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"Team Ada: Ada Advocacy Issues (83 & 95)" <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Sat, 24 Jan 1998 09:46:06 -0500
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Richard Conn <[log in to unmask]>
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Hi, Everyone,

Several of you have expressed interest in contributing to the
PAL (especially in light of the new Ada CDROM coming out), and
attached below is a new set of PAL submission instructions.
It constitutes a very minor revision over the old set.  In
particular, the "main" changes are that (1) you may freely use
either MSDOS or UNIX text file formats as you wish (everyone can
handle the conversions now) and (2) PAGER2 isn't necessary any
more (and does not make sense in some cases).

GWRL (pronounced "girl") --
In the future, GWRL will be fully online (GWRL = Generic Web-based
Reuse Library), and the submission instructions will change again
(the PAL's Item Description files will be replaced with GWRL Asset
Descriptors), but not a big deal ... the existing 600+ PAL
Item Description files can be automatically converted to GWRL
Asset Descriptors by one of the tools in the GWRL family.  Takes
about a minute or two (yes, when you see GWRL next month, it will
already be in Build 3 or even later).  Early next week, I'll bring
you up to speed with the SDE project and you'll be able to see what
GWRL can do.

Thanks for your interest in the PAL,
Rick
--
Richard Conn
mailto:[log in to unmask]                     http://monmouth.com/~conn/
Opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of anyone else.
=======================================================================
SUBMIT3.TXT - Detailed PAL Submission Instructions
by Richard Conn, mailto:[log in to unmask]
Last Update: 24 January 1998

In order to make the material in the PAL available to as wide an
audience as possible on as many platforms as possible, the following
guidelines are strongly suggested.  Files in other configurations will
be accepted, so these guidelines are not going to be enforced beyond the
PAL-specific file naming conventions, but your compliance with these
guidelines will be appreciated.

All items in the PAL are approved for public release with unlimited
distribution (EXCEPT, of course, to Designated Countries).  They may be
shareware, freeware, carry a GNU copyleft, an ACM copyright, or any
other copyright so long as they are approved for public release with
unlimited distribution.  Note that the distribution mentioned here is
international in nature.

This file is organized as follows:
  1. This introduction
  2. Overview of Guidelines
  3. Details of Guidelines with Rationale
  4. SID (Software Item Description) template
  5. TID (Text Item Description) template

Overview of Guidelines
----------------------
1. Package your files as larger ZIP files created by the Info-ZIP
program.
2. Keep the file sizes of the ZIP files down to around 1.2M bytes or
less.
3. Use short file names for all component and ZIP files (8 character
file
   names, 3 character file types).
4. Format all text files (Ada source code, documents, Postscript files,
etc.)
   in the MSDOS or UNIX text file formats.
5. Submit items to the PAL that you, yourself, have created or are
responsible
   for.  If an item is available that you think should be in the PAL,
let me
   know, and I will contact the original author or responsible
organization.
6. Fill out a SID or TID (Software Item Description or Text Item
Description)
   template and send it to me via email or FTP (this usually takes only
   a few minutes).

Details of Guidelines with Rationale
------------------------------------

1. Package your files as larger ZIP files created by the Info-ZIP
program.
  Rationale: The ZIP program provided by the Info-ZIP group on the
Internet has become a defacto standard for many of the major
repositories on the Internet, so users from these repositories as well
as the PAL will be able to deal with files created by this program.
Info-ZIP is extremely portable, running on more than 30 different
platforms (including MSDOS, MS Windows, many UNIX platforms, VAX/VMS,
NeXT, and Macintosh), and has no export control restrictions on it, so
foreign nationals (EXCEPT those in Designated Countries, of course) may
access and use it.  Additionally, Info-ZIP offers a very good
compression algorithm, saving significantly on the disk space used by
the distributed files.
  Info-ZIP's zip and unzip programs can be found in the PAL User's
Toolkit.

2. Keep the file sizes of the ZIP files down to around 1.2M bytes or
less.
  Rationale: Users can place your files on floppy disks with greater
ease. Additionally, large files sometimes cause problems with various
Internet file transfer mechanisms, but the 1.2M byte limit does not seem
to hurt anything.

3. Use short file names for all component and ZIP files (8 character
file names, 3 character file types).
  Rationale: This is the file name standard for MSDOS and ISO-9660,
which the most portable CDROM format.  The entire PAL is dumped onto
various CDROMs from time to time, so all directory names and file names
in the PAL are in ISO-9660 format.  Letters, digits, and underscores are
allowed.
  In the near future, ISO-9660 with the Rock Ridge Extensions will
become widely used.  The Rock Ridge Extensions provide for the automatic
mapping to longer file names on systems which will support them.  For
now, vanilla ISO-9660 is the only standard that can be counted on.
  If the component files of your ZIP files do not conform to the shorter
names, at least try to make the first 8 characters unique.  Most
Info-ZIP targets will try to convert to the shorter file names if they
can.

4. Format all text files (Ada source code, documents, Postscript files,
etc.) in the MSDOS or UNIX text file formats.
  Rationale: All major target platforms are able to read MSDOS or UNIX
text file formats and convert them into their local text file formats.
The PAL itself contains tools that users can copy and compile or run to
perform text file conversions (the tools in the PAL Toolkit are
presented in both source code and binary forms).  Text file converters
for UNIX-to-MSDOS, MSDOS-to-UNIX, and UNIX-or-MSDOS-to- current_target
can be found in the PAL User's Toolkit.

