Re: Half-way Summary (Was: Re: Draft progression)

Martijn Koster <m.koster@nexor.co.uk> Sun, 25 September 1994 17:47 UTC

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To: Markus Stumpf <stumpf@informatik.tu-muenchen.de>
Cc: iafa@cc.mcgill.ca
Subject: Re: Half-way Summary (Was: Re: Draft progression)
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 03 Sep 1994 02:10:33 +0200." <348etp$sku@hpsystem1.informatik.tu-muenchen.de>
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 1994 17:42:30 +0100
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From: Martijn Koster <m.koster@nexor.co.uk>

Alan wrote to me:

> Please feel free to make modifications to the draft in accordance
> with the discussion on the list and I'll take a look and give my
> response to them when I come back. Your name is on the masthead now
> you know so you can do this kind of thing....

so I've editted the draft to bring it up-to-date (see below).

Markus Stumpf writes:

> A companion RFC is fine I think, but why not reference it?

I'm still in two minds about this. The spec on its own is sufficient
to construct records. The templates on their own aren't (no chance
people will use the right syntaxes, or handles etc. A reason not to
reference it is that we then can decide not to publish it. But I can
be convinced on this one.

> I strongly vote for removing the "single record" restriction.

OK, that's settled then. I've removed all references to the single-
record file, along with filenames. So now we have multi-record files,
ending in ".AFA".

> 2) for grouping e.g. source code, patches
> and documentation for one package. About 2) I am still a bit unhappy.
> If I have a  package-1.2.tar.gz  and a  package-1.1.to.1.2.diffs.gz
> I have to create two templates for it (which best go into one index file)
> cause I don't think it is okay to simply use
>     Template-Type:	SOFTWARE
    Title:		A software package
>     URI-v1:		ftp://ftp.some.host/package-1.2.tar.gz
>     URI-v2:		ftp://ftp.some.host/package-1.1.to.1.2.diffs.gz

That's right. It all depends on the interpretation of "intelectual
content".  You could argue that two version 1.1 and 1.2 should be
specified as variants, but 1.0 and 2.0 probably warant separate
templates. Hmm... I still think variants are a hack.

> Having slept one or two (short) nights about it, I think we should drop
> the mailto: as we already call it *-Email: This IMHO implies the mailto: .

Agreed too; I've changed it back to that.

> Hmmm ... do you think we should allow for more than one value to
> URI-v1: e.g.?
> I don't think this is a good idea ... it is unhandy, but if one wants
> to have this, one has to duplicate the Format, Size and Language, too.

Multi-valued attributes are allowe, indicating equally appropriate
alternatives. You don't need to duplicate others.

> btw. do we also have Version: be a variant?

I guess so.

> >p5. - Allowing HTML etc in descriptions
> >   I'm against, for reasons explained before.
> 
> Agreed. I still think it would be nice, but then is someone likes
> to include PostScript or MS Word format the templates will quick
> become a pain and be unusable for most of us.

Agreed.

> I'll have a look at the patch on Monday.

This patch business is getting to confusing :-) I am appending what I
call 0.5.txt. It's amazing what you still find, so do read this through
thoroughly (trying to diff -c will probably be messy :-) Apart from the
changes above I have also:

- Restructured 3.1 - 3.6 to cope with the single file.

- Added interpretations for borderline cases in 3.1

- Added a recommended field order.

- Changed all dates to use the proper syntax and 4-digit years.

- Added a Maintenance cluster for Record-Last-Modified and friends,
  and removed the explicit definitions.

- Changed the FileName in the variant example to a variant URI.

- changed the abstract to cover the contents better (hey, I'd even like
  to change the title, but as the draft has been referenced already that's
  probably not a good idea.

Two new issues with MIRROR (sigh :-):

1) In the 3.7.3 MIRROR template the Reference-URI is (ab)used to refer
   to parts of a mirrored packages, not to variants of the same (MIRROR)
   object. As a MIRROR cannot have variants this doesn't break anything,
   but's a bit weird. I cannot suggest a better alternative though...

2) Having both:
|   Admin-(USER*):		      Contact information of the individual or
|				      group responsible for administering
|                                     this mirror.
|
|      Admin-(ORGANIZATION*):	      Information on organization responsible
|                                     for this mirror unit.

   Is redundant, as the second is implied in the first because of:

|  This cluster can also contain any of the elements of the 
|        ORGANIZATIONS cluster described in 3.6.2, to describe the
|        organization to which individual belongs or under whose authority
|        the information is being made.

There is even a semantic parsing problem there. I have changed it to
Owner-(ORGANIZATION*), like in the other templates. Is that ok?

Question about production: The pages on the table of contents are now
probably wrong, and how I fix them depends on the production: what do
we have to do with this to submit this as an RFC? Produce an nroff
version? I'll read the relevant RFC's, but suggestions are welcome.

Conclusion:

I think I'm quite happy with the contents of the current draft, it
reads a bit easier, and I think parsing is now a lot clearer. At the
same time it still has very much the same identity as the previous
draft, which I think is important as the draft has already played
roles in things like ALIWEB and Harvest, and we're quite clearly not
aiming to intercept the URC work.

Any comments, let me have them ASAP please (especially if it's "this
will do" :-)

> Have a nice weekend!

A nice weekend revising the IAFA draft yet again? :-) Talking of
which, I'll be out of the country for a couple of weeks starting
Wednesday... :-(

-- Martijn
__________
Internet: m.koster@nexor.co.uk
X-400: C=GB; A= ; P=Nexor; O=Nexor; S=koster; I=M
X-500: c=GB@o=NEXOR Ltd@cn=Martijn Koster
WWW: http://web.nexor.co.uk/mak/mak.html


INTERNET DRAFT                                               P. Deutsch
Expires: March 1, 1995                                        A. Emtage
								 Bunyip
							      M. Koster
								  Nexor
							      M. Stumpf
					Munich University of Technology

                                                         September 1994

	Publishing Information on the Internet with Anonymous FTP
                   <draft-ietf-iiir-publishing-01.txt>

Status of This Memo

This document is an Internet-Draft. Internet-Drafts are working
documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its Areas, and
its Working Groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working
documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid
for a maximum of six months. Internet-Drafts may be updated, replaced,
or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is not appropriate to
use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as
a "working draft" or "work in progress."

