STG Interactive and its role

Frogans technology was designed and developed by STG Interactive, a company founded in Paris, France in 1999 by Alexis Tamas and Amaury Grimbert.

For information about the founders, the origins of the project, the name of the technology, the first five years of research and development, the false start in 2001, the demands from the Internet community, as well as the way the company has been financed, please see STG Interactive's history.

Approach

After the first five years of research and development, STG Interactive's approach to developing Frogans technology is still based on the following founding principles:

to bring Frogans technology to end-users and to the designer and developer communities for free
to respect the ecosystem of the Internet without encroaching on the business of existing players
to finance the costs of development through frogans address registrations and dedicated frogans network licenses
to retain the simplicity of Frogans technology, by preventing any evolution which would make the technology difficult to use, non standard for the publication of content and their addressing, or incompatible with certain devices

For information about the trademark and patent applications filed by the company in the United States, France and other countries around the world, please see STG Interactive's intellectual property policy.

Team

The STG Interactive team includes 10 people working from France.

As architect of Frogans technology and author of the FSDL and FNSL languages, Alexis Tamas (co-founder, CEO) manages the engineers responsible for technical development.

Amaury Grimbert (co-founder, COO) manages the day-to-day operations of STG Interactive in terms of financial, legal and communications.

The two founders of the company coordinate the team responsible for the spread of Frogans technology on the Internet.

Role

STG Interactive's role in the Internet community is:

1. To coordinate the evolution of the FSDL and FNSL languages

The FSDL and FNSL languages are two of the pillars of Frogans technology (with the Frogans Player):

the FSDL language is used to develop frogans
the FNSL language is used to create frogans networks

These XML-based languages were invented by STG Interactive under the direction of Alexis Tamas.

Thanks to the help of numerous designers, developers and content publishers since 1999, these languages are today specified with the precision of an Internet standard (in the format of an RFC from IETF).

The FSDL language exists in version 2.1 and the FNSL language exists in version 3.0.

As for all Internet standards, the use of the FSDL and FNSL languages is free of charge to designers, developers, publishers of authoring tools and to publishers of server applications (perpetual licenses).

STG Interactive coordinates the evolution of the FSDL and FNSL languages with the feedback from designers and developers and in accordance with the needs of content publishers. For more information, please see the Frogans technology roadmap.

All designers and developers are invited to take part in the evolution of Frogans technology by sending their comments on the FSDL and FNSL specifications to STG Interactive. Two dedicated e-mail addresses are available for this purpose: fsdl@frogans.com and fnsl@frogans.com.

2. To ensure the development of the Frogans Player on different platforms

The Frogans Player is the third pillar of Frogans technology (with the FSDL and FNSL languages):

the Frogans Player is the only software which lets end-users open and navigate frogans
the Frogans Player will always be free of charge and without registration for end-users
the Frogans Player must be able to be used in the same way on the different platforms

STG Interactive ensures the development of the Frogans Player on the main existing platforms: Windows on PC, Linux on PC (x86), Mac OS X, etc. For more information, please see the Frogans technology roadmap.

The objective is to make the Frogans Player available on all devices connected to the Internet: computers, PDAs, mobile phones, game consoles, televisions, etc.

3. To operate the main frogans network technically and administratively

Publishing a frogans necessitates the use of a frogans address which is the unique identifier for this frogans.

The format of frogans addresses is simple and human-readable:

frogans addresses can easily be remembered by end-users, for example frogans*Demo.Slideshow
frogans addresses can be included in frogans short-cuts to facilitate their exchange between end-users

Frogans addresses starting "frogans*" are regrouped in the main frogans network, which is a virtual network on the Internet.

Each time an end-user chooses to open a frogans, the Frogans Player sends a request containing the address of this frogans to a specialized server, which is called a FNS server. The response of the FNS server contains technical information about the frogans, such as its location on the network and its encoding.

The technical functioning of frogans networks, including the main frogans network, is defined in the specifications of the FNSL language.

STG Interactive operates the main frogans network on behalf of the Internet community.

From a technical standpoint:

STG Interactive created a scalable infrastructure of FNS servers
these FNS servers are connected to the Internet backbone and are capable of serving all end-users throughout the world
these FNS servers are installed and managed by the STG Interactive team
the costs of FNS servers, hosting and IP connectivity are financed by STG Interactive
for more information, please see the Frogans technology roadmap

From an administrative standpoint:

STG Interactive lets content publishers throughout the world, both individuals and organizations, register their frogans addresses on frogans.com
STG Interactive supplies addressing services to content publishers for a two year period, renewable each year after
the price for an addressing service is a fixed fee; it is not based on the traffic on the frogans nor on the content in the frogans
frogans addresses are registered on a first come, first served basis
frogans addresses are set by content publishers in their account on frogans.com at the time they put their frogans on-line

STG Interactive only supplies addressing services to content publishers: frogans are not created and are not hosted by STG Interactive.

4. To supply licenses for dedicated frogans networks

Content publishers throughout the world, both individuals and organizations, can publish frogans on the main frogans network where frogans addresses start with "frogans*".

A dedicated frogans network is a virtual network on the Internet or on an intranet which permits organizations to publish frogans apart from the main frogans network.

On a dedicated frogans network:

frogans are opened and navigated by end-users using the Frogans Player, i.e. with the same software that is used to open and navigate the frogans published on the main frogans network
frogans are developed using the FSDL language, i.e. with the same language that is used to develop the frogans published on the main frogans network

The technical functioning of a dedicated frogans network is defined in the specifications of the FNSL language.

The creation of a dedicated frogans network is destined to:

organizations who want to publish frogans on their intranets
- in a dedicated frogans network established on an intranet, the frogans addresses are only available in the private IP network of the organization
- these frogans addresses do not start with "frogans*", but with "intranet-name*" where "name" is the name of the organization
- for more information, please send an e-mail to: intranet-sales@frogans.com
For technical reasons, as well as concerns about confidentiality, frogans for intranets can not be published on the main frogans network.
Internet service providers, major portals and b2b service suppliers looking to be independent from STG Interactive in the technical and administrative management of their frogans addresses

For these organizations, the benefits of creating a dedicated frogans network are:
- complete customization of their frogans addresses: frogans addresses do not start with "frogans*", but with "name*" where "name" is the name of the organization
- total control in the quality of service for frogans address lookups: the frogans address lookups are processed by the FNS servers of the organization, and not by the FNS servers of STG Interactive
- data confidentiality: data on frogans addresses are managed by the FNS servers of the organization, and not by the FNS servers of STG Interactive
For more information about this license offer, please send an e-mail to: license-sales@frogans.com.

STG Interactive supplies annual licenses for dedicated frogans networks, fees for which are based on the number of end-users and/or on the usage of the dedicated frogans network.

The creation of a dedicated frogans network necessitates a certificate which is digitally signed by STG Interactive.

STG Interactive only supplies licenses to organizations: the dedicated frogans networks are not installed and are not operated by STG Interactive.