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DevelopmentAdobe donates Flash Player Scripting Engine to MozillaDuring the 2006 Web 2.0 Summit, Adobe Systems Incorporated and the Mozilla Foundation jointly announced the contribution of the source code for the Adobe ActionScript Virtual Machine, a component of the Adobe Flash Player, to the Mozilla Foundation. The software will be renamed the Tamarin Project and will be released under the standard Mozilla tri-license set (MPL/GPL/LGPL). From the announcement:
The Tamarin project will implement the final version of the ECMAScript Edition 4 standard language, which Mozilla will use within the next generation of SpiderMonkey, the core JavaScript engine embedded in Firefox®, Mozillas free Web browser. As of today, developers working on SpiderMonkey will have access to the Tamarin code in the Mozilla CVS repository via the project page located at www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/ . Contributions to the code will be managed by a governing body of developers from both Adobe and Mozilla.
Adobes work on the new virtual machine is the largest contribution to the Mozilla Foundation since its inception, said Brendan Eich, chief technology officer, Mozilla Corporation, and creator of JavaScript. Now web developers have a high-performance, open source virtual machine for building and deploying interactive applications across both Adobe Flash Player and the Firefox web browser. Were excited about joining the Adobe and Mozilla communities to advance ECMAScript. The aim of Tamarin is to create a standard scripting language for running interactive applications, Tamarin will work on both the Firefox browser and Adobe Flash Player. Tamarin will adhere to an Ecma International standard. The Tamarin Project's main page states:
The goal of the "Tamarin" project is to implement a high-performance, open source implementation of the ECMAScript 4th edition (ES4) language specification. The Tamarin virtual machine will be used by Mozilla within SpiderMonkey, the core JavaScript engine embedded in Firefox®, and other products based on Mozilla technology. The code will continue to be used by Adobe as part of the ActionScript(tm) Virtual Machine within Adobe® Flash® Player.
The Tamarin FAQ suggests that Tamarin will improve the performance of the Firefox browser:
AVM2, as currently shipping in Adobe Flash Player 9, was built from the ground up to work with the next generation of ActionScript. The new virtual machine is designed to deliver the performance and features to support the needs of rich Internet application developers. Source code from AVM2 being contributed to the Tamarin project implements ECMAScript 4th edition language features such as namespaces, classes, and optional strongly typed variables, and includes a Just In Time (JIT) compiler that translates ActionScript bytecode to native machine code for maximum execution speed.
and:
Adobe's contribution of source code from the ActionScript Virtual Machine to the Tamarin project accelerates the ability of developers to create and deliver richer, more interactive and engaging experiences that work across multiple platforms. Specifically, developers will be able to leverage the Tamarin code to create web applications that perform much faster in Firefox.
The FAQ also spells out the differences between JavaScript and ActionScript:
ActionScript and JavaScript are based on the same ECMA-262, 3rd edition language standard, but the libraries supporting ActionScript and JavaScript are different.
For example, JavaScript is generally used within a browser and its Document Object Model (DOM) is browser window-, document-, and form-centric, while also supporting XML, event handling and Ajax. ActionScript executes within the Adobe Flash Player and its DOM is media centric, with support for animations, audio, text, and event handling.
A Linux branch of Tamarin has not yet been created, but should be available in several weeks. It will take a while before Tamarin is incorporated into Firefox, the current plan is for a release in 2008. Tamarin should be a truly useful addition to the long list of Mozilla projects. See the initial LWN announcement for ongoing comments.
System Applications Database Software MySQL 5.1.12 Beta releasedVersion 5.1.12 Beta of the MySQL DBMS is available for testing. "Be it that this is a Beta release, there are several incompatible changes that have happened since last release, and there's a tremendous amount of bug fixes--way too many to mention here (more than 500). We're providing a detailed list at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/news-5-1-12.html".
PostgreSQL Weekly NewsThe November 5, 2006 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with the latest PostgreSQL DBMS articles and resources.
Embedded Systems BusyBox 1.2.2.1 releasedVersion 1.2.2.1 of BusyBox is out with the following change: "Added compile-time warning that static linking against glibc produces buggy executables."
LDAP Software LAT 1.3.1 announcedVersion 1.3.1 of LAT, the LDAP Administration Tool, is out. "This is the new development branch that will eventually become 1.4."
Mail Software Mailfromd 3.0 releasedStable version 3.0 of Mailfromd is available. "Mailfromd is a general-purpose mail filtering daemon for Sendmail. It is able to filter both incoming and outgoing messages using criteria of arbitrary complexity, supplied by the administrator in the form of a script file. The program interfaces with Sendmail using Milter protocol. Mailfromd provides the following basic features: flexible programming language for writing filter scripts, sender address verification, greylisting and whitelisting, controlling mail sending rate."
