Lightweight objects for the digital library

We have been looking at the potentials for integrating Xerox's GAIA system into the INFObus architecture. Ramana suggested we look at Xerox/Novell's Document Enhanced Networking (DEN) specification which incorporates some of the GAIA ideas in a product. I went through the spec, and had some realizations about what we are trying to do with the INFObus that I thought would be generally useful. The latter part of this message is a proposal for our own architecture.