specifying what services Activities may use

[Erik Garrison]

On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 12:03:52PM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 11:03:41AM -0400, Greg Smith wrote:
> >Hi Daniel,
> >
> >We need a list of anything that might "break" an activity. 
> 
> The list of things that have to work in order for an activity
> (particularly a networked one) to "work" is larger than the memory and
> comprehension of any individual working on this project. It includes
> nasty things like
> 

Is this a reasonable categorization?:

kernel version dependent:

>    * syscall semantics

system library dependent:

>    * availability of language interpreters
>    * library APIs

nasty things we tend to change:

>    * file-system layouts
>    * authorization data like file-system permissions

ouch!:

>    * statistical biases in the outcomes of non-deterministic computations
>    * computational complexity of default algorithms