Bunyip Alpha WHOIS++ server available

[Alan Emtage <[e-mail]>]

Hello All,
	[ Guess I should make this sound official :-), bear with me :-) ]

Downtown, Montreal, Canada
"For immediate release" (as reported by CNN)

Bunyip Information Systems Inc., of Montreal, Canada today announced the
release of its alpha (test) version of the WHOIS++ server. This server
implements (with a few minor modifications) the WHOIS++ protocol as
designed by the (austere) WNILS working group of the IETF.  Bunyip's
President Peter Deutsch was heard to remark, "No, no it is pronounced
BUN-yip, NOT BUNNY-ip... sheesh"

(etc, etc, you get the general idea ... ;-)

Hey, I haven't had much sleep recently.

Since we have a pretty slow link here, I have asked Joan (and she has
graciously agreed) to put the distribution at UC Davis. The machine is
ftp.ucdavis.edu and the file is /dist/bunyip-whois++-1.0a.tar.Z.

You'll need to take a look at the README file in the distribution to get
all the details, but here are the highlights:

- This stuff is freely available and the code can be used in any
  non-commercial software. (Bunyip retains the copyright to protect its
  freely available nature).

- The WHOIS++ protocol is implemented to the specs of the last draft,
  with a few modifications which are described in the README

- The search engine is a modified version of the CNIDR freeWAIS 0.1
  distribution. This distribution is included in the package. The
  modifications concern the implementation of field indexing for WAIS.
  This feature can be used in other packages if you so desire. I believe
  that it actually gives you a field indexed WAIS server as well, but I
  haven't test that fully. The code is pretty simple, so you should have
  no trouble. Thanks to Jim Fullton of CNIDR for the algorithm used.

- Easy to install and run :-)

- Attribute/value, attribute, value and general searches are implemented

- Partial matching and some boolean functions are implemented

- Generic templates can be used. There are no "pre-defined" templates in
  the system so you can index and serve up whatever your little heart
  desires. However, I STRONGLY recommend that for White Pages or Yellow
  Pages that you use the templates defined in the IAFA document. I will
  have a revision of this doc (going up to Internet Draft status) in the
  next couple of days.

- Data may be stored in separate files, or in one big one.

- This server does not implement centroids. Currently we don't have a
  schedule for their implementation, so if anybody else would like to
  take the code and made the necessary modifications, be our guest. I'd
  love to see it done.

- We have set up a tiny list here ([e-mail]) for people to
  make comments/suggestions and send bug reports etc. However, it's
  probably best at the moment if we use this list so that everybody can
  see what is going on. We're going to do support on a best-effort basis,
  so responses may not be too speedy right now (we're swamped with other
  things at the moment), but we'll do our best.

That's about it.... enjoy, and feel free to send along your comments.



-- 
-Alan

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alan Emtage,				"The Left in Canada is more gauche
Bunyip Information Systems,		 than sinister"
Montreal, CANADA			 -The Economist

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