Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!ukma!uflorida!novavax!proxftl!twwells!comparc
From: comparc@twwells.uucp (comp.archives)
Newsgroups: comp.archives
Subject: Welcome to comp.archives
Message-ID: <233@twwells.uucp>
Date: 1 Dec 88 11:03:01 GMT
Reply-To: comparc@twwells.UUCP (comp.archives)
Organization: None, Ft. Lauderdale
Lines: 187
Approved: bill@twwells.uucp (T. William Wells)

Comp.archives is the place to look to find out where freely
distributable and electronically available software, databases,
documents, or what have you, can be had.  "Freely distributable"
means that, if you have a copy of the item, you can (at least) make
exact copies and give them away, and you don't have to tell the owner
of the item (if any) that you have done so.  "Available
electronically" means, for my purposes, that it is obtainable through
a publicly accessible network.  Also included may be things which can
be had by other means, so long as this does not involve paying a fee
to the distributor.  This information is provided as a free service
and there is *no one* guaranteeing that any of it is accurate or
useful.  Use it your own risk.

The main purpose of comp.archives is to enable people to maintain
databases on archive sites and their contents. Postings whose subject
lines start with DB: are used for that maintenance.  DB: articles may
also be of interest to those not maintaining the databases, as they
often contain non-database information as well.

There are three databases being maintained, one listing archive sites,
one listing things available through some archive site, and one
listing what is in each archive.

[Currently, only the first has much in it. This will change Real Soon
Now.]

Besides this, there are articles from various archive sites which
describe their archives, postings describing how to use the networks
for archive access, and digested discussions relating to archives,
archiving, and archive access.

Temporarily, I am accepting "looking for..." postings, so long as
they are requests for archive sites which have the items.

Articles sent to comp.archives may not be cross-posted, I will remove
cross-postings before I post the articles.

---

I intend that anyone who is sufficiently diligent can create for
himself databases of archive information from the postings that come
through comp.archives.

[No, the software to do this automatically does not yet exist.  This
too should change Real Soon Now.]

There are three databases, summarized below. More complete
information is in the following posting.

1) The archive site directory.

   This is a database of archive sites. Each archive site that I am
   posting information for will have some kind of entry here.  Here
   is the first entry that made it into the database:

NM gatekeeper.dec.com
EN vixie@decwrl.dec.com (Paul A. Vixie) Tue Oct 25 14:17:17 PDT 1988
AD vixie@decwrl.dec.com (Paul A. Vixie)
MA 100 Hamilton Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94301
CO ftp;ftp;gatekeeper.dec.com;128.45.9.52;/pub;
DE Gatekeeper is DEC's anonymous FTP machine.  Lots of interesting things
DE show up here, including the latest version of anything having to do with
DE X Windows.

   The data is:

NM <site name>
EN <person who added the entry> <and when>
TM <time zone>,<info on best times to use>
TT <the archive site name>
AD <the archive administrator>
MA <a mailing address for archive-related stuff>
KW <comma separated list of keywords describing what's in the archive>
CO <access-method>;<access-tag>;<info needed to access>

   UUCP sites have a CO line like:

CO uucp;<access-tag>;<directory>;<L.sys entry>

   Ftp sites have a CO line like:

CO ftp;<access-tag>;<domain name>;<internet address>;<directory>;<when available>

   Sites with more than one access method have more than one CO line.

IX <access-tag>;<index file name>;
	<file size, K>;<date entered>;<tools needed to unarchive>;<comments>

DE <A short description of the archive>

   Sites with more than one archive duplicate the TT-DE lines for
   each archive.

2) The information directory.

   This contains descriptions of things which are available in the
   archives.  It contains entries something like this faked up entry
   for pcomm.

NM unix-pcomm
VR version 1.1
AU egray@fthood.UUCP (Emmet P. Gray)
MA egray@fthood.UUCP (Emmet P. Gray)
EN bill@twwells.UUCP (T. William Wells); 1988 Oct 21
TT public domain version of ProComm (TM)
KW all-source,public-domain,datacomm
SY any:modem,sysv-unix:termcaps,install
DE Pcomm is a public domain telecommunication program for Unix that
DE is designed to operate similarly to the MSDOS program, ProComm.
DE ProComm (TM) is copyrighted by Datastorm Technologies, Inc.  This
DE is a completely new program and contains no ProComm source code.
DE This is not a Datastorm product.

   Here is what this means:

NM <the name of the item>
VR <a version stamp>
AU <the author of the stuff>
MA <the maintainer of the stuff>
EN <the person who entered this data> <when he entered it>
TT <descriptive title for the item>
KW <a list of keywords>
SY <hardware>;<software>;<porting difficulty>;<tools needed to bring it up>
DE <a description of the item>

3) The archive content directory.

   This ties the two previous ones together.  Its entries look
   something like:

<item name>;<version>;<archive site>;<access-tag>;<file name>;
	<file size, K>;<date entered>;<tools needed to unarchive>;<comments>

   Of course, many archive sites will make available things which do
   not have entries in the information directory.  For these, the
   first two fields are blank.

---

The DB: postings contain the database information enclosed by lines
beginning with an `@'. Anything before the first `@' is not part of
the database, nor is anything after the @END.

      @ADD <database>           adds data to one of the databases;
				each set of data is followed by a
				blank line
      @DEL <database> <key>     deletes data from one of the databases
      @DELALL INDEX <site>      deletes all data for a site from the
				INDEX database

The database names are SITE, INDEX, and INFO.  The keys are the
archive name (SITE); site name, access method, and access name
(INDEX); and the item name (INFO).

Comments begin with a `#'.

---

There are a number of paths that you can use for e-mailing.  Personal
messages go to:

	{novavax|uunet}!proxftl!twwells!bill

Things you would like posted go to:

	{novavax|uunet}!proxftl!twwells!comp-archives

Things relating to comp.archives that you don't care if they are
posted or not should go to:

	{novavax|uunet}!proxftl!twwells!comp-archives-request

You might notice the user name comparc@twwells.uucp. This is the
actual account handling comp.archives. Messages sent to that address
(which includes replies to my articles) are treated as if they were
mailed to comp-archives-request.

I often summarize and post messages sent to comp-archives-request.
If you don't want your message posted, or don't want to have your
name posted, you must tell me in your message.

---
Bill
{uunet|novavax}!proxftl!twwells!bill

send comp.archives postings to twwells!comp-archives
send comp.archives related mail to twwells!comp-archives-request