“We often mention distributed computing models: JavaSpaces,
Sash, BizTalk, WebL, and so on. Our lead column in August gave
particular attention to the technical prospects for Microsoft’s
.NET initiative. Piper is an alternative to those models, and .NET
in particular, on both engineering and business levels.”
“Microsoft, for example, has specific business motivations with
.NET that involve licensing issues and how the company is paid for
its products. Crudely, Microsoft wants to use .NET capabilities to
ensure it receives payment every time its software is used. Piper,
in contrast, is a free software project to make ‘anything and
everything buildable by linking small components,’ even across a
network, according to J.W. Bizzaro, director of
Bioinformatics.org.”
“Bizzaro explains, ‘Piper is actually a new name for a
collaboration between four older projects: Overflow, Generalized
Messaging Service, The Loci Project, and BlueBox.’ Workers in the
life sciences seem to have the most enthusiasm for Piper; genetics
researchers, for instance, can easily see the benefits of a system
that makes it easy to build filters and computations on a remote
store for the human genome or other massive datasets. However,
Bizzaro emphasizes, ‘Piper is general purpose in design. All of the
developers appreciate the need for a system capable of very
sophisticated operation, yet with a simple facade.'”