				Karma

		    A powerful programmers toolkit


Introduction
============
Karma is a toolkit for interprocess communications, authentication,
encryption, graphics display, user interface and manipulating the
Karma network data structure. It contains KarmaLib (the structured
libraries and API) and a large number of modules (applications) to
perform many standard tasks.
A wide range of visualisation applications have been developed with
Karma.

Overfile of file layout
=======================
When files and directories are referred to, they are given relative to
the root Karma directory (environment variable KARMABASE if
defined). This is usually  /usr/local/karma 
Please see the file  INSTALL  for instructions on how to install Karma.

The update policy for Karma is in the file  doc/update-policy

The  README.lib  file contains documentation for the Karma libraries.

The  doc/modules  directory contains documentation for the various
Karma modules. This directory may be a little sparse...

The  doc/howto  directory contains information on how to make good use
of some of the more interesting packages in KarmaLib.

The  doc/widgets  directory contains information on the Karma Widgets
library. This directory may be a little sparse...

Mailing lists
=============
Please mail any bug reports to:  karma-bugs@atnf.csiro.au
No warranty, express or implied should be inferred by this mailing
address.

If you want to be added to the mailing list (to find out what's
changed with Karma), please mail the request to:
karma-request@atnf.csiro.au
This mailing list is VERY important: as bugs are fixed and
enhancements made to Karma, this is your only way of finding out about
these changes. This mailing list only contains announcements of public
releases (i.e. full releases with source code), which occur once or
twice a year. If you want to receive announcements of beta releases
(binary-only distributions), which occur once or twice a month, please
mail the request to:
karma-beta-request@atnf.csiro.au

If you have any suggestions for Karma, please mail them to:
karma-suggestions@atnf.csiro.au

FTP and WWW site
================
Karma is available for anonymous ftp from:
ftp://ftp.atnf.csiro.au/pub/software/karma/ 
Both the source code and binary distributions are kept here. The
source code is available free of charge. There is also a WWW page for
the library:
http://www.atnf.csiro.au/karma/

The Karma World Wide Web page is:  http://www.atnf.csiro.au/karma/
This provides online access to the documentation and ftp site.

You are urged to get the binary distribution if possible, as this will
save you the effort of building from source.
When connecting to the ftp server, check the modification dates on the
source distribution and the binary distribution. If the source
distribution is much newer than the binary distribution you want, this
means that the binary distribution is out of date. Please send an
Email request to:
karma-suggestions@atnf.csiro.au
for a rebuilt version to be made available. I don't have local access
to many machines, so I don't rebuild automatically for every
platform.

Copyleft
========
Karma modules use the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later.
For the complete text of this license, please see the file:
doc/COPYING

    These programmes are free software; you can redistribute them and/or modify
    them under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    These programmes are distributed in the hope that they will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this software; if not, write to the Free Software
    Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.


KarmaLib uses the GNU Library General Public License, version 2 or later.
For the complete text of this license, please see the file:
doc/COPYING.LIB

    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
    modify it under the terms of the GNU Library General Public
    License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
    version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

    This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
    Library General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU Library General Public
    License along with this library; if not, write to the Free
    Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
