Development

Python 2.3 is out

Following last week's release of Python 2.3c2, the final Python 2.3 release has been announced.

Some of the highlights of this release include:

• A new version of the Python IDE, IDLE.
• A large collection of new and improved library modules.
• Lots of new and improved built-in functions.
• Deprecation of obsolete functions.
• New doctest extensions.
• Extended slice capabilities.
• A universal newline mode for reading files with different newline types.
• Source code encoding declarations.
• The ability to import from zip files.
• FutureWarnings for performing unsigned operations on integers.
• Improved list.sort() speed.
• Sped up multiplication of longs.
• A more efficient pickling protocol.
• Optional timeouts on all socket module operations.
• Tkinter GUI improvements.
• A new boolean type.
• Better support for comma-delimited files.

A.M. Kuchling has put together a detailed list of PEPs and changes in his What's New in Python 2.3 document. For those who wish to give Python 2.3 a spin, the official Python 2.3 home page has source code and more documentation.

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System Applications

Audio Projects

Alsa 0.9.6 sound driver

Version 0.9.6 of the Alsa sound driver has been released. Change information is in the source code.

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Clusters and Grids

xCAT overview (IBM developerWorks)

IBM's alphaWorks has published an updated overview of xCAT, the Extreme Cluster Administration Toolkit. "xCAT (Extreme Cluster Administration Toolkit) is a tool kit that can be used for the deployment and administration of Linux clusters."

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Database Software

Druid 3.0 final released (SourceForge)

Version 3.0 final of Druid has been released. "This is mainly a bug fix release with only a few adds: a new PDF doc gen module and localization of the XHTML doc gen module (see changes in the files section). All the docs have been moved from HTML to PDF to be printed and have been revised and improved. Druid is a tool that helps the dba/developer to handle database tables."

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PostgreSQL Weekly News

The PostgreSQL Weekly News for July 25, 2003 has been published. "Well we are still technically in feature freeze, with beta now planned to start next week. Don't confuse feature freeze with no activity, far from it actually. In fact, there are now plans to release a 7.3.4 before beta testing begins. The need arises from a potentially serious (although extremely low probability) bug in 7.3.3 when restarting the server."

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PostgreSQL 7.3.4 Now Available

Version 7.3.4 of the PostgreSQL database is available. "The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released PostgreSQL version 7.3.4. It is highly recommended that those running earlier version of the 7.3 branch upgrade at their earliest convenience."

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SAP DB Version 7.4.03.27 available now

A new version of the SapDB database is available. See the release info document for a full list of changes.

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Electronics

gEDA News

The latest news from the gEDA site includes new versions of the SAVANT VHDL analyzer, and the Icarus Verilog electronic simulation language compiler.

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Mail Software

First open source release of MailManager (ZopeMembers)

The first open-source release of MailManager has been announced on Zope Members News. "MailManager is a multi user system where all mail is stored centrally in the ZODB. This allows mail to be allocated between groups of users, provides tools for prioritising and answering mail quickly, allows service levels to be set and provides management reports on volumes of mail and user performance."

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Defending Your Site Against Spam, Part 2 (O'Reilly)

Dru Nelson explains qmail spam filtering on O'Reilly. "This article is the second and final installment describing my efforts to defend my systems from spam. The first article explains some necessary concepts and terminology. This article will dig more into the details of an actual implementation with my mail system."

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Networking Tools

Etherboot 5.0.11 (production) released (SourceForge)

Production version 5.0.11 of Etherboot has been released. "Etherboot is Open Source code for creating boot ROMs for network booting x86 platforms. It is also a coordination point for information about free software related to network booting."

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Printing

PPR 1.51 released (SourceForge)

A new version of PPR has been released. "PPR is a print spooler especially designed to work with PostScript printers and with Ghostscript. It supports parallel ports, serial ports, SMB, TCP/IP, and AppleTalk."

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Web Site Development

Simplify Your Life with Apache Virtual Hosts (O'Reilly)

Russell Dyer writes about Apache virtual hosts on O'Reilly. "Web designers and systems administrators sometimes don't consider reconfiguring Apache to solve some of their web problems. Sometimes with the help of a few directives, web designing can be easier and server costs can be reduced. The VirtualHost directive is one of these helpful but often overlooked features. It can be used for running several domains on a single server with one or many static IP addresses. I can think of at least two scenarios in which this could be useful. One made web designing easier for me. The other cut my server costs significantly."