Please send comments to Alan Emtage, bajan@bunyip.com

			TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT......................................................................1

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..............................................................1

PREFACE.......................................................................1

1. ADMINISTRATION.............................................................3

   1.1 Scope of this Document.................................................3
   1.2 Definitions............................................................3
   1.3 Uniform Resource Identifiers and Directory Services....................3
      1.3.1 Variant Information...............................................4
   1.4 Machine vs. Human Readability..........................................4

2. CONFIGURATION AND CONTENTS INFORMATION.....................................5

   2.1 Handles................................................................
   2.2 Clusters: Common Data Elements.........................................5
      2.2.1 Individuals and Groups............................................5
      2.2.2 Organizations.....................................................6
      2.2.3 Resource Information..............................................6
   2.3 Site-Specific Configuration Information................................7
      2.3.1 Configuration Information.........................................7
      2.3.2 Logical Archives Configuration....................................8
   2.4 Site-Specific Content and Service Information..........................8
      2.4.1 Service...........................................................9
      2.4.2 Documents, Datasets, Mailing List Archives, Usenet Archives,
	    Software Packages, Images and other objects......................10

3. INFORMATION ENCODING FOR SPECIFIC ENVIRONMENTS............................12

   3.1 Data Element Structure................................................12
   3.2 Variant Fields........................................................13
   3.3 Data Formats..........................................................13
   3.4 File Naming...........................................................15
   3.5 File Record Structure.................................................16
   3.6 File Location and Naming..............................................17
   3.6 Clusters: Common Data Elements........................................17
      3.6.1 Individuals or Groups............................................17
      3.6.2 Organizations....................................................18
      3.6.3 Miscellaneous....................................................19
      3.6.4 Maintenance......................................................19
   3.7 Template Definitions..................................................19
      3.7.1 Site Information ................................................19
      3.7.2 Logical Archive Information......................................22
   3.8 Content Information...................................................24
      3.8.1 User Information.................................................24
      3.8.2 Organization Information.........................................24
      3.8.3 Services Information.............................................24
      3.8.4 Documents, Datasets, Mailing List Archives, Usenet Archives,
	    Software Packages, Images and other objects......................27

4. CONCLUSION................................................................31
BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................31


ABSTRACT

Anonymous FTP Archives are a popular method of making material available
to the Internet user community. This document specifies a range of
indexing information that can be used to describe the contents and
services provided by such archives.  This information can be used
directly by the user community when visiting parts of the
archive. Furthermore, automatic indexing tools can gather and index this
information, thus making it easier for users to find and access it.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This document is the result of work done in the Internet Anonymous FTP
Archives (IAFA) working group of the IETF. Special thanks are due to
George Brett, Jill Foster, Jim Fullton, Joan Gargano, Rebecca Guenther,
John Kunze, Clifford Lynch, Pete Percival, Paul Peters, Cecilia Preston,
Peggy Seiden, Craig Summerhill, Chris Weider, Janet Vratney, Markus
Stumpf and Martijn Koster.

PREFACE

Over the past several years, Anonymous FTP has become the primary method
of publishing information in the Internet environment. Anonymous FTP is
an application-level service that makes use of the File Transfer
Protocol [1], one of the principal protocols of the TCP/IP suite. A well
organized and well maintained Anonymous FTP archive (AFA) can provide a
relatively cheap and simple way to distribute the software, documents,
datasets, images and other sources of information that are produced for
general availability on the network today.

Those groups wishing to set up an Anonymous FTP Archive should refer to
"A Guide to Anonymous FTP Site Administration" [2], which provides
details on why you would want to set up such an archive and what steps
are required to have a secure, well-maintained system.

This document specifies a range of indexing information that can be
used to describe the contents and services provided by such archives.
This information can be used directly by the user community when
visiting parts of the archive. Furthermore, automatic indexing tools can
gather and index this information, thus making it easier for users to
find and access it. Although not required, providing such information
will make your archive a more useful resource.

It is intended that this information be made available through anonymous
FTP archives although the templates described may also be made available
through any other information access mechanism. It is beyond the scope
of this document to provide specific transformations to other mechanisms
since the individual encoding method used will necessarily depend on
several external factors such as operating systems and network protocols
used.

Section 1 of this document contains definitions of the terminology used,
as well as issues related to the use and construction of the information
to be distributed.

In Section 2 we make recommendations that are intended to provide a
standardized means for sharing information about the contents of a
specific archive site such as as services provided by the institution,
document abstracts, and software descriptions. In addition
administrative contacts, local time zone and other site-specific details
may be given.

Section 3 contains a set of encoding procedures for the information
outlined in Section 2. The encoding is sufficiently general to be
deployed on a variety of operating systems, and sufficiently flexible to
allow the AFA administrator to take into account site-specific issues
such as file system organisation. It is expected that where specific
environments have special considerations, conventions for transforming
the information can easily be defined.

Interested parties may also want to refer to the companion document
"Data Element Templates for Internet Information Objects" [8] for
fully expanded data templates defined in this document.


1. ADMINISTRATION

   1.1 SCOPE OF THIS DOCUMENT

   The templates listed below are not intended to comprehensively describe
   all possible information that could be provided, but rather to cover
   common, useful elements. The determination about what specific
   information to provide will have to be made on a case by case basis.
   Those individuals or groups completing the information have to
   determine how appropriate a particular data element is for their
   needs. In many cases data elements such as "home telephone number"
   would be not be desirable in databases open for public access.
   However, in some cases they may be useful and thus have been included
   in this document.

   NOTE: Issues of privacy, security and maintainability should all be
   considered when determining what information to provide.

   This document does not mandate or require that any particular class of
   information be offered. However it is hoped that those sites wishing
   to offer the information described in this document adhere to the
   formats recommended in Section 3.


   1.2 DEFINITIONS

   For the purposes of this document, the term "data element" is defined
   to be a discrete (though not necessarily atomic) piece of information.
   For example, a name, telephone number or postal address would all be
   considered a "data element". The granularity at which a data element
   is defined is determined by the purpose for which it is intended. The
   term "field" is interchangeable with "data element".

   "Templates" are logical groupings of one or more data elements. 

   Collectively the templates described in this document will be referred
   to as "indexing" or "data" templates.

   A "resource" is any network object being described. This could be a
   "physical" object like a file, document or printer, or it may be a
   "service" such as a weather or Domain Name System server. Any object
   which can be referred to as being accessible or addressable on the
   network is a resource.

   A "record" is an instance of the template with the appropriate fields
   filled in for a particular resource.


   1.3 UNIFORM RESOURCE IDENTIFIERS AND DIRECTORY SERVICES

   The templates below generally describe network accessible resources,
   and people connected with these resources, and as such it is
   important to uniquely identify both resources and people.

   Work is currently underway for the construction of what are known as
   "Uniform Resource Identifiers" (URI). These will be structured strings
   whose purpose is to uniquely identify any resource on the Internet to
   determine access and identification information for that resource.
   This not only includes documents, software packages etc., but also
   images, interactive services and physical resources. This concept has
   been integrated into the data templates. While it is expected that
   ultimately location independent identifiers will be used, the examples in
   this document utilize the Uniform Resource Locators as defined in [3].

   Because there are no ubiquitous directory services to look up
   personal details for people (commonly referred to as "White Pages"),
   the templates below contain facilities for these personal details
   to be provided.

   It is likely that in the relatively near future directory services
   will be tested and deployed that will provide for both White Pages
   and Yellow Pages (locating resources). It is expected support for
   these can be easily added to these templates.



      1.3.1 VARIANT INFORMATION

      Often a particular resource is available in a number of
      variants. For example, a document may exist both in standard
      pre-formatted ASCII (a "text" file) and PostScript versions,
      or may be available in a number of different languages.

      The person or group indexing the resource must determine which
      resources have equivalent "intellectual content", and if so
      describe them as variants of a single resource. By providing
      information such as location, format, character sets, languages
      etc. for each variant, the user searching the index is provided
      with enough context to make an informed decision as to whoch variant
      to retrieve.

      It is hoped and expected that the methods of dealing with
      variant information described in this document will be superseded by a
      more comprehensive directory service system in the relatively near
      future.

