested in talking to people who are wishing to
formulate an open standard.
Thanks,
David Reilly
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David Reilly,
Computer Programmer, dodo@fan.net.au
http://www.fan.net.au/~dodo s1523@sand.it.bond.edu.au
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I believe that there is no enough effort being put into this critical
area. Over the last couple years several systems have suggested and
implemented ways to share information among robots. I would like to
see the robot community start putting some real effort into sharing
results among robots, or at least agree on some ways to do it. As you
point out, robots are not only used for indexing purposes, and I think
that the overcrowding problems will only get worse.
I gave talks at the W5C conference and at the W3C distributed indexing
workshop on exactly this topic, and suggested several courses of action
including Harvest and RDM:
http://www5conf.inria.fr/fich_html/slides/panels/Panel10/overview.htm
http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Search/9605-Indexing-Workshop/
http://harvest.cs.colorado.edu/
http://www.netscape.com/people/dhardy/rdm.html
[[More content on the W3C workshop should be available soon...]]
Thanks,
-Darren