                           X S H I P W A R S

                        V E R S I O N    1.40 through 1.41


		http://wolfpack.twu.net/ (main site)
		http://xsw.terminator.net/ (advanced server testing)
		http://www.battlefieldlinux.com/ (devel only)


	* Read INSTALL for compiling and installation instructions! *


-------------
RELEASE NOTES
	The next release at this moment is 1.41.0 of the client.
	This file is out of date, but might still be useful. This
	particular release is special, because it is a client-only
	release, and it is intended to work with the Terminus
	server in particular. This server is modified to try new
	things, and the new starchart code goes particularly well
	there. The client should be stable on any server, but
	you'll find the new features not so useful without it.
	Additional information can be found in the subdirectory
	xsw.terminator.net for Terminus specifics. A new subdirectory
	called "doc" will have more current information. Although
	this was updated using g++ from the Redhat 7.1 stock
	compiler (sometimes known as 2.96), this will probably
	work fine on any system with modern STL support. Efforts
	will be made to get it to work on any UNIX-like system
	that has reasonable STL support (and namespaces). Linux
	in particular will get the most attention, it is what this
	is developed on. Data below this line is considered "old".

	FreeBSD Users: The following note concerns optional install
	location info. Please feel free to comment on this. Search
	through the client file Makefile.install.UNIX.in before
	using ./configure, find the note for FreeBSD; see also
	client/xsw.h. In the case of older FreeBSD versions, probably
	including versions 3.x and below, you will find your default
	g++ compiler version 2.72.x and below has broken namespaces.
	Extensive workarounds were attempted, but they failed. If
	you end up with a warning about "broken namespace" when
	compiling with these earlier versions, you are out of luck.
	In some cases you will find you also get errors concerning
	missing include file "hash_map"; should this occur, a regular
	map can be substituted, contact the developer email list
	if you need such a workaround (the cost is slower execution
	of some areas, probably not critical). The best thing to
	do though is to get a newer g++ and its related libstdc++.
	In reality, this note probably applies to non-FreeBSD systems
	as well, if they are out of date, and using g++ prior to
	version 2.72.x. Versions of FreeBSD 4.x and above should
	compile without problems.

	All users with newer libstdc++ will get a warning about some
	temp file functions that are "insecure" and should be
	replaced with newer versions. In this case, the functions
	work correctly, so it isn't a real problem. The security
	note concerns the ability of another user to predict the
	name of a temp file that is about to be opened, and to
	intercept the call in such a way that the permissions of
	the user running those functions get applied to the attacker.
	XSW does not use suid nor root permissions, and can be
	run fine as a non-privileged user. It isn't necessarily an
	easy thing to do to predict the temp file as is. These
	temp file functions will probably be replaced in the
	future, but it isn't an immediate concern. Warnings are
	known to occur on Redhat 7+, FreeBSD 4.1+, and very likely
	the latest releases of other distributions and systems
	that share a GNU libc heritage.

	C++ conversions to the XSW client and all directly related
	programs including SWServ. Thanks goes to Dan Stimits!

                                  ---

	Thanks to everyone contributing to the project! See the file
	CREDITS for details.

------------
INSTALLATION

	Read INSTALL for compiling and installation instructions.


--------
CONTACTS

	See http://wolfpack.twu.net/contacts.html for a list of
	developer's addresses.


---------
INVENTORY

	xsw#.##
	|
	+- client	XShipWars client.
	+- cygwin       Runtime files and libraries for cygwin.
	+- global	Global source files.
	+- include	Global include files.
	+- monitor	ShipWars Server Monitor.
	+- server	ShipWars Server.
	+- unvedit	Universe Editor.
	+- widgetdemo	Widget Test/Demo program.
	+- widgets	Widget source files.

                                                              ---------
                                                              XShipWars