   1.4 MACHINE VS. HUMAN READABILITY

   At the heart of some data element definitions is their ability to be
   parsed and "understood" by computer programs. It is hoped and expected
   that much of the information provided in the IAFA templates described
   below will be collected and indexed by automated processes without
   human intervention. As a result, care has been taken to restrict the
   syntax and semantics of data element names and some values so as to
   facilitate these procedures.



2. CONFIGURATION AND CONTENTS INFORMATION

In this section we define a recommended set of indexing information
that you could make available as the administrator of an archive site.
In doing so, you would extend the functionality of your archive, as
well as the functionality of indexing and resource discovery tools
that can pick up and redistribute such information.

   2.1 HANDLES

   Handles for individuals or organizations, if used, are defined to
   be a printable string that uniquely identify the individual or group,
   within the context of the service providing the handle. These are
   to be used as a shorthand method of referring to the complete 
   organization or individual record and should be used preference to
   the complete entry. Indexing tools which gather template
   information should be aware that once removed from a particular
   context, handles may no longer be unique and techniques must be used
   to ensure unquieness out of context, or to expand the handle into 
   associated values in the record.

   2.2 CLUSTERS: COMMON DATA ELEMENTS

   There are certain classes of data elements, such as contact
   information, which occur every time an individual, group or
   organization needs to be described. Such data as names, telephone
   numbers, postal and email addresses etc. fall into this category. To
   avoid repeating these common elements explicitly in every template
   below, we define such "clusters" here which can then be referred to in
   a shorthand manner in the actual template definitions. Predefined
   symbols specifying these clusters will then be used in their place
   with a prefix which determines to whom or to what this information
   applies.

   In those cases where multiple instances of a cluster have to be
   defined (for example, to describe multiple authors of a book), then
   "variant" syntax applies. See section 3.2 "VARIANT FIELDS".

   The following clusters have been identified.

      2.2.1 INDIVIDUALS

      In order to describe each individual in a particular template, the
      following common data element subcomponents are defined. 

        - Name of individual.

	- Name of organization to which individual belongs or under who's
          authority this information is being made.

	- Type of organization to which this individual belongs
	  (University, commercial organization etc.)  

        - Work telephone number of individual.

        - FAX (facsimile) telephone number of individual.

        - Postal address of individual.

        - Job title of individual (if appropriate).

        - Department to which individual belongs.

        - Electronic mail address of individual.

        - Home telephone number of individual.   

        - Home postal address of individual.

        - Handle.


      2.2.2 ORGANIZATIONS

      The following elements apply when describing organizations and are a
      subset of those listed above for individuals and groups. Obviously
      some of the elements above (such as home phone number) make no
      sense when being applied to an organization. As above, the
      following may be subcomponents in a larger, hierarchically
      structured data element name.

        - Name of organization.

	- Type of organization to which this individual or group belongs
	  (University, commercial organization etc.).

        - Postal address of organization.

        - Electronic mail address of organization.

        - Phone number of organization.

        - Fax number of organization.

        - City of organization.

        - State (province) of organization.

        - Country of organization.

        - Handle.


      2.2.3 RESOURCE INFORMATION

	The following is a list of generic data element subcomponents
	used when referring to particular resources.

        - A title for the resource.

        - Uniform Resource Identifier.

        - Description.

	- Any keywords which might be applied to the resource that would
          facilitate users' locating this information.

        - Type of resource.

        - City of resource.

        - State (or Province) of resource.

        - Country of resource.

        - Comment.

        - Details record was last maintained.

   2.3 SITE-SPECIFIC CONFIGURATION INFORMATION

   Information about your archive site itself can often be valuable to
   users of your system in order for them to utilize the resource in an
   efficient manner.

      2.3.1 CONFIGURATION INFORMATION

      Site configuration information will help users better understand
      your wishes on how and when to access your AFA. This would
      include such information as:

      Site Information:

        - Primary host name of the AFA.

        - A valid Domain Name System alias (CNAME) for this host [5].

        - Individual contact information for site owner(s).
	  
	- Individual contact information for site maintainer
          (administrators).

        - Sponsoring organization contact information.

        - The geographical (latitude/longitude) location.

        - The time zone of the site.

	- Individual contact information for last person last modifying
          this record.

        - The frequency with which the archive site is generally modified.

        - Times of preferred access for this site.

        - A summary of the access policies of this site. This should
	  include such information as preferred times of usage,
	  conventions or restrictions for uploading files to this site
	  etc.

	- A brief description of the kind of information stored at this
	  anonymous FTP archive. If the site is intended to specialize in
	  a particular type of information (examples might include
	  software for a specific machine type, on-line copies of a
	  particular type of literature or research papers and
	  information in a particular branch of science or arts) you
	  should indicate this.

        - Resource information as defined in the resource cluster.


      2.3.2 LOGICAL ARCHIVES CONFIGURATION


      One physical archive site may possibly contain multiple "logical"
      archives. For example, a single archive host may be shared amongst
      multiple departments, each responsible for the administration of
      their own part of the anonymous FTP directory subtree.

      Some information (such as a host's location) will remain constant
      for the site as a whole. We therefore recommend that you list
      Logical Archive specific and site-specific information separately.

      Logical Archive configuration:

	- Individual contact information for site maintainer
          (administrators).

        - A valid Domain Name System alias (CNAME) for this host [5] when
          referring to this logical archive.

        - Owning organization contact information.

        - Sponsoring organization contact information.

	- Individual contact information for last person last modifying
          this record.

        - A summary of the access policies of this logical archive.

	- A summary of the type of information that this logical archive may
          specialize in.

        - The frequency with which the archive site is generally modified.

        - Resource information as defined in the resource cluster.


   2.4 SITE-SPECIFIC CONTENT AND SERVICE INFORMATION

   The preceding collections of information make available access and
   utilization policies for a site. You could also wish to make available
   a selection of information about the actual contents of your archive
   or the services available from your organization or institution.

   The host system providing the resources need not be the same physical
   site on which the descriptive information below is stored. Thus at a
   University an AFA maintained by the central campus administration
   could advertize services provided by individual departments who might
   not have an AFA of their own. Similarly, mailing lists provided on
   other administratively related hosts (such as in the same organization)
   may have the indexing information available on one host while the
   actual mailing list is provided by another machine.

   The following categories have been identified.

      2.4.1 SERVICE
   
	The archive can offer an overall description of each the various
	Internet services offered by your organization's systems, along
	with corresponding contact information.
     
	This description would then indicate whether the parent
	organization offers such services as:

        o on-line library catalogues.

	o Interactive on-line information services such as WAIS, gopher,
          Prospero, World Wide Web or archie.

	o specialized information servers such as those providing
	  weather, geographic information, newswire feeds etc.

        o Other information services.

      The following information can be made available:

        - Title of service.

	- URI of service.

        - A description of the service.

	- Any keywords which might be applied to the record that would
          facilitate users' finding this service.

	- Contact information for service administration.

	- Authentication information (login name, password etc. if
          required) or method for authentication (private key etc.)

        - Description of registration process.

        - Charging policies for service.

        - Policies & restrictions on service use.

        - Access times for service.

			  
      2.4.2 DOCUMENTS, DATASETS, MAILING LIST ARCHIVES, USENET ARCHIVES,
	    SOFTWARE PACKAGES, IMAGES AND OTHER OBJECTS

      You might wish to make available a brief description of available
      software, documents, images, sounds, video, datasets, USENET [6]
      archives and mailing list information through the AFA. 