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GroupUserFolder 1.3 released (ZopeMembers)

A new version of GroupUserFolder, a Zope group-oriented component, is available. "This new version adds a very nice feature : groups nesting. GRUF Groups can now belong to other groups transparently. Also, this version includes nice ZMI improvements: groups and users displayed as a tree, a click-on-everything management interface, and minor bugfixes."

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Issue Dealer 0.9.1 released (ZopeMembers)

Version 0.9.1 of the Zope product Issue Dealer has been released. Changes include a name change, bug fixes, and more.

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mnoGoSearch 3.2.14 search engine released

Version 3.2.14 of mnoGoSearch, a web site search engine, is available. The development history page lists the changes, a number of bugs have been fixed.

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Rilke CMS 0.84 released! (SourceForge)

Version 0.8.4 of the Rilke CMS has been released. "Rilke CMS provides easy content management for non-geeks. It allows you to easily publish a weblog, update a public website, or collaborate on a private Intranet site."

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Tiki 1.7 RC3 released (SourceForge)

Version 1.7 RC3 of Tiki is available. "The rc3 replaces the rc2 and fixes the registration verification bug that is blocking in rc2. Tiki is a powerful CMS/Groupware. Features: article, forum, newsletter, blog, file/image gallery, wiki, drawing, tracker, directory, poll/survey & quiz, FAQ, chat, banner, webmail, calendar, category, ACL, etc in Single Sign-on or LDAP. (PHP/MySQL/Smarty)"

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Ninth Zope 3 Newsletter

Issue #9 of the Zope 3 Newsletter is out with the latest Zope 3 news.

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Zope 2.6.2 Beta 5 Available (ZopeMembers)

Zope Members has announced the availability of ZOPE 2.6.2 Beta 5. "Zope 2.6.2b5 represents a development step in the next Zope release formed with a large number of community contributions."

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Zope Tips

John Udell's Web Log features some tips on using the Zope web application platform. "Although Zope's written in Python, you lose this immediacy because like any Web application server, Zope introduces a bunch of intermediate layers: templates, scripts, the browser. But I learned of a few ways to make exploring Zope a more interactive affair."

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Miscellaneous

Barbecue 1.0.6b3 released (SourceForge)

Version 1.0.6b3 of Barbecue, a barcode generator, has been released. The announcement says: "Fixes bugs with Code 39 implementation and barcode heights. All b1 and b2 users should update to this release. Production users should remain at 1.0.5 or earlier."

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Squashfs1.3 released (SourceForge)

Version 1.3 of Squashfs is available. "Squashfs is a highly compressed read-only filestem for Linux. Release 1.3 adds support for FIFOs and sockets. It also has numerous optimisations and small bug fixes."

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Desktop Applications

Audio Applications

amSynth 1.0 rc4 available

Version 1.0 rc4 of amSynth, the Analogue Modelling SYNTHesizer, has been released. Changes include bug fixes and an improved startup procedure.

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gmorgan 0.06 released

Rapid development continues on gmorgan, an organ synthesizer with auto-accompaniment. Version 0.06 adds performance improvements, bug fixes, and some new features.

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CAD

Ninth Development Release of PythonCAD

A new release of PythonCAD has been announced. "The ninth release concentrated on internal improvements to the code. The storage and manipulation of optional values was heavily reworked. The first batch of changes regarding storing various drawing entities was finished, with the handling of colors having the largest number of changes. Linetypes and drawing styles will be updated in a similar manner to colors in future releases."

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Desktop Environments

KDE 3.1.3 released

KDE 3.1.3 has been released. The full list of changes can be found in the changelog, but it makes relatively dry reading - 3.1.3 is a maintenance release. (Thanks to Volker Blum).

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KDE-CVS-Digest

The July 25, 2003 edition of the KDE-CVS-Digest has been published. "This week's CVS-Digest: Find out who is paid to hack KDE. A new application, KLogo-Turtle, for teaching children. KPrinter adds access to online printer database. Kontact adds a to-do list plugin. A redesigned font installer. The beginning of KWallet. And many more features and bugfixes."

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Financial Applications

LinuxTag 2003: KSpread Development Roadmap

KDE.News covers the new KSpread Development Roadmap that resulted from discussions at LinuxTag 2003, with a look at the upcoming KSpread 1.3.

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Graphics

GIMP 1.3.17 Released (GnomeDesktop)

GnomeDesktop.org has the announcement for version 1.3.17 of the GIMP. "GIMP Lots of new features are being added while the GIMP developers are preparing for camp and GIMP is approaching feature freze."

