This is the README file for OurNet::BBSAgent, a scriptable 
telnet-based virtual user utility, by Elixir Group and OurInternet 
Inc.

* Installation

OurNet::BBSAgent uses the standard perl module install process:

perl Makefile.PL
make
make install

* Copyright

Copyright 2001 by Autrijus Tang <autrijus@autrijus.org>.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or 
modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

See <http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html>.

* Introduction

Besides static page-based sites, many Internet services needs to interact
with users, like BBS, IRC, ICQ and Telnet services. There are no "search
engines" or "portals" for these services, simply because it was very
difficult to automatically gather their contents, or to post data on them.

OurNet::BBSAgent provides an object-oriented interface to those services,
by simulating as a "virtual user" with action defined by a script language.
The developer could then use the same methods to access different services,
to easily implement interactive robots, spiders, or other cross-service
agents.

The scripting language of OurNet::BBSAgent is easy to learn, powerful, and
has both flow-control and event-driven capabilities. The engine also accepts
action scripts written in another language. Multiple agents could be
dispatched simultaneously with multi-threading support.