      Some of the information classes described may not be applicable to
      each of the above objects.
      
      This is NOT intended to be an official catalog entry in the sense
      used by librarians. It is a simple way to describe documents and
      announce their availability. More formal methods may be used
      elsewhere to further describe the documents.

        - Type of object.

	- Category (for documents this would be technical report,
          conference paper etc.)

	- Name of object. For example, the name of the mailing list,
	  software package or title of the document.

        - Names and other contact information on the authors.

	- Names and other contact information for object
          maintainer/administrator.

        - Version designator.

        - Source of data.

        - Abstract/description of the object.

        - Bibliographic entry.

        - Citation.

	- Special considerations or restrictions on the object's use (e.g.,
	  in the case of a software package programming
	  languages/environments needed, hardware restrictions, etc.).

	- Publication status (For documents: draft, published etc. For
	  software packages: beta test, production etc.)

        - Contact information of publisher.

        - Copyright and copying policy.

        - Creation date.

        - Appropriate keywords for this object.

	- Discussion forums appropriate for this object (mailing lists,
	  USENET newsgroups etc.)

        - Format of the object (variant).

        - Size (variant).

        - Language (variant).

        - Character set (variant).
 
        - ISBN (variant).

        - ISSN (variant).

        - Method of access (anonymous FTP etc.).

        - Last revision date (variant).

        - Library Cataloging information.

        - URI.



3. INFORMATION ENCODING

In this section we offer a recommended encoding format for each of the
standard items of information suggested in Section 2. 

We offer such a standardized format so that if such information is to
be offered, it is formatted in such a way that it can be utilized by
automated indexing and retrieval tools. The encoding methods proposed
were developed to be extensible, so that additional information can be
offered in a similar format, if the site administrator so wishes.

Developing such recommendations offers several challenges. It is
hoped that the encoding conventions should be applicable to as wide a
variety of operating systems, file structures and encoding schemes as
possible. In addition, the globalization of the Internet requires
attention to constraints such as the language in use at an archive site.

In addition, the encoding methods proposed must be easy to implement and,
for the moment, use existing methods of access and retrieval. We
currently assume that the site language is English and the encoding
ASCII, but it is expected that additional formats for other languages and
encoding schemes will be developed over time.

   3.1 DATA ELEMENT STRUCTURE

   All data elements have been defined as "attribute/value" pairs which can
   be generically described as:

	<data element name>: <data element value>

   where <data element name> would for example be "Work-Phone" and the
   <data element value> would be "+1 (514) 555 1212" (note that the double
   quotes (") are not part of the strings, but serve here to delimit the
   example).

   The term "field name" is interchangeable with "data element name". The
   term "field value" is interchangeable with "data element value".

   All data element names may contain only alphanumeric characters, the
   hyphen ("-") and hash (number sign, pound sign "#"). No embedded
   spaces are allowed. All data element names are case insensitive
   although here initial letters are capitalized for readability.

   Some data elements may be for internal use to the site administrator
   only, and are to be ignored by automated indexing. These field names
   must start with the hash character "#". All other rules for
   line continuation remain the same.

   Field data must be separated from fieldname by a colon and optional
   whitespace. Any field may continue on the next line by whitespace in
   the first column of that line. Multi-line fields are delimited by the
   first line which does not have whitespace in the first column, or is
   blank. Whitespace between continuation lines is to be collasped into a
   single space character by processing software.

   Data element names without associated field values are allowed,
   but have no significance.

   Multiple values for the same data element are allowed, and are taken
   to indicate equally appropriate alternatives.

   Data elements may occur in any order. However, for easier readability
   it is recommended to start with the Template-Type, Description, and
   keywords, followed by other non-variant fields, followed by variant
   fields grouped per variant.

   It is intended that wherever possible and necessary, a well-defined
   hierarchical structure will be used when defining data element names.
   This allows them to be generally and logically extensible.

   3.2 VARIANT FIELDS

   In section 1.3.1 we describe some information as being "variant" in
   that network objects may vary in "format" but are judged to have the
   same "intellectual content". In the following data element definitions
   we use the technique of allowing a sequence number to be appended to a
   set of data elements to describe a particular variant.

   For example, we have a document "War and Peace" which exists in ASCII
   text, PostScript and NROFF format. The PostScript version also exists
   in two natural languages, English and Russian. We define here 3 data
   elements:  "Filename", "Language" and "Format". In addition to the
   other information stored in the indexing record for "War and Peace"
   which we consider to remain constant across all variants, (like the
   name of the author), we can add the following data elements:

   Format-v0: 	PostScript
   Language-v0: English
   URI-v0:      ftp://arch.com/book/war-and-peace/war-and-peace.english.ps
   Format-v1:	PostScript
   Language-v1: Russian
   URI-v1:      ftp://arch.com/book/war-and-peace/war-and-peace.russian.ps
   Format-v2: 	ASCII
   Language-v2: English
   URI-v2:      ftp://arch.com/book/war-and-peace/war-and-peace.english.txt
   Format-v3: 	nroff
   Language-v3: English
   URI-v3:      ftp://arch.com/book/war-and-peace/war-and-peace.english.nroff
   
   The "-v<number>" syntax allows one to repeat a set of data elements
   for a particular variant and tie them all together with a common
   sequence <number> so that individual instances of the particular
   resource with the desired characteristics may be located.

   <number> is an arbitrary number with the only restriction that all
   records with that particular sequence value are logically connected
   in a similar manner to that illustrated above.

   The variant number need not exist when variants are not being
   described and the "-v<number>" syntax may be omitted in those cases.

   In the data element definitions below, the syntax "-v*" will be used
   to identify those elements for which variants are allowed.

   3.3 DATA FORMATS

   To facilitate the machine readability of certain data elements, the
   following syntaxes are to be used for particular types of fields:

   1) All electronic mail (Email) addresses must be as defined in RFC
      822, Section 6 [10]. Names and comments may be included in
      the Email address.

      For example:

	   "John Doe" <jd@ftp.bar.org>
		   or
	   jd@ftp.bar.org

      are valid Email addresses.
		

   2) All hostnames are to be given as Fully Qualified Domain Names as
      defined in RFC 1034, Section 3.

      For example "foo.bar.com"

   3) All host IP addresses are given in "dotted-quad" (or
      "dotted-decimal") notation. 

      For example, "127.0.0.1"

   4) All numeric values are in decimal unless otherwise stated.

   5) Dates/times must be given as defined in RFC 822, Section 5.1 and
      modified in RFC 1123, Section 5.2.14 [7]:

     date-time   =  [ day "," ] date [time]

     day         =  "Mon"  / "Tue" /  "Wed"  / "Thu"
                 /  "Fri"  / "Sat" /  "Sun"

     date        = 1*2DIGIT month 2*4DIGIT        ; day month year
                                                  ;  e.g. 20 Jun 1982

     month       =  "Jan"  /  "Feb" /  "Mar"  /  "Apr"
                 /  "May"  /  "Jun" /  "Jul"  /  "Aug"
                 /  "Sep"  /  "Oct" /  "Nov"  /  "Dec"

     time        =  hour zone                    ; ANSI

     hour        =  2DIGIT ":" 2DIGIT [":" 2DIGIT]
                                                 ; 00:00:00 - 23:59:59

     zone        =  "UT"  / "GMT"                ; Universal Time
                                                 ; North American : UT
                 /  "EST" / "EDT"                ;  Eastern:  - 5/ - 4
                 /  "CST" / "CDT"                ;  Central:  - 6/ - 5
                 /  "MST" / "MDT"                ;  Mountain: - 7/ - 6
                 /  "PST" / "PDT"                ;  Pacific:  - 8/ - 7
                                                 ; 
                                                 ; 
                 / ( ("+" / "-") 4DIGIT )        ; Local differential
                                                 ;  hours+min. (HHMM)

      For example the string "Sat, 18 Jun 1993 12:36:47 -0500" is a valid
      date.
   
