OAA 2.3.2 Distribution

Thank you for downloading the OAA 2.3.2 runtime package. 

A (possibly) more up-to-date or more complete version of this file may be found here:
  http://www.ai.sri.com/oaa/distribution/v2.3/2.3.2/documentation.html#release

This release does *not* include the J# library.  That will be made
available as a separate download as soon as it's available.

-- BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY --

Please note the following backwards compatibility issue:

   - The 2.3.1 monitor agent will not work with the 2.3.2 facilitator,
     UNLESS the facilitator is run with the return_goal_with_solutions
     flag (use -return_goal_with_solutions on the command line).

Other known backwards compatibility issues are listed in
doc/README_RUNTIME.txt.

Pre-existing scripts that invoke startit will need to add the following jar to the
CLASSPATH: jsch.jar.

-- LICENSE --

Starting with version 2.3.2, OAA is released under the GNU Lesser
General Public License, which is reproduced in src/licenses/lgpl.txt
of the release.  This release employs some third-party libraries;
license information for these is contained in
src/licenses/LicenseInfo.txt

-- CONTENTS --

This distribution includes both the source code and the compiled forms
of the libraries and demo agents.

Note that the UNIX and Windows run-time distributions are *identical*
in the src/ directory, except that in non-binary files, the
end-of-line characters differ in accordance with the conventions of
the two platforms.  Also, in the lib and runtime directories, the
Windows distribution omits binary files for Unix architectures, and
similarly, the Unix distribution omits binary files for Windows.

-- ORGANIZATION --

This distribution contains these top-level directories:
   src/ contains all OAA source code, including source for the
     facilitator, the language libraries, and the demo and sample
     agents.  It also contains a good deal of source code from
     third parties, which is used in building the language libraries.
   lib/ contains library files of different types, some from outside
     sources and some resulting from building OAA library code.
   runtime/ contains the executable forms of the demo and sample
     agents, all of which are derived from source code included under
     src/.
   doc/ contains this file and other general, high-level
   documentation.  More detailed documentation is available online
   (see below).

-- INSTALLATION --

Installation is simply a matter of decompressing the distribution
file, to a directory of your choice.  Under Windows, just double-click
on the .zip file to open the winzip (or a similar) program, and use
the "Extract" button.  On UNIX or Macintosh, use
    gunzip oaax.y.z.tar.gz
followed by
    tar xf oaax.y.z.tar
This will create a directory named oaax.y.z (with version numbers
instead of x.y.z), containing subdirectories doc, lib, runtime, and
src.

Following this, you should configure and test out your installation by
following the instructions in the doc/README_RUNTIME.txt file.  If you 
are new to OAA, this is also a good way to begin to see how things work.

Although source code is included for the facilitator, libraries and
sample agents, the build procedure is not well documented, and not as
well-organized as it might be (especially under Windows).  Therefore,
compiling the source code may require some expertise.  

-- DOCUMENTATION --

A wide variety of documentation, samples, publications, and other
materials can be found on the OAA Web site, here:
   http://www.ai.sri.com/oaa/

Documentation, both general and specific for the various language
libraries, is summarized and linked from here:
   http://www.ai.sri.com/oaa/distribution/v2.3/2.3.2/documentation.html
This includes the latest versions of this and the other README files
in the doc/ directory of the distribution.

Contributed agents, which may be downloaded and reused, are listed
here:
  http://www.ai.sri.com/oaa/contributions/

If you want to write a new agent (or wrap existing code as an agent),
your best starting point, for general information, is the Developer's
Guide, which is linked from the documentation page mentioned just
above.

-- FEEDBACK --

Feedback and bug reports are very much appreciated.  Visit the Contact
& Community page of the OAA Web site for contact and mailing list
information:
  http://www.ai.sri.com/oaa/contact.html

You are strongly encouraged to join the oaa-users mailing list; it's
normally the best resource for asking questions and making comments.