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JFreeChart 0.9.10 released (SourceForge)

JFreeChart 0.9.10 is available. "The focus of this release is the support for multiple range axes (instead of the current limit of 2 range axes per chart). Some other minor enhancements and bug fixes are also included. JFreeChart is a class library, written in Java, for generating charts. Utilising the Java2D APIs, it currently supports bar charts, pie charts, line charts, XY-plots and time series plots."

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OpenRM Scene Graph 1.5.0 released (SourceForge)

SourceForge has an announcement for version 1.5.0 of OpenRM Scene Graph, a 2D/3D Scene Graph rendering engine. "New in OpenRM Scene Graph 1.5.0 is direct support for distributed memory parallel rendering when combined with Chromium (chromium.sourceforge.net)"

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GUI Packages

FLTK 1.1.4rc2 released

Version 1.1.4rc2 of FLTK, the Fast Light ToolKit, has been released. The development team is searching for bugs until August 12, 2003 at which point the 1.1.4 version will be released.

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Trolltech Releases Qt 3.2 (KDE.News)

KDE.News covers the release of Qt version 3.2. "User desktop improvements include a "completely re-written, faster font rendering engine." Developer improvements include new QSpashScreen and QToolBox objects." See the announcement from Trolltech for more information.

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GUI Toolkits for The X Window System (FreshMeat)

FreshMeat has reviewed a number of X window system GUI toolkits. "This article is aimed at Unix developers who already have some experience with programming languages and want to start developing GUI applications (mainly for The X Window System, though portability is discussed). It may also come in handy if you have used a particular GUI toolkit for some time and want to know whether others might suit your needs better. The main focus is comparison and introduction, but it serves as a bit of tutorial, as well."

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Mail Clients

Columba 0.12.0 (stable) released (SourceForge)

Version 0.12.0 of Columbia has been released. "Columba is an email client written in Java, featuring a user-friendly graphical interface with wizards and internalionalization support."

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Mozilla Thunderbird 0.1 Released (MozillaZine)

MozillaZine has an announcement for version 0.1 of Mozlla Thunderbird, a standalone mail and newsgroup client. The release notes detail all of the changes in this version.

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Office Applications

HylaFAX 4.1.7 Released

Version 4.1.7 of HylaFAX, a Fax modem utility, has been announced. "This is a corrective release that fixes the PageChop feature that we inadvertently broke in the 4.1.6 patch-level, and is otherwise identical to 4.1.6."

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Web Browsers

gcjwebplugin 0.0.2 released

Version 0.0.2 of gcjwebplugin is available. "gcjwebplugin is a plugin for Mozilla and other web browsers for the execution of Java applets. It uses the JVM provided by GCJ." The project is still in the testing and proof of concept phase.

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Mozilla Firebird 0.6.1 Released (MozillaZine)

According to MozillaZine, verion 0.6.1 of the Firebird browser has been released. "mozilla.org has just released a minor upgrade to their Mozilla Firebird 0.6 milestone, to fix a few key issues regarding security and stability, including the autocomplete crash."

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Independent Status Reports (MozillaZine)

The Tuesday July 29th, 2003 Mozilla Independent Status Reports are out. "The latest set of status reports includes updates from Download Sort, Enigmail, Gnusto, mozdev, Java and BlackConnect."

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Word Processors

AbiWord Weekly News

Issue #154 of the AbiWord Weekly News is out. The summary says: "A possible standard for spell checking management, Enchant, is finally released after last week's announcement. The Open Text Summarizer reaches a level of complexity that will blow other summarisers out of the water. More GNOME HIGrrrification, help with OSX X11 and more we enter the week that will bring us 1.99.3."

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AbiWord 1.99.3 released! (GnomeDesktop)

GnomeDesktop.org has the announcement for version 1.99.3 of AbiWord. "Wow, just 3 weeks since the last release of our Word Processor and we have tons of improvements."

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Miscellaneous

gFTP 2.0.15rc1 has been released (GnomeDesktop)

A new release of gFTP, an ftp client, has been announced. A long list of changes is included.

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LilyPond 1.7.28 released

A new release candidate of GNU LilyPond, a music typesetting system, has been released. This version features bug fixes and installation improvements.