      While the string "12:36:47 GMT" is a valid time. Quoting from RFC
      1123, Section 5.2.14:

         There is a strong trend towards the use of numeric timezone
         indicators, and implementations SHOULD use numeric timezones
         instead of timezone names. However, all implementations MUST
         accept either notation. If timezone names are used, they MUST
         be exactly as defined in RFC-822.


   6) Time ranges (or periods) must be specified as pairs of time values
      (as defined above in note (5)), separated by a "/". Multiple time
      ranges are separated by whitespace. All times in a range should be
      specified with the same timezone.

      For example:

         12:00 GMT / 05:45 GMT

   7) "whitespace" is defined as one or more blank (octal 40) and/or tab
      (octal 11) ASCII characters.

   8) References to "UT" mean Universal Time (also known as Greenwich Mean
      Time or "GMT"). 

   9) All telephone numbers are to be given as a minimum in full, with a
      leading '+' and country and routing codes without non-space
      separators. The number should be given assuming someone calling
      internationally (without local access codes). The number given in the
      local convention may optionally be specified in bracktes.

      For example,

         Telephone: +44 71 732 8011

      or

         Telephone: +1 514 875 8189  (1-514-875-8611)
 
   10) Latitude and longitude are specified in that order as

                CDD.MM.SS/CDD.MM.SS 

       Where
         DD is in degrees
         MM is in minutes
         SS is in seconds
         C is the direction designator which is 

         For latitude
           "+"  is north of the equator
           "-"  is south of the equator
          
         For longitude
           "+"  is west of the Greenwich meridian
           "-"  is east of the Greenwich meridian

         The double quotes (") are not part of the designator, but are
         used here to delimit the symbols.

   3.4 FILE RECORD STRUCTURE

   An indexing file can contain zero or more records, which are
   made up of collections of data elements. Records are delimited by one
   or more blank lines (lines which contain zero or more whitespace
   characters and the NEWLINE character). Because blank lines are used
   to delimit records they are not allowed to occur in a record.

   This allows templates relating to the same resource, for example
   documentation and software belonging to a single package, to be
   compiled in a single location. In addition it allows indexing files
   describing different resources to be combined by simply concatenating
   the separate indexing files.

   Leading and trailing blank lines on the indexing file are allowed,
   but not significant. Empty indexing files are to be ignored.

   3.5 FILE LOCATION AND NAMING

   For the greatest flexibility, it is assumed that unless otherwise
   stated each file containing the indexing information may reside
   anywhere in the anonymous FTP subtree and in addition, any number of
   these files may exist. The intention here is that they may be placed
   in the same location as the information they are indexing. You, as the
   administrator are free to place these files wherever you think
   appropriate in most cases. However, some files may carry information
   from their place in the directory structure and therefore they may not
   just be randomly placed in the archive.

   In order for tools to easily identify an indexing file from the
   other data files at the archive site, all indexing filenames must
   end with a ".AFA" filename extension.

   Indexing files should be made world readable. It is assumed that size
   and modification times can be obtained through existing access
   mechanisms and are operating system specific.

   The advantages to this system are that this information need only be
   constructed once with infrequent periodic updates as changes occur.
   Several of these files may never change during the lifetime of the host
   as an anonymous FTP site. They require no special programs or
   protocols to construct: a text editor is all that is needed.

   3.6 CLUSTERS: COMMON DATA ELEMENTS

   As described in Section 2, there are number of data elements which are
   often needed and which form a natural grouping for certain kinds of
   information ("clusters"). Below we define the data element names and
   semantics of these clusters.

   These clusters are intended to provide the lowest level in the
   hierarchical structure of data element names. For example, contact
   information for the authors of a document would be preceded by the
   string "Author-" thus forming data elements of "Author-Name",
   "Author-Postal", "Author-Fax", etc.

   NOTE: In the definitions below, the fields are separated by blank
   lines ONLY to improve readability, these lines must NOT occur in an
   actual record.

      3.6.1 INDIVIDUALS OR GROUPS

	Data Element Name	Description


        Name                    Name of individual.

        Work-Phone              Work telephone number of individual.

	Work-Fax		FAX (facsimile) telephone number of
                                individual.

        Work-Postal             Postal address of individual.

        Job-Title               Job title of individual (if appropriate).

        Department              Department to which individual belongs.

        Email                   Electronic mail address of individual.

        Handle                  Unique identifier for this record.

        Home-Phone              Home telephone number of individual.

        Home-Postal             Home postal address of individual.

	Home-Fax		FAX (facsimile) telephone number of
                                individual.

        This cluster can also contain any of the elements of the 
        ORGANIZATIONS cluster described in 3.6.2, to describe the
        organization to which individual belongs or under whose authority
        the information is being made.

	This cluster will be referred to as "USER*" in the template
	definitions below.

      3.6.2 ORGANIZATIONS


      The following elements apply when describing organizations and are a
      subset of those listed above for individuals and groups. Obviously
      some of the elements above (such as home phone number) make no
      sense when being applied to an organization. As above, the
      following may be subcomponents in a larger, hierarchically
      structured data element name.

        Data Element Name       Description.

        Organization-Name       Name of organization.

	Organization-Type	Type of organization (University,
				commercial organization etc.) 

        Organization-Postal     Postal address of organization.

        Organization-City       City of organization.

        Organization-State      State (province) of organization.

        Organization-Country    Country of organization.

        Organization-Email      Electronic mail address of organization.

        Organization-Phone      Phone number of organization.

        Organization-Fax        Fax number of organization.

        Organization-Handle     Handle of organization.

	This cluster will be referred to as "ORGANIZATION*" in the
	template definitions below.

      3.6.3 MISCELLANEOUS

      The following is a list of generic data element subcomponents used
      when referring to particular resources. These can be added to any
      of the templates described below.

	Data Element Name	Description

        Title                   A complete title for the resource.

        Description             Description of resource.

        Keywords                Any keywords which might be applied to the
                                record that would facilitate users' finding
                                this resource.

        URI			Uniform Resource Identifier
	
        Access-Method           Free-text description of access method
                                if no URI syntax has been defined.

        City                    City of resource.

        State                   State (Province, etc.) of resource.

        Country                 Country of resource.

       3.6.4 MAINTENANCE

      The following is a list of generic data elements used to indicate
      when the record was last maintained.

        Data Element Name	Description

	Record-Last-Modified-(USER*):
			Contact information for individual who
                        last modified this record.

	Record-Last-Modified-Date:
                        The date this record was last modified.

        Record-Last-Verified-(USER*):
			Contact information of person or group
			last verifying that this record was
                        accurate.

