New Developments

[jproy@world.std.com (John P Roy)]

Hi,
This note overviews some new things of interest
- John

New Developments
================

 o In an effort to speed bug fixes, new features and increase response
time, a new development download area has been setup for software and
scripts related to this project. This area is located at
http://www.johnroy.com/pi3/pi3web/files/devel/ or follow the
'Development' link from the download page at 
http://www.johnroy.com/pi3/pi3web/files/

 o Items in this directory should be considered development releases and
therefore not necessarily fully tested and stable. While it gives more
advanced users an opportunity to test newer features only available
in these releases, the less than 'shrink wrapped' nature of this nature
may not be appropriate for all.

 o A new version of the Pi3Web HTTP server has been created for the
development branch - version 1.1. Releases 1.1.x will all be development
in nature ultimately leading to a 1.2 stable production release. This
software is available immediately and contains the latest bug fixes
and code.

 o A suite of Desktop Utility programs is under development for Pi3. It
includes remote administration and remote content management components, this
software has been under development for some time (Christmas 1997) and is not
yet at a mature, full featured level. However, in the nature of the new
development area this software, source code and scripts are being
made available now.

 o A number of alternate packages for Pi3Web will be developed from the
same codebase. This will include a core package (much the same as the
existing Pi3Web package), a full featured 'bells and whistles' version 
with many additional features including the many add-ons and perl
scripts provided by Holger Zimmermann. A third package under development
targets serious hosting servers and introduces the concept of the
'virtual server' where a website has its own full configuration which
can be managed remotely yet shares the webserver with many tens or
hundreds of other sites. This later package is current goes by the name
of the ISP-Edition. 
 
 o As this development effort now benefits from the active involvement
of a number of people. the copyright notice, LICENSE statement and 
distribution website will be changed to reflect this. Copyright and
LICENSE statements attribute the 'Pi3 Development Group'. The website
'pi3.org' and servers for the web farm 'pi3.net' are built and a number
of T1 bandwidth hosting options are under research.