DVM

Distributed Virtual Machine

A virtual Machine, with an abstract (virtual) processor. A distributed virtual Machine appears to work within the InformationSpace, that is all it's copies are equal (and exchangeable) and unerstood to be just a projection of the same information, the machine. See also http://www.askemos.org/overview/integration.html .

Being equal (in the sense of Scheme equal?) copies of the same (compare eq?) information in the context of distributed, virtual Machines means that there can be temporary differences due to the imperfection of the world.

A DVM is said to reliable if it is trusted to work correctly even over insecure and unreliable channels. Byzantine agreement, has been identified as one of the core building blocks for the design of reliable distributed systems.

Other Machines

http://cohesion.it.swin.edu.au/

Croquet is similar in effect at the surface. However the Croquet architecture (called teatime) has no byzantine synchronisation. Thus a malicious node should by able to partition the network.