Subject: SPL ftp site rules

From: Charles Letner <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 12:12:02 -0700 (PDT)

Hello all,
	I've talked with the owner(Curt Breneman) of the ftp site for SPL scripts
about setting up some rules for submitting scripts to the site.  He has
agreed that this is a good idea.  The way we've decide to handle this is
to place a README file at the site that contains these "rules".  However,
before setting up these rules I would like to get some comments on
possible issues and possible solutions.  Here are some of the issues
others have brought up and some possible solutions.  I'd appreciate any
comments.  In particular, I'm interested in knowing if these suggested
rules would cause you to not deposit or retrieve scripts from the site. 
So without any further mumbo jumbo, here goes:
  
1) Could other utilities that are only usefull to Sybyl users be deposited
at this site?  One respondent has some C programs that does various things
with output from Sybyl that could be contributed.
	Seems like this would be good.  I'd think that two directories
would be usefull.  One of these would be for SPL scripts, the other for
non-SPL utilities.  Rules for submission of utilities would be the same as
for SPL scripts.

2) What about acknowledgement for scripts that are used in work that is
published.  Clearly the "programmer" of script that is a major part of an
project that is published should be acknowledged.  But what about a
utility that is only a small part of the project?  Further, what level of
acknowledgement would be required?
	Always a problem with "software".  For any script that is major
part of the analysis/calculation, acknowledgement would be required.  This
would be satisfied by a statement thanking the script author in the
acknowledgement portion of the paper or line in the paper stating the
source of the script.  Scripts that have minor changes will still require
acknowlwdgement.

3) Then there are the mechanics of site deposition/management.  What kind
of assurances are that a script will work?  Should sample data be include?
 How about descriptions and instructions on a particular script?  Then
there is the issue of a index file of the deposited scripts.
	Here's where things get more complicated.  First, depositions will
go in the /incoming directory.  Once they are placed there they will be
moved to the /pub/sybyl directory where they are write protected.  I'd
recommend that submission be in tar format.  This is for a number reasons.
 My primary reason for this is that some submissions will contain
multipule files, this provides a easy way to handle all files as one.  Ok
so what is to be in this tar file.  First off is the SPL script and any
scripts that the primary script depends (calls) on including shell
scripts.  Also a set of test data that the script will process would be
required(I'll come back to this in a minute).  Finally is a file that
contains instructions for the script.  Lets look at each of these in more
detail.
	The SPL script will contain at the top a set of comments telling
who the author is and a means to contact the author.  Also a quick
description of what the script does and and data needed to run the script.
Any machine specific code should be pointed out here.
	The test data is provided to allow a user to test the script to
see how it works on data that it is known to work on.  If the data is
easily obtainable it does not need to be include.  By easily obtainable I
mean data that comes "prepacked" with Sybyl(ie/ fragments) or comes from the
brookhaven database or any other free public access database.
	The instructions tell how to "install" the script and how to use it
to process the test data.  This is important for for more complicated
scripts, for example scripts that use NETBATCH.  The target of these
instuctions is for the novice sybyl user.  Personnaly I think that good
documentation is extremely important.   

	So there are some of my first thoughts.  Let me know what you think.
Thanks
Chuck 

Charles Letner
Wright State University
Department of Biochemistry
Dayton, OH 45435
e-mail: [email-masked]