Editing Wide area information server (section)

== History ==
{{unreferenced section|date=March 2011}}
The WAIS protocol and servers were promoted by [[Thinking Machines Corporation]] (TMC) of [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]]. TMC-produced WAIS servers ran on their massively parallel CM-2 ([[Connection Machine]]) and [[SPARC]]-based CM-5 MP [[supercomputer]]s. WAIS clients were developed for various [[operating system]]s and [[windowing system]]s including [[Microsoft Windows]], [[Mac OS|Macintosh]], [[NeXT]], [[X Window System|X]], [[GNU Emacs]], and character terminals.<ref>{{cite journal
| last=Kahle
| first=Brewster
| author2=Morris, Harry
| author3=Goldman, Jonathan
| author4=Erickson, Thomas
| author5= Curran, John
| title=Interfaces for distributed systems of information servers
| journal=Journal of the American Society for Information Science
| year=1993
| volume=44
| issue=8
| pages=453–467
| doi=10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199309)44:8<453::AID-ASI4>3.0.CO;2-E}}</ref> TMC released a free [[open source software]] version of WAIS for [[Unix]] in 1991. 

Inspired by the WAIS project on full-text databases and emerging [[SGML]] projects, Z39.50 version 2 (Z39.50:1992) was released. Unlike its 1988 predecessor, it was a compatible superset of the international ISO 10162/10163 standard.

With the advent of Z39.50:1992, the termination of support for free WAIS by Thinking Machines and the establishment of WAIS Inc as a commercial venture, the U.S. [[National Science Foundation]] funded the [[Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval]] (CNIDR) to promote Internet search and discovery systems, open source and standards.<ref>{{cite web
| url=https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9216963
| title=Award Abstract #9216963: Clearinghouse for Network Information Discovery Retrieval
| publisher=National Science Foundation
| date=1992-11-13
| access-date=2016-03-29}}</ref>  CNIDR created a new, free open-source WAIS. This was the first freeWAIS based on the wais-8-b5 codebase of TMC, with a wholly new software suite [[Isite]] based upon Z39.50:1992 using [[Isearch]] as its full-text [[Search engine (computing)|search engine]].

Ulrich Pfeifer and Norbert Gövert of the computer science department of the [[University of Dortmund]] extended the CNIDR freeWAIS code to become freeWAIS-'''sf''' with '''s'''tructured '''f'''ields as its main improvement. Ulrich Pfeifer rewrote freeWAIS-sf in [[Perl]], becoming WAIT.

Inspired by WAIS' "Directory of Servers", [[Eliot Christian]] of [[USGS]] envisioned GILS: [[Government Information Locator Service]]. GILS (based upon Z39.50:1992 with some extensions) became a U.S. Federal mandate as part of the [[Paperwork Reduction Act|Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995]] ({{usc|44|3511}}).