Morale.pm README
1999-06-27
Gregor N. Purdy


INTRODUTION

This module is used to manage morale files and tkmorale is a graphical
interface to individual morale setting and group morale calculation.
The underlying idea is that the members of a group of people can
reflect their current individual morale levels and then anyone in the
group can get a feeling of the overall group morale.

A history of the idea is available by running perldoc Morale. This
also includes some aspects of the original implementation not yet
present in this implementation, such as the ability to have your
personal morale actually be (semi-) private.

Thanks to E. Denning ``Denny'' Dahl for the original idea and the
historical writeup present in the documentation. I first heard of the idea
while having dinner with Denny at the Deerfield, Illinois Macaroni Grille
on 1999-04-28.


INSTALLATION

The following standard sequence of actions will build, test, and install
Morale.pm and the tkmorale program:

    perl Makefile.PL
    make
    make test
    make install

If you want to install them to a different location, then use the PREFIX=
option to the first command. For instance, to install Morale.pm into
~/lib/perl5/.../ and tkmorale into ~/bin/, use the following command to
replace the first command above:

    perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=~


USAGE

After installation, simply have each user run tkmorale, stand back, and watch
what happens!

The documentation may be viewed by running:

	perldoc Morale


FUTURE

In addition to matching more closely the specification laid out in the
historical note in the documentation of Morale.pm, the following are
some additional ideas from my notes of 1999-04-30:

	Scan the password database, grabbing users and groups. Check ~user/.morale,
	~user/.plan (?) for morale info. Make sure it is between 0 and 100, if it
	is set. Allow messages, too? Also, /var/morale/users/user.

	Make sure the file is owned by the user, and writable only by the user.
	If there is to be a master summarizer, and you want the have the users make
	their morale files only readable by themselves, too (for anonymity), then
	the summarizer would have to run as root.

	The summarizer could be a deamon that runs periodically and writes various
	reports (/var/morale/reports/*): total, total by group, %responding, %illegal
	response, response age. Use groups to differentiate, e.g., staff vs. management
	morale.

	/var/morale/config: users to skip (like root and app users like oracle), and
	groups, too. List of morale categories.

	Morale in general, and/or morale by categories (projects)?

	libmorale.a, so that other programs, not necessarily perl-based, can access
	morale info? Then, build Morale.pm on top of it, and build non-tk non-perl
	interfaces, like a base x windows, or gtk or qt version of the gui. Some of
	these would be great projects for interested parties to contribute to the
	package.

And, finally, from my notes of 1999-06-11:

	The Perl Cookbook, page 564 gives a technique for dealing with /etc/passwd
	vs. ypcat passwd switching for processing the password database for user
	information.


COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 1999-2001 Gregor N. Purdy. All rights reserved.

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

