(o2com)03

03 The Altair project, its goals, their contradictions

The O2 database, and this book, are results of the Altair project, launched
by an industrial-academic consortium.

This duality is reflected in somehow conflicting goals:

- Research, leading to an exceptionally open project: everything is
  published, including doubts, contradictions, reports on abandoned pathes
  [Note:
 2 query languages.], and throw-away prototyping research
  [Note:
 workstation-server models comparison.].

- Product, with thefore marketing driven concerns and pragmatic compromises.
  Note:
 1 language binding.

The research started from database issues, tackled by database people. As we
shall see, it goes beyond.