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*V.E.R.A. -- Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms*

V.E.R.A. is a free list of acronyms all of which are used in the field
of computing.

V.E.R.A. is primarily meant to be used as an online reference, although
some efforts have been taken to make its TeX output looking acceptable.
However I doubt that somebody would like to print it.  The original
release compiled to 250 pages.

This edition is a special contribution to the GNU project similar to
the version 5.8 of V.E.R.A.  It contains approximately 8914 acronyms.

The idea to make V.E.R.A. available in Texinfo format came after reading
two other Info files both of which are available on the Internet, the
_Standards_ and the _Languages_ file, both dealing with antique DEC
mainframe environments and both distributed stand-alone; that is, both
are not serving as a software manual like most of Texinfo files. I
thought it would be very handy to have a list of acronyms available
while using Emacs.

It may be considered only a very little contribution.  However I make
it to express my appreciation for the GNU project and its philosophy.
This project does not only make software available free to everyone, it
also seems that it sets the only standard `everyone' supports nowadays.

I started V.E.R.A. around easter 1993.  The ASCII version is being
posted to the German=speaking newsgroups _z-netz.alt.listen_ and
_de.etc.lists_ every three months.  It is not being posted to an
international newsgroup, because the introduction as well as many
internal references are only available in German.

Please note that the original version of V.E.R.A. is not related to the
to the Free Software Foundation or the GNU project at all.

The list is far from being complete as dozens of new acronyms evolve
every month.  Also I am not an every day Unix user, so I am pretty sure
that a lot of acronyms from the Unix world are missing.  The same is
true for the Apple world.  Please don't be angry if your field of
computing seems little or not represented at all. Instead please
consider contributing the missing acronyms to let other people share
what you know.

The shift from the original format of V.E.R.A. to Texinfo format took a
whole week.  Please forgive any errors which still remain.  For hints
how to submit corrections or to report bugs, please see Note: History.

For a more in-depth discussion of some of the more common acronyms
contained in this document you may want to consider visiting the _Free
Online Dictionary of Computing (FOLDOC)_, at least if you have access
to the World Wide Web.  It can be found at
http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc (as of June 2001).