        Record-Last-Verified-Date:
			The date the last time this record was
                        verified.


   3.7 TEMPLATE DEFINITIONS

   NOTE: In the definitions below, the fields are separated by blank
   lines ONLY to improve readability, these lines must NOT occur in an
   actual record.

      3.7.1 SITE INFORMATION 


      IMPORTANT: There should only be one instance of this template in each
      archive.

      Fields for this file.

	Template-Name:		SITEINFO

        Host-Name:      Primary Domain Name System host name.

        Host-Alias:     Preferred DNS-registered name for the
			AFA host. This name must be valid CNAME
			entry in the Domain Name System.

        Admin-(USER*):  Contact information of the individual or
			group responsible for administering this
			site.

	Owner-(ORGANIZATION*):
			Contact information for the organization
			owning this site.

	Sponsoring-(ORGANIZATION*):
			Contact information for the organization
			sponsoring this site.

        City:           City of the host.

        State:          State (province) of the host.

        Country:        Country of the host.

	Latitude-Longitude:
                        Latitude and longitude of site.

	Timezone:	Timezone as defined in section 3.3 above.

	Update-Frequency:
			Preferred frequency of retrieval of all
			AFA extended configuration information by
                        automated retrieval tools. (See Note <1>)

	Access-Times:	Time ranges (as defined in Section 3.3) of access
                        to anonymous FTP users.


	Access-Policy:	Information such as conventions or
			restrictions for uploading files to this
			site etc.


	Description:	This file contains text describing any areas of
                        specialization for this site. For example, if
			the site contains information related to the
			field of molecular biology a paragraph or two with
			the keywords "molecular biology" and some further
                        description would be in order. It should also
			mention if this site contains "logical" archives.

	Keywords:	Appropriate keywords describing contents
                        of this AFA.


      Notes for this template.

      <1> The period is measured in days. This value should be chosen to
	  reflect the turnover of information at the archive.

   An example of a SITEINFO record:

   Template-Type:	SITEINFO
   Host-Name:           foo.bar.org
   Host-Alias:          ftp.bar.org
   Admin-Name:		John Doe
   Admin-Work-Postal:	PO Box. 6977, Marinetown, PA 17602
   Admin-Work-Phone:	+1 717 555 1212
   Admin-Work-Fax:	+1 717 555 1213
   Admin-Email:		FTP@bar.org
   Owner-Organization-Name:	Beyond All Recognition Foundation
   City:		Lampeter
   State:		Pennsylvania
   Country:		USA
   Latitude-Longitude:	-37.24.43/+121.58.54
   Timezone:		-0400
   Record-Last-Modified-Name:	John X. Doe
   Record-Last-Modified-Email:	johnd@bar.org
   Record-Last-Modified-Date:	Mon, 10 Feb 1992 22:43:31 EST
   Update-Frequency:	10
   Access-Times:	02:00 GMT / 08:00 GMT  18:00 GMT / 21:00 GMT
   Access-Policy:	Non-proprietary data may be uploaded to
			this site in the "incoming" directory.
			Please contact site administrators if you
                        do so. Proprietary material found in this
                        directory will be removed. This site is
			not to be used as a temporary storage
			area.
   Description:		This site contains data relating to DNA
			sequencing particularly Yeast chromosome
                        1. Datasets are available. There is also
			a selection of programs available for
			manipulating this information.
   Keywords:		DNA, sequencing, yeast, genome, chromosome
		   

      3.7.2 LOGICAL ARCHIVE INFORMATION

      IMPORTANT: The placement of this file in the file structure is
      significant: It implies that the directory in which this file
      exists and all subdirectories are part of the logical archive.

      Template-Type:           LARCHIVE

      Admin-(USER*):          Contact information of the individual or
			      group responsible for administering this site.

      Host-Name:              Primary Domain Name System host name.

      Host-Alias:             Preferred DNS-registered name for the AFA host as
			      this logical archive. This name must be
			      valid CNAME entry in the Domain Name System.

      Owner-(ORGANIZATION*):  Contact information for the organization owning
			      this site.

      Sponsoring-(ORGANIZATION*):
			      Contact information for the organization
			      sponsoring this site.

      Access-Policy: 	      Information such as conventions or
			      restrictions for uploading files to this
			      logical archive.


      Description:            Contains text describing any area of
                              specialization for the logical archive.

      Update-Frequency:       Preferred frequency of retrieval of all AFA
			      extended configuration information by
                              automated retrieval tools. (See Note <1>)

      Keywords:               Appropriate keywords describing contents of this
                              logical AFA.


      Notes for this template.


      <1> The period is measured in days. This value should be chosen to
	  reflect how often information at the archive changes.

      An example of a LARCHIVE record:

      Template-Type:	    LARCHIVE
      Owner-Organization-Name:   Orymonix Incorporated
      Owner-Organization-Type:   Commercial
      Host-Alias:           oxymoron-x.co.uk
      Access-Policy:	    This archive is open to general access
      Description:	    This archive contains essays on Military
			    Intelligence, Postal Service and
			    Progressive Conservatism. All material
			    contained in this archive is in the
			    public domain
      Admin-Name:	    Ima Admin
      Admin-Email:	    imaa@oxymoron-x.co.uk
      Admin-Work-Phone:     +44 71 123 4567
      Admin-Work-Fax:	    +44 71 123 5678
      Admin-Postal:	    555 Marsden Road, London, SE15 4EE
      Record-Last-Modified-Name: Yuri Tolstoy
      Record-Last-Modified-Email: yt@snafu.co.uk
      Record-Last-Modified-Date:	Mon, 21 Jun 1993 17:03:23 EDT
      Update-Frequency:     20
      Keywords:	    	    Militarism, Post Office, Conservatism


      3.7.3 AUTOMATIC FILE UPDATE INFORMATION


      Any number of these files may exist in the archive.


      Template-Type:                  MIRROR

      Admin-(USER*):		      Contact information of the individual or
				      group responsible for administering
                                      this mirror.

      Owner-(ORGANIZATION*):	      Information on organization responsible
                                      for this mirror unit.

      Title:                          The title of the package.

      Description:                    Text describing the package.

      Reference-URI:                  The starting point. This is the initial
				      site the package can be found of.
				      As there may be more than one file
				      or directory belonging to this
				      package this is a -v* type. Specified
                                      as an URI. (See Note <1>)

      Source-URI:                     The location the package is mirrored
                                      from. This may itself be a mirror
				      site of Reference-URI or
                                      another Source-URI. Specified
				      as an URI.

      Destination-URI:                The location the package can be found
                                      locally. Specified as an URI.

      Timezone:                       The timezone this site is in. (see
                                      section 3.3 of this document)

      Update-Frequency:               The Source-Site is checked each this
                                      number of days or on these days.
                                      (See Note <2>)

      Update-Time:                    The time of day the update is started.
				      This is important for chained
                                      updates, i.e. sites using this
				      site as Source-URI.

      Update-Policy:		      This is how the update is done. There are
                                      a few valid keywords. See Note <3> for 
                                      more information.

      Update-Filename-Translation:    Substitute expression. This may used to
				      reorganize e.g. a flat directory on
                                      Source-URI into various
                                      subdirectories on Destination-URI.