Networking Tools OpenSSH 4.5 releasedOpenSSH 4.5 has been released. This is a bug fix release, which includes a fix for a bug in the sshd privilege separation monitor.
Printing CUPS 1.2.6 releasedVersion 1.2.6 of the Common UNIX Printing System has been announced. "CUPS 1.2.6 fixes some compile errors, localization of the web interface on Mac OS X, bugs in the lpc and lpstat commands, and backchannel support in the parallel backend."
Virtualization Software Linux-VServer 2.1.1 development release availableThe Linux-VServer project has announced the availability of the 2.1.1 development release. There's a lot of new stuff in this one, including a new CPU scheduler, a number of new accounting options, a couple more supported filesystems, and more; click below for the details.
Web Site Development DataparkSearch 4.43 releasedStable version 4.43 of DataparkSearch has been announced. "DataparkSearch is an Internet and Intranet search engine tool."
Zope NewsThe October 1-31, 2006 edition of Zope News is out with the latest Zope web development platform information.
Miscellaneous Cosmo 0.5 announcedVersion 0.5 of Cosmo is out with new features and bug fixes. "Cosmo is a calendar server. With your favorite calendar program (Chandler, Apple iCal, Mozilla Sunbird, or any other WebDAV or CalDAV enabled client), you can share your calendar with other people by publishing it to Cosmo. Once your calendar is stored in the server, others can subscribe to it and even modify it, if you have given them permission."
Desktop Applications Audio Applications Alpha release of Aliki announcedAn alpha release of Aliki, a software package for room impulse response measurement, is out. "This is basically the code used at the LAC2006 workshop, cleaned up a b[i]t."
Ardour 2.0 beta 7.1 releasedVersion 2.0 beta 7.1 of Ardour, a multi-track audio recording and editing package, is out. "After a frenetic week or two of activity, many fixes to the biggest problems seen in beta6 have been completed, and work on the backlog of issues in the bugtracker has commenced. This means you can now get 2.0 beta 7.1 as a tarball release."
Snd-ls 0.9.7.7 and Ceres V0.46 announcedA dual release of Snd-ls 0.9.7.7, a distribution of the sound editor SND and Ceres 0.46, a sound effect and sonogram display program, has been announced.
Desktop Environments Dropline GNOME 2.16.1 released (GnomeDesktop)GnomeDesktop has announced the availability of version 2.16.1 of dropline GNOME, a GNOME distribution for Slackware Linux. "There have been several changes since our previous major release. As part of our efforts to slim things down, the total number of packages has been decreased by almost 13%. This was possible by eliminating rebuilds of several packages that are now included in Slackware by default, and restructuring the multimedia framework to eliminate several libraries that we felt werent needed. Additionally, weve also made the decision to discontinue the inclusion of a custom X11 build with this release, as weve found that Slackwares X11 6.9.0 build was more than suitable."
GNOME Software AnnouncementsThe following new GNOME software has been announced this week:
KDE Software AnnouncementsThe following new KDE software has been announced this week:
Second KDE 4 Developers Snapshot Available (KDE.News)KDE.News has announced the availability of the second KDE 4 developers snapshot. "This 3.80.2 release includes source from all the KDE modules. Application developers are strongly advised to work primarily on KDE 4 from now on. This release builds with Qt 4.2.0 and 4.2.1 (but not the 4.2 preview). Packages are available for Kubuntu and currently working through the SUSE buildservice."
KDE Commit-Digest (KDE.News)The November 5, 2006 edition of the KDE Commit-Digest has been announced. The content summary says: "Work on porting kdegames applications to SVG and other general improvements continues at a fast pace. Work continues on video support in KPhotoAlbum. Krita gets a new star shape tool. Okular gets support for freehand ink overlays in presentation mode. Kate gets syntax highlighting support for ActionScript and RapidQ code. Mailody continues to mature as an alternative email client. Strigi refactors to allow searching within multiple simultaneous indexes, with preliminary interoperability with Akonadi on the horizon."
Xfce 4.4 Release Candidate 2 releasedRelease Candidate 2 of Xfce 4.4 has been announced. "The second and hopefully last release candidate of the Xfce 4.4 desktop is now available for download. This release focuses primarily on bug fixes and optimizations." See the changelog for more information.
Electronics USB FPGA Board 0.1 announcedVersion 0.1 of the USB FPGA Board has been announced. "The USB FPGA Project is a set of tools that can be used to interface the PC with other hardware development boards through USB. Currently a couple different FPGA prototype boards are supported. The focus is to design and develop USB FPGA projects, providing a PC interface to different USB FPGA designs. On this site PC software, USB controller firmware, FPGA HDL, and other embedded firmware can be found."
