           SPELL=openthreads
         VERSION=1.2dev2
          SOURCE=OpenThreads-v$VERSION-osg0.9.5.tar.gz
SOURCE_DIRECTORY=$BUILD_DIRECTORY/OpenThreads
   SOURCE_URL[0]=$SOURCEFORGE_URL/$SPELL/$SOURCE
          MD5[0]=94f7e531b8af67682cb0a7656f5058c1
        WEB_SITE=http://openthreads.sourceforge.net/
         ENTERED=20031208
         UPDATED=20031208
      LICENSE[0]=LGPL
       BUILD_API=2
           SHORT="Minimal and complete Object-Oriented thread interface for C++ programmers"
cat << EOF
This library is intended to provide a minimal & complete Object-Oriented (OO) thread interface for C++ programmers.  It is loosely 
modeled on the Java thread API, and the POSIX Threads standards.  The architecture of the library is designed around "swappable" 
thread models which are defined at compile-time in a shared object library.  It is of importance to note that while a factory 
pattern design could have been used to achieve the goal of genaric interface, it would have required the programmer to allocate 
each of the 4 fundemental types (Thread, Mutex, Barrier, & Condition ) on the heap.  Due to the cost associated with heap 
allocation of the underlying concrete implementations of these constructs on some platforms, such allocation was deemed 
unacceptable at the time this library was originally written, and thus the factory pattern was not used.

Instead, a somewhat obtuse - but effective - technique was chosen to provide the necessary data/implementation hiding.  This 
technique uses private void pointers to encapsulate object private data.  The void pointers actually point at concrete data 
structures, but give a uniform interface to the dso.
 
It is the intent of the Open Thread Group that the interfaces (header files)  will be used to construct optimized implementations 
using platform optimized multi-processing constructs such as the sproc methods used on IRIX & Windows (tm) threads on that Seattle 
based platform.  There are currently concrete implementations using both POSIX and Mircrosoft Windows (tm) Threads in CVS.
EOF
