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DevelopmentThe first modular release of the X Window systemX11R7.1, the "First Modular Source Code Roll-up Release of the X Window System", has been announced by the X.Org Foundation.![[X.Org]](/images/ns/xorglogo.png)
The Modular concept of X11R7 is explained:
All X11R7.0 derivative ("modularized") releases divide the source code into
logically distinct modules, separately developed, built, and maintained by
the community of X.Org developers. This concentrates and accelerates
development time, supporting continuous modification, testing, and
publication of each module.The new modular format offers focused
development, and rapid and independent updates and distribution of tested
modular components as they are ready, freed from the biennial maintenance
release timetable. These changes in source code management, giving openness
and transparency to the source code base and employing current technology,
invite a new generation of developers to contribute, building on the long
tradition of the X Window System.
The X11R7.1 release notes detail the recent changes to the new release, they include:
Major releases of X11 are scheduled for six month intervals. X11R7.2 should come out "around November" of 2006. The detailed release schedule mentions the target dates for the upcoming X11R7.2 release candidates. The changes for X11R7.2 document lists what is to come in the next release. Planned changes include support for new platforms, the addition of new run-time configurable variables, changes to the loader mechanism, expansion of the Xinerama extension, deprecation of unused features, general code cleanup and bug fixes. Congratulations go to the X.Org team for keeping this complicated and critical piece of software up to date with the evolving hardware and software needs.
System Applications Database Software PostgreSQL Weekly NewsThe May 21, 2006 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with the latest PostgreSQL DBMS articles and resources.
Embedded Systems BusyBox 1.1.3 releasedStable version 1.1.3 of BusyBox, a condensed collection of command line utilities for embedded system, is out. "BusyBox 1.1.3 is another bugfix release. It makes passwd use salt, fixes a memory freeing bug in ls, fixes "build all sources at once" mode, makes mount -a not abort on the first failure, fixes msh so ctrl-c doesn't kill background processes, makes patch work with patch hunks that don't have a timestamp, make less's text search a lot more robust (the old one could segfault), and fixes readlink -f when built against uClibc."
Printing Common UNIX Printing System 1.2.1 announcedVersion 1.2.1 of CUPS, the Common UNIX Printing System, has been announced. "CUPS 1.2.1 fixes several build, platform, and printing bugs."
Telecom Nokia releases 'Web Browser for S60' codeNokia has announced the release of its "S60 WebKit" under the BSD license. "Nokia's open sourcing of the engine to its high-performance S60 mobile browser, which replicates on handheld devices the true web-page rendering of complete desktop browsers, marks the start of a collaborative open source effort that will enable smartphone users industry-wide to push beyond the millions of mobile-friendly pages currently on the web and begin to experience full web browsing of the estimated 25 billion pages on the Internet today."
Web Site Development DataparkSearch Engine 4.39 releasedVersion 4.39 of DataparkSearch Engine is available. "DataparkSearch Engine is a full-featured open sources web-based search engine released under the GNU General Public License and designed to organize search within a website, group of websites, intranet or local system. DataparkSearch consists of two parts. The first part is indexing mechanism (indexer). Indexer walks over html hypertext references and stores found words and new references into database. The second part is web CGI front-end to provide search using data collected by indexer."
Miscellaneous HylaFAX 4.3.0 releasedVersion 4.3.0 of HylaFAX, a fax modem control application, has been announced. "This release introduces several powerful new features to HylaFAX, and so we encourage you to check it out. No release would be complete without bugfixes of course, and this one has plenty. As always, our sincerest thanks go to all who participate in the development and testing process."
Desktop Applications Audio Applications amaroK 1.4: Rediscover More of Your Music (KDE.News)KDE.News has the release announcement for amaroK 1.4, dubbed "fast forward." "Fast Forward comes with improved media device support, featuring enhanced iPod support that handles the latest iPod devices, support for IFP/IRiver devices, a new plugin for generic media devices, and the ability to handle as many of these devices as you'd like." There's a lot more, see the "what's new" page for a full list.
aubio 0.3.0 releasedVersion 0.3.0 of aubio, an audio labeling library, is out with new features and documentation. "aubio is a library for audio labelling. The goal of this project is to provide automatic feature extraction algorithms to other audio software projects. Features include onset detection, beat tracking, and pitch detection. Functions can be used offline in sound editors and software samplers, or online in audio effects and virtual instruments."
Sonic Visualiser 0.9 announcedChris Cannam has announced version 0.9 of his Sonic Visualiser project. "Sonic Visualiser contains advanced waveform and spectrogram viewers, as well as editors for many sorts of audio annotations. Besides visualisation, it can make and play selections based on the locations of automatically detected features, seamlessly loop playback of single or multiple noncontiguous regions, synthesise annotations for playback, and slow down playback while retaining display synchronisation."
