[email protected]
10/29/92

Several people wonder out loud:

> Excuse me for not knowing, but what is CSO?

"What is CSO" �(short)

CSO (evidently shortened from "CCSO" at U. Illinois Urbana-Champaign, �
their computing services organization) is an electronic directory �
service, a queryable database containing information about people and �
things. �Lots of universities and organizations have set up CSO �
nameservers and loaded them up with student, faculty, and staff �
public information (things like e-mail address, campus address and �
phone, and things like that.

When you search some electronic phonebooks using Gopher, you are �
using CSO--the <phonebook> or (CSO) or "P" or little phonebook icon �
is the visual cue that you are dealing with a CSO nameserver.

You may have heard/read about "ph" and "qi" in addition to CSO. �They �
are all parts of the same system. �Ph is the client software that �
does the querying. �Qi is the server side.

If you want to take a look at the long version of this, I have put up �
U. Illinois' and Northwestern's CSO/Ph introductory documents on �
Notre Dame's gopher (gopher.nd.edu 70) in the "About the ND Gopher" �
directory. �I'll leave them there for a few days. �These documents �
are the text of what you would see if you queried the help system on �
either of these servers.

If there are other questions, perhaps they can come directly to me �
and not to this list since this _is_ supposed to be about Gopher �
stuff. �:-)

Joel
---
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joel P. Cooper � � � � � � � � � � � � Phone: 219-239-7221
Asst. Director, Networking Services � �Fax: � 219-239-8201
Office of University Computing � � � � Email: [email protected]
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN �46556
� � "Gentlemen! �You can't fight in here! �This is the War Room!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


========== COMMENTS ==========

CSO is perfectly relevant to gopher. �CSO
is one of the search mechanisms built into gopher. �
If you want to set up phone book searches in gopher,
CSO seems to be the method of choice.

-Dave
--
David Giller, Box 134 | Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light
Occidental College � �| bulb? �A: Three. �One to replace the bulb, and two to
1600 Campus Road � � �| fend off all the Californians trying to share the
Los Angeles, CA 90041 | experience. [email protected]


========== COMMENTS ==========

Gopher is a simple, easy-to-implement, probably kludgy, but certainly
efficient way to connect the numerous existing CSO/qi/ph servers to the
Internet. qi servers -- until gopher started to dig holes in people's
minds -- were bound to the organization they serve. With gopher, I can
readily find the address/phone-#/e-mail address of people I worked
with in Texas some years back. So can they.

That is basically what the X.500 people have been promising us for
years. There is one difference: Gopher works; X.500 works sometimes.

No religion wars! No Flames! We run a gopher server, qi server, _and_
an X.500 server. Thank you.

+-----------
� Andi Karrer, Communication Systems, ETH Zuerich, Switzerland
� [email protected] � �- Objects in mirror are closer than they appear


========== COMMENTS ==========

CSO is actually a misnomer. �Outside of Gopher, nobody refers to "ph
Nameservers" as "CSO's." In fact, here at the University of Illinois, where
the program was originally developed by Steven Dorner, �all references to "CSO"
have been changed to CCSO in the written documentation and online help. �The
term CCSO Nameserver refers specifically to the implementation of the qi/ph
programs here at the U of I, which are managed by our Computing and Com-
munications Services Office. �The rest of the world generally refers to the
program as "ph". �In fact there is a newsgroup for maintainers of ph databases
called info.ph (not info.cso). �I don't know why the Gopher folks decided to
call these directories "CSO's", but PH or Ph Servers would be more appropriate.
--
_________________________________________
Lynn Ward [email protected]
Network Design Office, 1541 DCL
244-0681