Subject: Release Notes for Version 1.00 of *The Perl Institute*
From: Larry Wall <[email-masked]>
Date: 28 Jan 1997 13:58:43 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.announce,comp.lang.perl.misc

Release Notes for Version 1.00 of The Perl Institute

Product Overview

	The Perl Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to
	the task of helping not only people who use Perl, but also
	people who support other people's use of Perl.  Hence, the
	Official Slogan of The Perl Institute is:

	    To help people help Perl help people.

	The Perl Institute is primarily a technical society rather than
	a professional society.  That is to say, we're not interested
	in telling you whether or not you are a professional Perl
	programmer.  Rather, we're interested in helping you become
	one, in whatever sense you care to define it.  To that end, The
	Perl Institute is about making connections between the people
	who have the resources and the people who need them.  Different
	people will contribute different kinds of resources, but all
	of us will come out better in the end.

Product Features

	This version of The Perl Institute has many new and exciting
	features.  These include:

	    * Cool plastic camels that aren't associated with tobacco
	      products.

	    * Discounts on various Perl Paraphernalia purchased through
	      the Perl Store.

	    * Discounts on The Perl Journal.

	    * Many other things we'll think of presently.

	    * Most importantly, though, The Perl Institute provides a
	      systematic way for individuals and corporate sponsors to
	      contribute time, ideas, and (of course) money to the
	      ongoing development of Perl Culture.

	Note that if you don't appreciate that last feature, you
	probably shouldn't become a member of the Perl Institute,
	because, to be perfectly forthcoming, the *direct* monetary
	value of your membership benefits is likely to be less than
	your membership fee.  We believe, however, that the *indirect*
	benefits of membership will, in the long run, make it
	worthwhile for you to join.  The primary goal of the Institute
	is to build up the infrastructure used by Perl developers so
	that they can support other folks better.  (See Slogan above.)

	To that end, one of our most important missions is to listen
	to suggestions from everyone involved, both the helper and
	the helpee.  This means you, one way or another.

Changes From Previous Version

	If you were familiar with version 0.99 of The Perl Institute,
	you'll find that this new version is leaner and more focused.
	Some of the merchandising activities of version 0.99 have been
	handed off to a subsidiary organization called The Perl Store,
	so that The Perl Institute version 1.00 can focus more on the
	technical issues and less on the marketing issues.

Online Support and Bug Reporting

	To get your questions answered, and to suggest new features,
	please visit our Web site at www.perl.org.

Known Bugs

	This program is really still in an alpha state, but we thought
	we'd release it anyway since that's how things are done nowadays.

	There are an insufficient number of volunteers.

	We're not always sure what to do with the volunteers we have.
	One of the volunteers we need is someone to coordinate what
	other volunteers do.

	The board of The Perl Institute suffers from Laziness, Impatience
	and Hubris.  (Well, Laziness, anyway.)

	There's no -w switch.

Compatibility Issues

	The Perl Institute does not discriminate on the basis of
	race, age, gender, national character set, CPU architecture,
	endianness, or preferred operating system.  (Some of the
	Institute's members may, upon occasion, proffer their own
	opinions on these subjects, but these should not be construed
	as official policy of The Perl Institute.)

Future Extensions

	The Perl Institute is exploring the possibility of becoming a
	Special Technical Group (STG) of the Usenix Association.
	(Since Usenix is into much more than just Unix these days, we
	don't construe this as an incompatibility.  See above.)

	Beyond that, we really don't know what will happen.  All we know
	is that The Perl Institute will become what you make of it.
-- 
Tom Christiansen      Perl Consultant, Gamer, Hiker      [email-masked]

    Emacs is a fine programming language, but I still prefer perl.