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DevelopmentThe Synfig 2D Animation packageSynfig is a 2D vector animation film production system that runs under Linux, MacOS X and Windows. The Synfig project overview and history explains:
Synfig is a powerful, industrial-strength vector-based 2D animation software package, designed from the ground-up for producing feature-film quality animation with fewer people and resources. While there are many other programs currently on the market to aid with the efficient production of 2D animation, we are currently unaware of any other software that can do what our software can.
![[Synfig]](/images/ns/synfig.png)
One of the major and unique design goals of Synfig was to automate the “tweening” process, which involves smoothing out the coarse transitions from one image to the next. Synfig started off as a commercial application. Primary developer Robert Quattlebaum's company Voria Studios, LLC released the software as open-source under the GNU GPL in early 2006. A January, 2006 OSNews interview with Quattlebaum covers the reasons behind this decision in more detail. Synfig version 0.61.06 was recently announced: "It is the result of more than a year of contributions by the free software community. It has far fewer bugs, several usability enhancements, a set of new Tango-styled icons and other improvements." A Linux screenshot shows the application's user interface. A few short animation clips are available on the Synfig gallery, they can be viewed with the MPlayer utility. Additional demos have been posted on YouTube. The quality of the demos shows that the software is indeed able to produce useful animation. Synfig is available for download in source and package form here. There are a number of tutorials available for learning to use Synfig. The project is currently looking for assistance in the areas of C++ programming, art and documentation. Interested people should take part in the July 28, 2007 IRC meeting.
System Applications Database Software Firebird 2.1 beta 1 releasedVersion 2.1 beta 1 of the Firebird DBMS has been announced. "This is the first Beta build of the Firebird version 2.1 series. It is for FIELD TESTING ONLY and should not be put into production systems."
MySQL 5.1.20-beta has been releasedVersion 5.1.20-beta of the MySQL DBMS is out. "This release includes a security fix for Bug#25578 and Bug#23667: CREATE TABLE LIKE did not require any privileges on the source table."
PostgreSQL Weekly NewsThe July 8, 2007 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with the latest PostgreSQL DBMS articles and resources.
Embedded Systems BusyBox 1.6.1 releasedStable version 1.6.1 of BusyBox, a collection of command line utilities for embedded systems, is out. "This is a bugfix-only release, with fixes to echo, hush, and wget."
Interoperability Samba Adopts GPLv3 for Future ReleasesJeremy Allison has announced that future releases of Samba will be licensed under the GPLv3. "To allow people to distinguish which Samba version is released with the new GPLv3 license, we are updating our next version release number. The next planned version release was to be 3.0.26, this will now be renumbered so the GPLv3 version release will be 3.2.0."
Web Site Development Django status update: July 8For the latest news on Django, a Python-based web platform, see the July 8, 2007 edition of the Django status update.
Zope 3.4.0b1 releasedVersion 3.4.0b1 of the Zope web development platform is out. "This release is the first beta release for Zope 3.4.0. It was preceeded by an alpha release in April. Since the beta we finished repackaging of eggs, added three new features and fixed more than 12 bugs, please see the change log for details. Zope 3.4 introduces support for binary large objects in the ZODB, provides a new postprocessing hook for publishing results and makes all Zope packages available as Python eggs."
Desktop Applications Audio Applications Aqualung 0.9beta8 releasedVersion 0.9beta8 of Aqualung, a music player, is out. "This release is the latest in a series of beta releases on our way to the future stable release of Aqualung 1.0, which is anticipated to be released at the end of this year. The current release adds support for internet radio and tabbed playlists, also containing several smaller improvements and important bugfixes."
Ardour: progress with MIDIMIDI support is being added to Ardour, a multi-track audio workstation. "The screenshot below shows some of the progress being made in the trunk branch of Ardour toward MIDI recording, playback and editing. Congratulations and thanks to Dave Robillard, for his rapid work on the core of this as well as the code restructuring it has required, and to Google for funding Dave this summer."
Traverso 0.41.0 releasedVersion 0.41.0 of Traverso is out with several new capabilities and some bug fixes. "Traverso is a cross platform multitrack audio recording and editing suite with a clean and innovative interface targeted for home and professional use."
Data Visualization PLplot 5.7.3 releasedVersion 5.7.1 of PLplot, a library of functions for making scientific plots, is out. The release notes state: "This is a routine development release of PLplot. It represents the ongoing efforts of the community to improve the PLplot plotting package. Development releases in the 5.7.x series will be available every few months. The next stable release will be 5.8.0."
Desktop Environments GARNOME 2.18.3 releasedVersion 2.18.3 of GARNOME, the bleeding-edge GNOME distribution, is out. "This release incorporates the GNOME 2.18.3 Desktop and Developer Platform, fine-tuned and updated with love by the GARNOME Team. This is the forth (and last) release of the current stable GNOME branch, ironing out yet-more bugs, hopefully adding yet-more stability, and ships with the latest and greatest stable releases. As usual it includes updates and fixes after the official GNOME freeze, together with a host of third-party GNOME packages, Bindings and the Mono(tm) Platform."
GARNOME 2.19.5 releasedVersion 2.19.5 of GARNOME, the bleeding-edge GNOME distribution, is out. "This is the fifth release in the unstable cycle, with more features, more fixes and yet more madness added. Also icons. Indeed, icons. ;-) 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."