CAD PythonCAD 31 releasedRelease 31 of PythonCAD, a scriptable drafting program, has been announced. "The latest release features improvements to the entity splitting code and a new split operation, automatic entity splitting. The splitting code has been rewritten which fixed several bugs while making the code simpler and clearer to understand. The new autosplitting code is a feature that, when activated, will make the program split existing entities in a drawing when a newly added point lands on the entity."
Data Visualization Asymptote 1.05 released (SourceForge)Version 1.05 of Asymptote is out with lots of new features. "Asymptote is powerful script-based vector graphics language for technical drawing, inspired by MetaPost but with an improved C++-like syntax. Asymptote provides for figures the same high-quality level of typesetting that LaTeX does for scientific text."
PLplot Bug Fix Release 5.6.1 announcedBug fix release 5.6.1 of PLplot, a data plotting application, has been announced. "This release corrects a number of outstanding issues with plplot that were discovered subsequent to the 5.6.0 release. It represents the ongoing efforts of the community to improve the PLplot plotting package."
Desktop Environments GNOME 2.15.2 ReleasedVersion 2.15.2 of GNOME has been announced "This is our second development release on our road towards GNOME 2.16.0, which will be released in September 2006. GNOME 2.15.2 works well and you should definitely try it to see how well it works."
GARNOME 2.15.2 announcedVersion 2.15.2 of GARNOME, the bleeding edge GNOME distribution, is out. "This is the second release in the unstable cycle, with more features, more fixes and yet more madness added. It is for anyone who wants to get his hands dirty on the development branch, or who'd like to get a peek at future features. If you want to help spot issues in GARNOME, (or, better yet, fix 'em ;-) this release is for you as well."
GNOME Software AnnouncementsThe following new GNOME software has been announced this week:
KDE Software AnnouncementsThe following new KDE software has been announced this week:
KDE e.V. Quarterly report Q1 2006 published (KDE.News)KDE.News has the announcement of the latest quarterly report from KDE e.V. [PDF]. It covers a wide range of activities within the KDE community, including the creation of a number of working groups, trademark management, and more.
KDE Commit-Digest (KDE.News)KDE.News has announced the availability of the May 21, 2006 KDE Commit-Digest. "In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Huge optimisations in ksysguard. Solid switches to CMake. aRts, KPDF removed in trunk/, whilst oKular continues to be developed as its replacement. amaroK gets support for Creative Zen devices. coreapps/ module created (as proposed on kde-core-devel). More work on supporting Intel compilers."
Desktop Publishing jLibrary 1.0 released (SourceForge)Version 1.0 of jLibrary has been announced. "jLibrary 1.0 final has been released. jLibrary is the first Open Source Document Management System based on Eclipse Rich Client Platform. It uses a backend based on the JSR-170 reference implementation, Apache Jackrabbit, and can run on any J2EE compliant application server like jboss, Geronimo, or even Apache Tomcat."
Electronics Gnucap 0.34 announcedVersion 0.34 of Gnucap, the Gnu Circuit Analysis Package, has been announced. "This is primarily a bug fix and compatibility release."
Financial Applications SQL-Ledger 2.6.11 is outVersion 2.6.11 of SQL-Ledger, a web-based accounting system, has been announced. It features a fix to the purchase order date code.
Games EntityForge 0.2.2 releasedVersion 0.2.2 of EntityForge, a 3D graphical media display, animation and manipulation tool from the WorldForge game project, has been announced. "The code has been updated for the latest versions of cal3d, gtkglextmm and sigc++."
GUI Packages The Gideon Designer projectThe Gideon Designer GTK+ GUI builder project will offer new language support. "Gideon Designer will support languages other than C++. This will be achieved by means of a new language-independent library, GuiLoader, and its language bindings. The library is intended to parse GuiXml files (Gideon save format) and create widgets at run-time by request of a client application."
PythonCard 0.8.2 announcedVersion 0.8.2 of PythonCard, a cross-platform Python GUI designer, has been announced. "Release 0.8.2 includes over 50 sample applications and tools to help users build applications in Python, including codeEditor, findfiles, and resourceEditor (layout editor). New samples include a US-UK converter and a Sudoku solver. There are a new set of "convenience" functions to assist is creating pop-up menus and some commonly used custom dialogs (usage of these is demonstrated in the Sudoku sample, as well as in a new sample "helpful wrappers")..."
Imaging Applications Xara Xtreme LX 0.5 releasedVersion 0.5 of the Xara Xtreme drawing tool (briefly reviewed here last March) is now out. "There has been substantial progress since the previous 0.4 stable release. All tools are now fully functional with most menu options and some galleries also completed. Xara recently passed build number 1000, representing more than 1000 patches, submissions and fixes to the public code repository."
