Nothing really exists and is worth to be,
until it exists twice.
Tunes
http://tunes.org/ and ftp://ftp.tunes.org/pub/tunes/
Tunes is definately the most simillar project I ever saw
when I came across it early november 2001.
It's design goals as well as decisions are very parallel.
We'll see integration and comparison here, promised.
First difference: Tunes seems to have stronger focus on
beeing an operating system
and compleeting all the theory beforehand,
while AskemosServer has a focus on it's utility for
the whole project (AskemosAbout),
which includes delivering an actually usable code base
and proof it's usefulnes in practice
(i.e., for now just enough theory to be proofable, not proofen).
A second difference derives from the position towards "reality".
While TUNES has strong points towards the Web
( http://cliki.tunes.org/TUNES%20vs%20the%20WWW )
for a reason, Askemos has not.
Why? Well even though it's true,
the W3C tries to reinvent the wheel
by dublicating most useful inventions,
(in so far agreed with the strong points toward the web)
it does so with the focus on standardization.
Inevitable some standards will be too bad and superflous.
But standard is better than better.
Especially when it comes to reality.
While the W3C way might not be the best way technically,
it is a) feasable and b) a way to gain utility and compatibility.
Askemos would be doomed to fail,
if standards where not emphasized even at some cost
in implementation effort and computation time.
(Yes, many thing could be done better.)
Since 28th July 2003 there is http://max.tunes.org/ coming.
A first, superficial review shows that the code of max
is very simillar to the internals AskemosServer
(which is no surprize at all).
I'm curious to watch the evolution of two simillar
implementations of the same principles.