GNOME 2.18.3 releasedVersion 2.18.3 of the GNOME desktop has been released. "This is the final release in a series of point releases for the stable 2.18 branch. Come and see all the bug fixing, all the new translations and all the updated documentation brought to you by the wonderful team of GNOME contributors! While development is underway on the GNOME 2.19/2.20 road, work on the stable branch continued to make it even more solid."
GNOME 2.19.4 releasedVersion 2.19.4 of the GNOME desktop has been released. "This is our fourth development release on our road towards GNOME 2.20.0, which will be released in September 2007. New features are still arriving, so your mission is simple : Go download it. Go compile it. Go test it. And go hack on it, document it, translate it, fix it."
GNOME 2.19.5 releasedA new development release of GNOME is available. "This is our fifth development release on our road towards GNOME 2.20.0, which will be released in September 2007. New features are still arriving, so your mission is simple : Go download it. Go compile it. Go test it. And go hack on it, document it, translate it, fix it."
Sawfish Window Manager maintainer resignsMatt Foster sends us word that John Harper has resigned as the maintainer of the Sawfish window manager, according to this email thread.
GNOME String and UI Change announcement periodThe GNOME string change & UI change announcement period has been announced. "This means two things: + all string changes must be announced to gnome-i18n and gnome-doc-list + all user interface changes must be announced to gnome-doc-list".
GNOME Software AnnouncementsThe following new GNOME software has been announced this week:
KDE 4.0 Alpha 2 released (KDE.News)KDE.News has announced the release of KDE 4.0 Alpha 2. "This release comes straight out of Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland where aKademy is currently taking place. Hundreds of KDE hackers are working like crazy to hunt down bugs, complete features for KDE 4.0 and sit together developing and finishing new and exciting applications for the new major version of the leading Free Desktop. The most exciting new development is currently going on in Plasma, KDE 4's new shell for the desktop."
KDE Commit-Digest (KDE.News)The July 8, 2007 edition of the KDE Commit-Digest has been announced. The content summary says: "Akademy 2007 draws to a close. Dolphin embedded as the file management view in Konqueror. Plasma continues to mature, with new data engines for Tasks and Bluetooth, and EBN and Task Manager Plasmoids making an introduction. Further progress in Javascript bindings through QtScript; import of Kimono (C#) classes. More basic functionality added to Kollagame, a game development IDE..."
KDE Software AnnouncementsThe following new KDE software has been announced this week:
Xorg Software AnnouncementsThe following new Xorg software has been announced this week:
Electronics gEDA/gaf development snapshot 1.1.0-20070705 releasedDevelopment snapshot 1.1.0-20070705 released of gEDA/gaf, a collection of electronic CAD tools, has been announced. "This release had a lot of changes, bug fixes, and new features. Many thanks to everybody involved."
Encryption Software GnuPG 2.0.5 releasedVersion 2.0.5 of GnuPG, an encryption utility, has been announced. "This is maintenance release with a few bug fixes and support for building for W32 platforms."
Games FreedroidRPG 0.10.2 releasedVersion 0.10.2 of the game FreedroidRPG is out. "This new version, mostly unchanged from the -rc4, focuses on making the development for the game easier, exported some hardcoded data into files, made the map editor a bit more usable and other major and minor tweaks."
Mail Clients Claws Mail 2.10.0 releasedRelease 2.10.0 of Claws Mail, an email client, has been announced. Changes include a long list of new features and bug fixes.
Music Applications Qsynth 0.3.0 (unstable-qt4) releasedVersion 0.3.0 of Qsynth is available. "Qsynth 0.3.0 is now out for you to try and guess what? This marks the point of no return to the aging Qt3 framework. Yes, Qt4 migration was complete."
Languages and Tools C gnucflow 1.2 is outStable version 1.2 of gnucflow has been announced. "'GNU cflow' analyzes a collection of C source files and prints a graph charting control flow within the program. It can produce both direct and inverted flowgraphs for C sources, or optionally generate a cross-reference listing. It implements either POSIX or GNU (extended) output formats. Input files can optionally be preprocessed before analyzing. The package also provides an Emacs major mode, so users can examine the produced flowcharts in Emacs."
C++ GCC newsThe latest news from the Gnu Compiler Collection includes: "C interoperability support (ISO Bind C) has been added to the Fortran compiler. The code was contributed by Christopher D. Rickett of Los Alamos National Lab. Experimental support for the upcoming ISO C++0x standard been added."
Caml Caml Weekly NewsThe July 10, 2007 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new Caml language articles.
Eiffel sather 1.2.3 releasedStable version 1.2.3 of sather, a language that is derived from Eiffel, has been announced. Sather is: "An object-oriented language with garbage collection, statically-checked strong typing, multiple inheritance, separate implementations and type inheritance, parameterized classes, dynamic dispatch, iteration abstraction, higher-order routines and iters, exception handling assertions, preconditions, postconditions, and class invariants. Code can be compiled into C code and can link with C object files."
Tcl/Tk Tcl-URL! - weekly Tcl news and linksThe July 10, 2007 edition of the Tcl-URL! is online with new Tcl/Tk articles and resources.
Libraries GLPK 4.19 releasedStable version 4.19 of GLPK has been announced. "GLPK (GNU Linear Programming Kit) is intended for solving large scale linear programming problems by means of the revised simplex method. It is a set of routines written in the ANSI C programming language and organized in the form of a library."
Miscellaneous GLOBAL 5.6 releasedVersion 5.6 of GLOBAL, a source code tagging system, is out. The release notes say: "From this version, the license was changed to GNU GPL3. Additionally, a big bug (memory leak) since 5.4.* was fixed."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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