Interoperability Wine 0.9.13 releasedVersion 0.9.13 of Wine has been announced. Changes include: New GPhoto backend for TWAIN, Dynamic drive configuration using HAL, A gazillion Direct3D fixes, New TCP transport for RPC and Lots of bug fixes.
Announcing Wine-doors (GnomeDesktop)GnomeDesktop.org has an announcement for the new Wine-doors project. Wine-doors allows Win32 applications to be run on Unix through the wine compatibility layer. "Wine-doors provides a yum style interface for management of windows applications and libraries on UNIX, allowing the user to specify multiple repositories and retrieve information about applications before installing them using xml descriptions in PackLists and ApplicationPacks. Wine-doors also keeps track of installed applications and allows the community to manage ApplicationPacks to ensure smooth installation and execution on linux also providing desktop entries ensuring adequete shell integration with the gnome/kde desktops."
Medical Applications Eclipse Open Healthcare Framework (LinuxMedNews)LinuxMedNews looks at the Eclipse Open Healthcare Framework project. "Eclipse is a highly regarded Free and Open Source, cross-platform, Java-centric, Integrated Development Environment (IDE). According to the project proposal page the goal of OHF: '...is to extend the Eclipse Platform to create an open-source framework for building interoperable, extensible healthcare systems. We also intend to develop a complementary set of exemplary tools. OHF will enable software providers and integrators to cost-effectively create customized offerings for healthcare delivery organizations that comply with government regulations and industry standards."
Office Suites KOffice 1.5.1 Released (KDE.News)KDE.News has an announcement for KOffice 1.5.1. "The KOffice team today released the first bug-fix release in their 1.5 series. Critical bugs in KSpread, KWord and Krita were fixed, thanks to the helpful input of our users. We also have updated languages packs."
Video Applications The first Schroedinger Dirac alpha releaseThe first alpha release of the Dirac codec - a free, high-quality video codec developed by the BBC - is available. "Be aware that the files created by the encoder is not 100% valid Dirac files so any files created at this point might not work with future versions of the decoder or with other decoder implementations like the C++ one from the BBC. Be also aware that performance is slow at this point as very little optimization work is done so only high performance computers will be able to playback created files smoothly." The codec is licensed under the MPL, the GPL, the LGPL, and the MIT license, so there should be a satisfactory choice for almost anybody.
Miscellaneous pari 2.3.0 releasedStable version 2.3.0 of pari, a cross-platform computer algebra system, is available. "This is a major STABLE release, ending the 2.2.* development cycle, which started about 5 years ago. For those still using pari-2.1.*, it is time to upgrade !"
Languages and Tools Caml Caml Weekly NewsThe May 23, 2006 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new Caml language articles.
Java GCJ NewsThe latest changes to GCJ, the GNU Compiler for Java, include support for the HP-UX PA platform and support for the GNU Classpath 0.91 library.
SwingSet 1.0.0-PR3 ReleasedVersion 1.0.0-PR3 of SwingSet, an open-source Java toolkit with standard Java Swing component replacements, is out. "SwingSet 1.0.0 Preview Release 3 is the first new release of SwingSet in over a year. This release adds extra functions to the SSDBNav interface to give more control to the programmer to create & manage different events on the DataNavigator. A number of new classes have also been added in the formatting package, and work continues to finalize & document this package and its subpackages."
Harmony project to get a Swing/AWT implementationThe Harmony Project - which just saw its first birthday - is working to develop an entirely free Java implementation. At JavaOne, Harmony hacker Geir Magnusson announced that Harmony is about to received a substantial code donation from Intel: a complete implementation of the Swing/AWT user interface toolkits. This code takes Harmony much closer to its goal of creating a fully compatible Java environment. (See also: Danese Cooper's post on Sun and Java).
PHP PHP Yadis Library 1.0.0-pre2 releasedVersion 1.0.0-pre2 of the PHP Yadis Library has been announced. "This release includes bug-fixes and more unit tests."
Python Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!The May 22, 2006 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! is online with a new collection of Python article links.
Tcl/Tk Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!The May 22, 2006 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is online with new Tcl/Tk articles and resources.
XML Dynamic News Stories (O'Reilly)Adrian Holovaty uses XML to format news stories. "I like structured data. My favorite projects tend to be those that deal with, and exploit, structured information: events, restaurants, crime, and political information. But one thing that's always bothered me is that the bread-and-butter of my chosen field, journalism, is relentlessly unstructured. The primary product of journalists -- the news story -- is just a giant blob of text."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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