      Update-Transfer-Pattern:	      A regular expression. Only files
				      matching this pattern on Source-URI
				      will be updated/fetched.

      Update-Exclude-Pattern:	      A regular expression. Files matching this
				      pattern on Source-URI will not be
				      updated/fetched.

      Update-Compression-Pattern:     A regular expression. Used for packing
                                      or re-packing files being updated/
                                      fetched.  (see Note <4>)
				      
      Update-Software:		      Name and version of the software used
				      for the automatic updates.


      Notes for this template:

      <1> The -v* form is especially useful, if you mirror a package within a
	  directory called "path", but you don't mirror the whole "path", but
	  only the "src" and "doc" subdirectories.

      <2> This may be any number or one or more of the (comma seperated) words
	  "Mon", "Tue", Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat" or "Sun".

      <3> Valid keywords are:
            autodelete  - files will be automatically deleted, when they are
                                no longer found on Source-URI.
            sizechange  - files will also be updated if only the size
                                but not the time changed on the
                                Source-URI.
            newer       - files will be updated if the file on
				Source-URI is newer than the one on
                                Destination-URI.
            maxdays=num - files will not be fetched/updated if its modification
                                time has a difference bigger than <num> days
                                to the file on Destination-URI.
            recursive   - directories will be mirrored recursively (otherwise
				only the contents of the "flat" directory will
                                be updated and no subdirectories will be
                                checked).

      <4> This specifies whether e.g. *.tar files will be packed (and therefor
          renamed) to *.tar.Z or *.tar.gz, or whether e.g. *.Z files will be
          packed and renamed to *.gz

      Example:
      --------

      This is an example of a MIRROR record.

      Template-Type:			MIRROR
      Admin-Name:			John Long Silver
      Admin-Email:			silver@jamaica.world
      Admin-Home-Phone:		+1 222 333 4567
      Admin-Organization-Name:	The Pirates Club
      Title:				The ultimate treasury package
      Description:                      This package helps you to become rich,
              and richer and richer. It shows how to collect money and hide it
              from anyone within your computer. You can use a program from this
              package to materialize the money again, later.
      Record-Last-Modified-Name:	Sailor One
      Record-Last-Modified-Date:        Sat, 15 Jan 1994 02:47:57 GMT
      Record-Last-Verified-Name:	Sailer Two
      Record-Last-Verified-Date:        Sat, 15 Jan 1994 02:47:57 GMT
      Reference-URI-v0:			ftp://ftp.money.us/pub/coins/silver/
      Source-URI-v0:			ftp://ftp.cash.mx/money/coins/silver/
      Destination-URI-v0:    		ftp://ftp.jamaica/pub/coins/
      Reference-URI-v1:			ftp://ftp.money.us/pub/coins/gold/
      Source-URI-v1:			ftp://ftp.cash.mx/money/coins/gold/
      Destination-URI-v1:   	        ftp://ftp.jamaica/pub/coins/
      Timezone:			-0700
      Update-Frequency:		Mon, Wed, Fri
      Update-Time:			02:00
      Update-Policy:			sizechange, maxdays=14, recursive
      Update-Filename-Translation:	s:(.*)(gold/|silver/)(.*):$1$2:;
      Update-Transfer-Pattern:	.*dollar.*
      Update-Exclude-Pattern:		.*penny.*
      Update-Software:		coin-transfer, version 3.17



   3.8 CONTENT INFORMATION

   For the following categories the assumption should not be made that
   the information applies to the anonymous FTP host itself. Rather,
   it applies to the material on the Archive.

      3.8.1 USER INFORMATION

      So as not to require the repetition of the USER* information each
      time this cluster is needed in other templates, we define here a
      USER template in which the information can be stored in one place.
      Assuming the use of a unique handle, other records may then use a
      handle to refer to this record. The definition is simply the data
      elements listed in 3.6.1 above.

      The Template-Type is USER.

      3.8.2 ORGANIZATION INFORMATION

      In a similar manner to the USER template, the ORGANIZATION template
      provides common information which may be used in other (larger)
      templates to yield a central source of information.

      The Template-Type is ORGANIZATION.


      3.8.3 SERVICE INFORMATION

      These are the fields for the SERVICE template.

        Template-Type:  SERVICE

        Title:          Title of service.

	URI:		URI of service.

        Admin-(USER*):  Contact information of person or group
			responsible for service administration
                        (administrative contact).

	Admin-(ORGANIZATION*):
			Information on organization responsible
                        for this service.

        Sponsoring-(ORGANIZATION*):  
			Contact information for the
			organization sponsoring this site.


        Description:    Free text description of service.

	Authentication:	Authentication information. Free text
			field supplying login and password
			information (if necessary) or other
                        method for authentication.

	Registration:	How to register for this service if
                        general access is not available.

	Charging-Policy:
			Free text field describing any charging
			mechanism in place. Additionally, fee structure
			may be included in this field.

	Access-Policy:	Policies and restrictions for using this
                        service.

	Access-Times:	Time ranges for mandatory or preferred access of
			service.

	Keywords:	Keywords appropriate for describing this
                        service.


      Example 1
      ---------
      The following is an example of an entry for a telnet service.

      Template-Type:	SERVICE
      Title:		Census Bureau information server
      URI:		telnet://census.ispy.gov:1234
      Admin-Name:	Jay Bond
      Admin-Postal:	PO Box. 42, A Street Washington DC, USA 20001
      Admin-Work-Phone:	+1-202-222-3333
      Admin-Work-Fax:	+1 202 444 5555
      Admin-Email:	jb007@census.ispy.gov
      Description:	This server provides information from the
			latest USA Census Bureau statistics (1990)
			Type "help" for more information.
      Authentication:   Once connected type your email address at
			the "login:" prompt. No password is
			required.
      Registration:     No formal registration is required
      Charging-Policy:	There is no charge for the use of this service
      Access-Times:	9:00 EST / 17:00 EST
      Access-Policy:	This service may not be used by sites in
			the Republic of the VTTS
      Keywords:		census, population, 1990, statistics
      Record-Last-Modified-Name:   Miss Moneypenny
      Record-Last-Modified-Email:  m.moneypenny@census.ispy.gov
      Record-Last-Modified-Date:   Wed, 1 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT



      Example 2
      ---------

      The following is an example of a mailing list (service).
      

      Template-Type: SERVICE
      Title: 	     fishlovers
      URI:     	     fishlovers@foo.com
      Admin-Name:    Ima Adams
      Admin-Email:   fishlovers-request@foo.com
      Registration:  Send mail to the administrative address with your
		     own email address requesting addition
      Description:   Discussion list for people who love fish of all types
      Keywords:	     fish, aquarium, marine, freshwater, saltwater
      Access-Policy: Any Internet user may subscribe to this mailing list


      3.8.4 DOCUMENTS, DATASETS, MAILING LIST ARCHIVES, USENET ARCHIVES,
	    SOFTWARE PACKAGES, IMAGES AND OTHER OBJECTS

      These templates all contain the same fields, but have different
      "Template-Type" values. Suggestions for these types include:

      Type of Object			Template-Type
      -------------- 	        	--------------

      Document				DOCUMENT
      Image				IMAGE
      Software Package			SOFTWARE
      Mailing List Archive		MAILARCHIVE
      Usenet Archive			USENET
      Sound File			SOUND
      Video File			VIDEO
      Frequently Asked Questions File	FAQ

      Other names may be added to future releases of this document.
      