5. Submit items to the PAL that you, yourself, have created or are
responsible for.  If an item is available that you think should be in
the PAL, let me know, and I will contact the original author or
responsible organization.
  Rationale: All of the Internet archives have had problems from time to
time with submissions that did not come from the original source or a
responsible organization.  Sometimes submissions of commercial offerings
are inadvertently made; sometimes items that have been tampered with are
submitted.  Most of the archives now make attempts to deal directly with
the original author or a responsible organization.

6. Fill out a SID or TID (Software Item Description or Text Item
Description) template and send it to me via email or FTP.
  Rationale: You know your submission better than me, and you can
probably provide the information in the SID or TID file with greater
ease.  This is the only real hastle I ask of you.  The SID and TID files
are the basis for the database in the PAL that generates the online
database files, the browser database, and the PAL Catalog.  These files
contain abstracts, release notices, version information, review codes,
keywords, catalog taxonomy information, copyright information, and other
items of interest to the users of the PAL.
  SID and TID templates are attached to the end of this file for your
convenience.

------ SID template -- Cut here --------------
%UNIT NAME
<You fill this in ... I may change it to be more mnemonic later>
%VERSION
<You fill this in>
%REVIEW CODE
NR
%INET ADDRESS
<You fill this in>
%AUTHOR
<You fill this in ... as many lines as you like ... suggest including
mailing address and phone number>
%RIGHTS
Approved for Public Release; Distribution Unlimited
%COPYRIGHT
<You fill this in with year and person/company who owns the copyright>
%DATE CREATED
<You fill this in>
%DATE RELEASED
<You fill this in>
%DATE LAST UPDATED
<You fill this in ... same as %DATE RELEASED>
%LOCATION
<You fill this in with info on some other place this item can be found>
PAL
%ENVIRONMENT
<You fill this in ... what target platforms/Ada compilers/etc are used?>
%LIMITATIONS
<You fill this in ... Special limits, like proprietary products needed>
%=CLASSIFICATION
%CATEGORY LEVEL 1
<I fill this in>
%CATEGORY LEVEL 2
<I fill this in>
%CATEGORY LEVEL 3
<I fill this in>
%CATEGORY LEVEL 4
<I fill this in>
%KEYWORD
<You fill this in ... 1 keyword or phrase per line>
%INDEX
<I fill this in>
%TAXONOMY
<I fill this in>
%DEPENDENCIES
<You fill this in ... does your software use some other parts library
like CS Parts or with some compiler-specific packages?>
%SEE ALSO
<You and I fill this in ... alternate references>
%SHORT DESCRIPTION
<You fill this in ... 40 characters>
%=FILE LISTING
%FILE SPECS
<I fill this in>
%DIRECTORY DISPLAY
<I fill this in>
%=ABSTRACT
<You fill this in>
%=REVISION HISTORY
<You fill this in ... suggest date, version number, comments>
%=RELEASE NOTICE
This prologue must be included in all copies of this software.
Restrictions on use or distribution:  NONE
<You add to this as you desire>
%=DISCLAIMER
        This software and its documentation are provided "AS IS" and
without any expressed or implied warranties whatsoever.  No warranties
as to performance, merchantability, or fitness for a particular
purpose exist.
        The user is advised to test the software thoroughly before
relying on it.  The user must assume the entire risk and liability of
using this software.  In no event shall any person or organization of
people be held responsible for any direct, indirect, consequential or
inconsequential damages or lost profits.

<You add to this as you desire>
%=
------ End SID template -- Cut here --------------

------ TID template -- Cut here --------------
%UNIT NAME
<You fill this in ... I may change it to be more mnemonic later>
%VERSION
<You fill this in>
%ORIGIN
<You fill this in with info on where the item came from>
%REVIEW CODE
NR
%INET ADDRESS
<You fill this in>
%AUTHOR
<You fill this in ... as many lines as you like ... suggest including
mailing address and phone number>
%RIGHTS
Approved for Public Release; Distribution Unlimited
%COPYRIGHT
<You fill this in with year and person/company who owns the copyright>
%LOCATION
<You fill this in with info on some other place this item can be found>
PAL
%=CLASSIFICATION
%CATEGORY LEVEL 1
<I fill this in>
%CATEGORY LEVEL 2
<I fill this in>
%CATEGORY LEVEL 3
<I fill this in>
%CATEGORY LEVEL 4
<I fill this in>
%KEYWORDS
<You fill this in ... 1 keyword or phrase per line>
%INDEX
<I fill this in>
%TAXONOMY
<I fill this in>
%DEPENDENCIES
<You fill this in ... does your document require other documents
in order to understand it?>
%SEE ALSO
<You and I fill this in ... alternate references>
%SHORT DESCRIPTION
<You fill this in ... 40 characters>
%=FILE LISTING
%FILE SPECS
<I fill this in>
%DIRECTORY DISPLAY
<I fill this in>
%=ABSTRACT
<You fill this in>
%=REVISION HISTORY
<You fill this in ... suggest date, version number, comments>
%=RELEASE NOTICE
This prologue must be included in all copies of this software.
Restrictions on use or distribution:  NONE
<You add to this as you desire>
%=DISCLAIMER
This documentation is provided "AS IS" and without any expressed or
implied warranties whatsoever.  No warranties as to performance,
merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose exist.

The user must assume the entire risk and liability of using this
document.  In no event shall any person or organization of people be
held responsible for any direct, indirect, consequential or
inconsequential damages or lost profits.

<You add to this as you desire>
%=
------ End TID template -- Cut here --------------

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