I DEFINITION

The project objective is to provide the Unesco family communities with a free-ware capable of getting access, from a personal computer, to the main computer networks (basically, to the Internet). The main attributes of the targeted product are listed below. -Ease of use: the free-ware is primarily dedicated to new users or persons with limited PC and telecommunication skills.
-Support of different national languages: the user are targeted to be from communities of developing countries and should be used in their national language. -Hiding the telecommunication complexity and reducing the

use of costly telecommunication	resources: the product
should reduce unnecessary	interactivity via
telecommunication links, allowing and archiving of electronic mails.	stand alone preparation
-Ease the electronic mail management: the archiving and

retrieval of the mail history should be facilitated in the PC, thus allowing a better control of the user communication history.
-Bridge easily with the main software for information resources access.

A free-ware exists which has been designed following these rules and experimented in the field in two different versions (Bitnet and UUCP) with success. MULBRI has been designed by the REDALC Office of Union Latina (an international organisation) and extensively used, between the Union latina branchs, in its BITNET version, and as the main interface to the national research network of Dominican Republic (REDID), in its UUCP version. It is suggested to use it as a convenient vehicle for the fixed objective, and to provide a new version of MULBRI which keeps on with the state of the art.

1.1 ENVIRONMENT

The recent evolution of the computer networks is characterized by the following facts:

1. Emergence of a de facto standard .

2) Opening of new class of users.

The research community have lead the way of networking and wrote the first pages of the world-wide networking pattern, building on the way a style which will be hard to change drastically, based on the concept of free circulation of information, solidarity and free or inexpensive services. With the generalization of the Internet, the user population have growth in exponential factors and the commercial world is now having the highest growth factor. Soon the research community will loose its majority status and will have to negotiate the evolution of the tool.

3) The incoming of more commercial pattern

As a consequence of the precedent, new market possibilities are appearing which will play as a strong driving factor to the suppression of the toll-free approach which have been the norm in research networks for a decennial. Even if the strength of the Internet culture, established by the research community is strong, negotiation and trade-off are being made to accommodate the networks to something closer to the free market with commercial exchanges.

4) The emergence of the virtual library

The main use of the networks has been for the communication between people, mediated by computers (electronic mail, interest groups...). The standardization of the Internet and its capability of setting interactively connections to remote computers has allowed the creation of a new generation of software (Archie, Gopher, WWW...) which are dramatically changing the face of the networks. More than a communication device, the Internet is evolving into a sophisticated information access mechanism. Once more in the history of technology the tool precede the product: more and more information basis are going to be incorporated in the figure and the name of the game is now the navigation within the Internet information resources. The phenomenon is opening the path to what could be called the virtual library; an electronic device allowing the retrieval of any type of information stored among the millions of computer which together make the networks.

If one analyze the three elements and apply them to the changing reality of the research networks, some clear pattern may be discerned in the area of user interface.

The research networks have first emerged before the birth of personal computing and its generation of modern user interfaces. Furthermore, it has traditionally started as a tool for computer skilled persons. As a consequence, it has been characterized by extremely poor interfaces (always maintained below the state of the art in computing).

In the last five years, the PC phenomenon has been slowly taken into account, and progressively some intent of PC based software had appeared. It is in the last two years when the phenomenon has taken its real importance.

However, the imminence of new patterns for fee management in the networks is already perceptible in the fact that the main PC based free-ware (Pegasus...), encouraged by the existence of top level commercial offerings (Compuserve interface, cc:mail...) are starting to distinguish a toll version from their free-ware.

1.2 ANTECEDENTS

In this context it is interesting to focus the original experience of the free-ware MULBRI (see ref. ). One of the real pioneer of the concept, MULBRI by lack of resources and marketing strategy have progressively evolved from an original concept into one of the first field effective product of that kind (although dedicated to only a tiny field segment). The actual destiny of the product is now linked to the evolution of the national network (the Dominican Network, REDID) where it is spreadly used, to the global satisfaction of the majority of the users.

If one professionally compare MULBRI to his new contenders the handicap, resulting from the difference of investment, is obvious:
Pegasus or , just to mention a few, have definitely a much wider platform coverage, and, in term of interface quality the advantage of MULBRI is subjectively arguable.

However, there is three assets which are embedded in the product and deserve special attention, particularly if one focus the Unesco communities (education, media, research) of developing countries:

1. MULBRI is the only one so far designed for multi national language support.

2. The MULBRI interface has, from the beginning, be built as the result of a very interactive process where the voice of the unskilled end-user has been the main input, the product could be perceived by expert users as not enough sophisticated, however the learning curve and the level of acceptance from new users is excellent.

3. MULBRI offers, since its first version, a simple and efficient mechanism for mail archiving which allow a real stand-alone management of the communication, from the user point of view, while reducing the use of costly telecommunications resources. There is a clear perception from the long lasting experience of where the enhancements must be made to keep the advantage.

4. Last, but not least, its philosophy will preserve it to become a toll software.

The minimal investment to provide an operational version for the Internet environment is of . With an additional xx$ , it is possible to add another set of useful functionality.

The Foundation Networks and Development who participated actively in the joint meeting of ITU/Unesco ..., is requiring external contributions to be able to keep on its mission of maintaining and enhancing MULBRI.

1.3 FORECASTED DEVELOPMENTS

The enhancements of MULBRI are organized in three successive versions:

Version 4, Enhanced MULBRI with Internet, which includes the kernel of functionality susceptible to make a competitive offering for Internet interface, together with the main requirements set by the user population to increase the level of quality of the interface. Together with version 4, the industrial level of the product will be enhanced (documentation, testing, and the support of 4 national language be completely installed.

-Ecriture du contenu des aides contextuelles. -Test professionnel du produit.` -Fourniture d'une documentation complete (guide d'utilisation, guide d'installation, presentation du produit, y inclus la description du langage du moteur d'inference).

Version 5, Support of complementary platforms and environment (Windows, LAN, McIntosh, Fidonet, UUCP, remote Internet access)

Version 6, Integration with resource navigation software, hypertext archiving, and logical communication support. B1-programme d'installation et procedure de distribution professionnels, COUT ESTIME= 70KF, B2-documentation complete en francais, COUT ESTIME= 50KF, B3-structuration d'une procedure de mise a jour par reseau, COUT ESTIME = 40KF

4-test systematique des deux prototypes en environnement d'utilisation et correction des erreurs, COUT ESTIME= 80KF

COUT TOTAL B: 240KF

C- PORTAGE DE LA VERSION PC/DOS VERS L'ENVIRONNEMENT MACINTOSH.
COUT TOTAL C: 400 KF

Il est envisageable d'effectuer un "portage" (n1) posterieur de la version PC/DOS produite vers un autre environnement station. Les estimations approximatives de cout sont les suivantes: Mac Intosh: 400,000 francs
PC/Windows: 200,000 francs
PC/Unix : 300,000 francs
PC/OS2 : estimation non faite .