Internet Resource Discovery System

Version 1.3 for NEXTSTEP


This is our first public release of the Harvest Resource Discovery System for NeXTSTEP.

This binary distribution requires perl 5.001 to run, and the perl interpreter MUST have functioning SOCKETS routines.

This NeXTSTEP version of Harvest has been ported from the Harvest Version 1.3 source code as of October 16, 1995 including the two patch files released as of that date.

As part of another project, RADium Technology Centre (Canada) wanted to explore the use of distributed objects within the context of  developing an expert system. Harvest is one of the stepping stones in that process.

Special thanks to Darren Hardy of the Internet Research Task Force Research Group on Resource Discovery (IRTF-RD), Harvest Project  for answering our questions and concerns. 

This port is not currently supported by the Harvest Project Team.  Therefore, if you have questions as to how to install the package for NeXTSTEP, please contact us and not the Harvest Project Team.

The user manual which accompanies this package is quite detailed, and will provide all of the necessary information needed to set up your Harvest system.

The source code is not included in this distribution. This was done for the protection of all - the code isn't well documented and can get a bit strange in places, especially when getting NeXTSTEP to deal with the POSIX compliant socket calls.  We have compiled this version for Intel and SPARC; a FAT version is forthcoming.

This version of Harvest was compiled under NeXTSTEP Version 3.3. Unfortunately, we were seriously delayed in getting the port stable because of errors in NeXTSTEP 3.3 itself. However, we developed workarounds and feel that it is 90% reliable (the Broker has a tendency to die after reindexing when you leave it overnight and let it run its normal maintenance scripts). Recent net traffic has indicated that NeXT  may be releasing a patch release for NeXTSTEP 3.3. If so, hopefully we'll be on the receiving end of that patch release and will incorporate it into Harvest.

The current plan is to release a more stable version in December (i.e. a distribution based solely on Objective-C code) and an OPENSTEP compliant version is on the drawing board.

Any questions pertaining to installation should be directed to radium@globalx.net. 

IRTF-RD retains all rights to the core Harvest software as indicated in the user manual.


As a final word, we know that NeXTSTEP specific information on this port would be beneficial. Unfortunately, we have not the time until late November to bring our resources to bear on putting together the documentation. You will find the Harvest User Manual quite helpful in setting up and configuring the Harvest system.  All the files will be installed in /usr/local/harvest . The manual proceeds from this assumption.

Please let us know if you find any particular bugs, if they are related to our port, we'll fix them, otherwsie we will forward them to the Harvest Development Team.


Enjoy,



RADium Technology Centre (Canada)
OORIM Development Team