Games Stars above us (WorldForge)The WorldForge virtual world project has announced the addition of a sky display. "Something that Embers been missing for a long time now is a dynamic sky. Instead it has had a static sky, with a static sun, always shown as middle of the day. However, through the addition of the Caelum project from the Ogre community Ember now finally has a dynamic sky."
GUI Packages PyQt v4.1 ReleasedVersion 4.1 of PyQt, the Python bindings for Qt v4, is available. Changes include support for Qt 4.2, a new QtTest module and more.
XCB 1.0 release candidate 3 now availableRelease candidate 3 of XCB 1.0 is out with bug fixes and other enhancements. "libxcb provides an interface to the X Window System protocol, slated to replace the current Xlib interface. It has several advantages over Xlib".
Medical Applications OpenEMR vulnerability disclosed (LinuxMedNews)LinuxMedNews mentions that a security vulnerability has been found in the OpenEMR medical record system. "Apparently, there are several places in OpenEMR where there is an unchecked GET parameter passed in. So OpenEMR is expecting a value on the local filesystem, however, you can pass in a URL for unexpected results."
Office Suites OpenOffice.org NewsletterThe October, 2006 edition of the OpenOffice.org Newsletter is online with the latest OpenOffice.org office suite developments.
Languages and Tools Caml Caml Weekly NewsThe November 7, 2006 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new Caml language articles.
Haskell Haskell Weekly NewsThe November 8, 2006 edition of the Haskell Weekly News is online. This week brings a new release of SmallCheck and Hoogle, as well as the revival of the Monad.Reader.
Java Advanced Java Content Repository API (O'Reilly)Sunil Patil introduces the Java Content Repository API on O'Reilly. "Java Content Repository (JCR) API, specified as JSR-170, is an attempt to standardize an API used for accessing content repositories. In this article, we'll talk about the advanced and optional features defined in the JCR API. We assume that you're already familiar with basic features of JCR--such as how to add a new node or property, how to configure Apache Jackrabbit, etc."
Lisp McCLIM 0.9.3 releasedVersion 0.9.3 of McCLIM, an open-source implementation of the CLIM 2 (Common Lisp Interface Manager) specification, is out with a new gtkairo backend, new features and bug fixes.
Perl Fun with Cross-Platform Shared Libraries (O'Reilly)chromatic discusses the use of Perl and cross-platform shared libraries in an O'Reilly article. "I have a little project called Parrot::Embed. Its a Perl 5 extension that makes Parrot available to Perl 5 programs. Parrot makes a shared library called libparrot. The actual parrot executable is usually just a little program which uses this shared library. This is very handy for my extension; I can use all of the public functions in the shared library myself. Actually building this code is trickier than it should be, however. Linking Perl 5 to libparrot requires a little bit of C code, itself a shared library that perl can load through the DynaLoader module. Thats easy and handy and even though I know how it works, I dont need to know how it works in order to use it. When Parrot::Embed loads, it attempts to load libparrot and thats where my troubles begin. Why?"
Weekly Perl 6 mailing list summary (O'Reilly)The Weekly Perl 6 mailing list summary for October 29 - November 4, 2006 is out with coverage of the Perl 6 mailing lists.
PHP PHP 5.2.0 releasedVersion 5.2.0 of PHP has been announced. "This release is a major improvement in the 5.X series, which includes a large number of new features, bug fixes and security enhancements." See the release announcement for more information.
Python PyEnchant 1.2.0 releasedVersion 1.2.0 of PyEnchant has been announced, it includes several new capabilities. "Enchant is the spellchecking package behind the AbiWord word processor, is being considered for inclusion in the KDE office suite, and is proposed as a FreeDesktop.org standard. It's completely cross-platform because it wraps the native spellchecking engine to provide a uniform interface. PyEnchant brings this simple, powerful and flexible spellchecking engine to Python".
python-dev SummaryThe python-dev Summary is out with coverage of the python-dev mailing list for the period of September 1-15, 2006.
python-dev SummaryThe python-dev Summary is out with coverage of the python-dev mailing list for the period of September 16-30, 2006.
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!The November 7, 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 November 7, 2006 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is online with new Tcl/Tk articles and resources.
XML Migrating to XForms (O'Reilly)Paul Sobocinski works with XForms on O'Reilly's XML.com. "Paul Sobocinski explains how to start using XForms now by showing PHP code that will convert from XHTML to XForms and back to XHTML."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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