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1991-11-21
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Overview, Part 1
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NANFOR\.LIB Working Group G\. Scott [71620,1521]
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Request for Comments UCLA
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Version 1\.0 March, 1991
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\fBTHE NANFORUM TOOLKIT (NANFOR\.LIB)
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\fBPUBLIC DOMAIN USER SUPPORTED CLIPPER FUNCTION LIBRARY
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\fB1 INTRODUCTION
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This is a standard for establishing and maintaining NANFOR\.LIB, a
public-domain, user-supported library of functions designed to
interface with Nantucket Clipper, version 5\.0, and later\. You
are encouraged to read it over and forward comments to Glenn
Scott, CIS ID [71620,1521]\.
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\fB1\.1 History
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In October and November of 1990, a discussion on the
evolution of third-party products, vendors, and marketing
took place on the CompuServe Information Service\'s Nantucket
Forum (NANFORUM)\. During this discussion, a NANFORUM
subscriber named Alexander Santic suggested the idea of a
user-supported Clipper function library, available to all on
the CompuServe Information Service (CIS)\. A number of
subscribers, including several Clipper third party
developers, and some Nantucket employees, expressed their
support\. This standard is a first step toward organizing
such an endeavor\.
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\fB1\.2 Trademarks
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Clipper is a registered trademark of Nantucket Corporation\.
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\fB1\.3 Relationship to Nantucket and third party
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NANFOR\.LIB is a project independent of any third party
developer or Nantucket Corporation\. There is no official
"sanction" or "seal of approval" from Nantucket of any kind\.
In addition, NANFOR\.LIB routines will be accepted and
included without regard for whether or not routines
performing a similar function are included in a commercial
third party or Nantucket product\.
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It is desired that NANFOR\.LIB not compete with third party
products but rather fill in the holes in Clipper\'s standard
library\. However, there will be some overlap into
commercial third-party library functions, so it would be
best if this is never taken into consideration when deciding
on including a particular function\.
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Developers submitting NANFOR\.LIB routines can and will be
corporate developers, third party developers, independent
consultant / programmers, hobbyists, and other Clipper
people\. Perhaps even Nantucket employees will contribute\.
No one is excluded or included due to any particular
affiliation\.
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Nantucket employees submitting functions are doing so as
individuals, and are not making a policy of involving
Nantucket in the project, nor are they committing Nantucket
to supporting the public domain library\.
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\fB1\.4 Clipper version supported
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NANFOR\.LIB functions, no matter what language they are
written in, will be designed to work with Clipper version
5\.0 and later\. Many of the functions, particularly those
that use the EXTEND system, will be compatible with the
Summer 1987 version of Clipper\. However, ensuring Summer 87
compatibility will be the responsibility of the user\. If a
user wants a function to work with Summer 87, she will have
to modify the code herself if necessary\. In many cases,
this is a trivial task\.
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\fB1\.5 Queries from new users
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Queries from new users interested in finding NANFOR\.LIB will
be handled in a uniform and courteous way\. A short text
file will be created that will briefly explain NANFOR\.LIB,
who the current people maintaining it are, and how to get a
hold of it\. This text message will be sent in response to
any query\. TAPCIS users will find this method very easy to
implement\.
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\fB2 DISTRIBUTION
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\fB2\.1 Public Domain
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NANFOR\.LIB, its source code, and documentation will be
public-domain software\. It is not for "sale", and shall not
be sold\. No fee or contribution of any kind will be
required for anyone wanting a copy, other than what they
would normally pay to download it from CompuServe\. Users
will be encouraged to submit functions via CompuServe\.
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\fB2\.2 Official repository
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It is possible that copies of NANFOR\.LIB will be downloaded
and distributed elsewhere\. That is all right, but the only
copy of NANFOR\.LIB and all associated documentation that
will be maintained by volunteers is in an appropriate
library on the CIS Nantucket Forum\.
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\fB2\.2\.1 Contents
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The nature of the official posting on CompuServe
shall be:
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2\.2\.1\.1 NFLIB\.ZIP
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This will contain the files NANFOR\.LIB
(library), and NANFOR\.NG (Norton Guide)\.
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2\.2\.1\.2 NFSRC\.ZIP
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This will contain all the library source
code, makefile, and other source-code related
materials\.
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2\.2\.1\.3 FTINQ\.TXT
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This is a short text file used as a response
to new user queries (see paragraph 1\.5)
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2\.2\.1\.4 NFRFC\.ZIP
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This contains an ASCII copy of NANFOR\.RFC
(this document) named NFRFC\.TXT\.
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2\.2\.1\.5 NFHDRS\.ZIP
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This contains templates of the file and
documentation header blocks, including a
sample, for prospective authors (FTHDR\.PRG,
FTHDR\.ASM, FTHDR\.SAM)
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\fB3 POLICY ON INCLUDING FUNCTIONS
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\fB3\.1 "Best Function"
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It is possible that more than one developer will submit a
function or package of functions that perform substantially
the same services\. In that event, the referees will choose
one to be included based on power, functionality,
flexibility, and ease of use\. Due to the cooperative,
non-commercial nature of the library, no one\'s feelings
should be hurt by excluding duplicate functions\.
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In addition, it is possible that two substantially
similar functions or packages will benefit from merging them
together to provide new functionality\. This will be the
prerogative of the referees (see paragraph 6\.3), in
consultation with the author, if possible\.
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\fB3\.2 Public Domain
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Each author submitting source code must include as part of
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that code a statement that this is an original work and that
he or she is placing the code into the public domain\. The
librarian (see paragraph 6\.1) and referees should make a
reasonable effort to be sure no copyrighted source code,
such as that supplied with some third party libraries, makes
it into NANFOR\.LIB\. However, under no circumstances will
the librarian, referees, or any other party other than the
submitter be responsible for copyrighted code making it into
the library accidentally\.
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\fB3\.3 Source code
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Full source code must be provided by the author for every
routine to be included in NANFOR\.LIB\. No routine, no matter
what language, will be put into the library on the basis of
submitted object code\.
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\fB3\.4 Proper submission
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Due to the volume of submissions expected, librarians and
referees may not have the time to fix inconsistencies in
documentation format, function naming, and other
requirements\. Therefore, the librarian shall expect source
code to arrive in proper format before proceeding further
with it\.
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\fB3\.5 Quality and perceived usefulness
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In a cooperative effort like this, it is very difficult to
enforce some standard of quality and/or usefulness\. For
example, a package of functions to handle the military\'s
"Zulu time" may be very useful to some, and unnecessary to
others\.
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The Nanforum Toolkit will by its very nature be a hodgepodge
of routines, some of very high quality, some not so high\.
It is up to