The AMPL processors and solvers in this directory are "student" versions that restrict problem sizes (to 300 variables and 300 general constraints) and are intended for noncommercial use. For serious commercial use, you should (eventually) license commercial versions, even if your applications never exceed the limits of the student versions. See the AMPL web site http://www.ampl.com for extensive information about AMPL, including descriptions of extensions available in current versions and pointers to information about other solvers. Files with names ending in ".gz" were compressed by gzip. In general, you need to decompress them and make them executable, e.g., by executing gzip -dN ampl.gz lpsolve.gz minos.gz chmod +x ampl lpsolve minos You may also need to move the files (using "mv" or "cp") to a directory on your search PATH. File ampl is a student version of the AMPL processor. File minos is a student version of MINOS (for use with ampl). For pointers and more details, see files README.1st and README.minos in directory /netlib/ampl/solvers/minos and see web page http://www.ampl.com/REFS/abstracts.html#ampl-minos . File lpsolve is a solver based on lp_solve, an LP and MIP solver by Michel Berkelaar. For pointers and more details, see /netlib/ampl/solvers/lpsolve/README. File snopt is a student version of SNOPT (for use with ampl). For pointers and more details, see file README in directory /netlib/ampl/solvers/snopt.