	Template-Type:		See above list

	Category:		Type of object. See Note <1>

        Title:                  Complete title of the object.

	URI-v*:			Description of access to object.
	
        Short-Title:            Summary title (if the Title is very long). 

	Author-(USER*):         Description/contact information about the
				authors/creators of the object.

	Admin-(USER*):          Description/contact information about the
				administrators/maintainers of the object.

	Source:			Information as to the source of the
				object. 

	Requirements:		Any requirements for the use of the
				object. A free text description of any
				hardware/software requirements necessary
                                to use the object.

	Description:		Description (that is, "abstract" in the
				case of documents) of the object.

        Bibliography:           A bibliographic entry for the object.

	Citation:		The citation for the object when used
                                in other works.

	Publication-Status:	Current publication status of object
				(draft, published etc.).

	Publisher-(ORGANIZATION*):
				Description/contact information about
                                object publisher.

	Copyright:		The copyright statement. Any additional
				information on the copying policy may be
                                included.

        Creation-Date:          The creation date for the object.

	Discussion:		Free text description of possible
				discussion forums (USENET groups, mailing
                                lists) appropriate for this object.

        Keywords:               Appropriate keywords for this object.

        Version-v*:             A version designator for the object.

	Format-v*:		Formats in which the object is
                                available. (See Note <2>)

	Size-v*:		Length of object in bytes (octets).

	Language-v*:		The name of the language in which the
				object is written. For documents this
				would be the natural language. For
				software this would be the programming
                                language.

	Character-Set-v*:	The character set of the object. This
				should be a well-known value for example
				"ASCII" or "ISO Latin-1".

	ISBN-v*:		The International Standard Book Number of
                                the object.

	ISSN-v*:		The International Standard Serial Number
                                of the object.

        Last-Revision-Date-v*:  Last date that the object was revised.


        Library-Catalog-v*:     Library cataloging information. (See
                                Note <3>)


      Notes for this template.

      <1> The intention of this field is to define the category of the
	  object. For example, in the case of documents it could be
	  "Technical Report", or "Conference Paper" and the name and date
	  of the conference at which the paper was presented. It may also
	  be something like "General Guide" or "User manual".

      <2> Objects are often available in several formats. For example,
	  documents may be in PostScript, ASCII text, DVI etc. For
	  images this may be GIF, JPEG, TIFF etc. 

	  Format should be specified in MIME type syntax and semantics
	  where possible See [9].
	  
      <3> Library cataloging numbers. In those cases where the number
	  itself does not contain enough information to determine the
	  cataloging scheme, the name of the scheme should be included.

      Example 1
      ---------
	  

      Example of DOCUMENT record.

      Template-Type:		DOCUMENT
      Title:			The Function of Homeoboxes in Yeast
      				Chromosome 1
      Author-Name:		John Doe
      Author-Email:		jdoe@yeast.foobar.com
      Author-Home-Phone:        +1 898 555 1212
      Author-Name:		Jane Buck
      Author-Email:		jane@fungus.newu.edu
      Last-Revision-Date:       27 Nov 1991
      Category:			Conference paper. Yeastcon, January 1992,
				Mushroom Rock, CA, USA 
      Description:		Homeoboxes have been shown to have a
				significant impact on the expressions of
				genes in Chromosome 1 of Bakers' Yeast.
      Citation:			J. Doe, J. Buck, The function of
				homeoboxes in Yeast Chromosome 1, Conf.
				proc. Yeastcon, January 1992, Mushroom
				Rock, pp. 33-50
      Publication-Status:	Published
      Publisher-Organization-Name:	Yeast-Hall
      Publisher-Organization-Postal: 1212 5th Avenue NY, NY, 12001
      Copyright:		The copyright on this document is held by
				the authors. It may be freely copied and
				quoted as long as the contribution of the
				authors is acknowledged 
      Library-Catalog:		LCC 1701D
      Keywords:			homeobox, yeast, chromosome, DNA,
			        sequencing, yeastcon 
      Format-v0:		Application/PostScript
      URI-v0:			ftp://ftp.fungus.newu.edu/pub/yeast/
                                chromosome1/yeast-homeobox1.ps
      Language-v0:		English
      Size-v0:			18 pages
      Format-v1:		text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
      URI-v1:			ftp://ftp.fungus.newu.edu/pub/yeast/
                                chromosome1/yeast-homeobox1.txt
      Size-v1:			13 pages
      Language-v1:		Russian


      Example 2
      ---------

      This is an example of a SOFTWARE record. Note the use of the
      software maintainer's "handle" instead of the explicit contact
      information.

      Template-Type:	SOFTWARE
      Title:		Beethoven's Fifth Player 
      Version:		67
      Author-Name:	Ludwig Van Beethoven
      Author-Email:	beet@romantic.power.org
      Author-Fax:	+43 1 123 4567
      Admin-Handle:	berlioz01
      Description:		The program provides the novice to Transitional
			Classical-Romantic music a V-window interface
			to the author's latest composition 
      Abstract:		V-window based music player
      Requirements:	Requires the V-Window system version 10 or higher
      Discussion:	USENET rec.music.classical
      Copyright:	Freely redistributable for non-commercial use.
			Copyright held by author
      Keywords:		Classical music, V-windows
      Format-v0:	LZ compressed
      URI-v0:		gopher://power.org/00/pub/Vfifth.tar.Z


4. CONCLUSION


This document attempts to provide the foundation for a common set of
recommended cataloging practices which may be used on the Internet to
enhance the utility of Anonymous FTP archives, currently the most widely
used and supported mechanism for general information storage and
retrieval. It is intended that these recommendations be flexible enough
to accommodate a broad spectrum of information classes and it is hoped
that they will be widely used and that automated tools will be developed
to use the valuable information that they make available.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Bibliography
------------


[1] RFC 959 Postel, J.B.; Reynolds, J.K. File Transfer Protocol. 1985
    October

[2] "A Guide to Anonymous FTP Site Administration". Work in progress from
    the Internet Anonymous FTP Archive Working Group of the IETF.

[3] Internet Draft "draft-ietf-uri-resource-names-02.txt" Work in
    Progress from the Uniform Resource Identifier Working Group of the
    IETF.

[4] RFC 954 Harrenstien, K.; Stahl, M.K.; Feinler, E.J. NICNAME/WHOIS.
    1985 October

[5] RFC 1034 Mockapetris, P.V. Domain names - concepts and facilities.
    1987 November

[6] RFC 1036 Horton, M.R.; Adams, R. Standard for interchange of USENET
    messages. 1987 December

[7] RFC 1123 Braden, R.T.,ed. Requirements for Internet hosts -
    application and support. 1989 October

[8] Internet Draft "Data Element Templates for Internet Information
    Objects". Work in progress from the Internet Anonymous FTP Archive
    Working Group of the IETF.

[9] N. Borenstein, N. Freed, "MIME  (Multipurpose Internet Mail  
    Extensions) Part One:  Mechanisms for Specifying and Describing the 
    Format of Internet Message Bodies", September 1993.

[10] RFC 0822 D. Crocker, "Standard for the format of ARPA Internet text  
     messages", August 1982. (Updated by RFC1327, RFC0987)