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Languages and Tools

C

Secure Cooking with C and C++, Part 2 (O'ReillyNet)

O'Reilly has published part two in a three part series on secure programming in C/C++ "In part two in this three-part series of sample recipes from Secure Programming Cookbook for C and C++, the authors discuss some of the factors to consider to properly decode a URL, and they provide example code programmers can use to securely decode URLs. " You may want to start off with part one of the series.

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Caml

Caml Weekly News

The July 22-29, 2003 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out, take a look for the latest Caml language news.

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FORTRAN

gcc-g95 integrated into the GCC CVS repository

The GNU Fortran 95 compiler has been integrated into a branch of the GCC CVS repository. "This branch of GCC will become part of official GCC releases by the time GCC 3.5 is released."

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Java

HTML Parser Integration Release 1.4-20030727 (SourceForge)

SourceForge has an announcement for a new version of HTML Parser, a Java library. "This release includes a preliminary drop of the new I/O subsystem (which isn't integrated yet), incorporates JUnit and Apache commons-logging liraries (also not used yet), and adds several new tests of the contents of the StringBean."

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Using the Jakarta Commons, Part 3 (O'Reilly)

O'Reilly has published Part 3 of Vikram Goyal's series on Jakarta Commons. "Jakarta Commons is a Jakarta subproject that creates and maintains independent packages unrelated to any other framework or product. The packages are a collection of components that serve small, useful purposes in their own right, and are usually server-centric."

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RSSOwl 0.3a released (SourceForge)

Version 0.3a of RSSOwl has been released. "RSSOwl is a RSS reader written complete in Java using SWT as fast graphic libary. Some features are saving of RSS favorites in different categories and a TabFolder that shows multiple RSS feeds. The following features were implemented in version 0.3a: Open RSS feed from URL or local file, save RSS feed favorites in categories, Change language english / german, Change fontsize."

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Lisp

SBCL 0.8.2 released

Version 0.8.2 of SBCL (Steel Bank Common Lisp) is available. "This is mostly a bug fix release, with changes featuring an improved MACHINE-VERSION, better ANSI compliance, optimizations to character compare routines, and improved disassembler functionality on PPC."

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Perl

Exegesis 6 (Perl.com)

Perl.com has published Damian Conway's Exegis 6. "This Exegesis explores the new subroutine semantics described in Apocalypse 6. Those new semantics greatly increase the power and flexibility of subroutine definitions, providing required and optional formal parameters, named and positional arguments, a new and extended operator overloading syntax, a far more sophisticated type system, multiple dispatch, compile-time macros, currying, and subroutine wrappers."

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gtk2-perl beta 0.91 released (SourceForge)

Version 0.91 beta of gtk2-perl is available. "This project provides perl bindings for gtk+ 2.x and a few related libraries. This release includes several bugfixes, portability issues, and missing functions in the latest betas for Gtk2 and Glib. Some dependency issues for Gnome2 and Glade were also fixed."

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This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)

The July 21-27, 2003 edition of This Week on perl5-porters has been published. "This week, a lot of porters went to YAPC::Europe in Paris, so the list traffic on the list was less important. It wasn't less interesting."

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PHP

kses 0.2.0 released

Version 0.2.0 of kses is available. "kses is an HTML/XHTML filter written in PHP. It removes all unwanted HTML elements and attributes, no matter how malformed HTML input you give it. It also does several checks on attribute values. kses can be used to avoid Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), Buffer Overflows and Denial of Service attacks, among other things."

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PHP Weekly Summary for July 28, 2003

The PHP Weekly Summary for July 28, 2003 is out. Topics include: PHP 4.3.3 RC 2, PHP 5 TODO list, getenv() with THTTPD SAPI, Disabling @ operator, OCI8, temporary LOB, Apache2Filter, PHP 5 OO issues.

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phpMyAdmin 2.5.2 released (SourceForge)

Version 2.5.2 of phpMyAdmin has been released with security fixes. "phpMyAdmin is a tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the http://www."

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Turck MMCache for PHP version 2.3.20 is released (SourceForge)

SourceForge has an announcement for a new version of Turck MMCache. "Turck MMCache is a PHP Accelerator, Optimizer, Encoder and Dynamic Content Cache. It increases performance of PHP scripts by caching them in compiled state, so that the overhead of compiling is almost completely eliminated. Also it uses some optimizations for speed up of PHP scripts execution. Turck MMCache typically reduces server load and increases the speed of your PHP code by 1-10 times."

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Python

Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!

The July 28, 2003 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! has been published.

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Tcl/Tk

Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!

The July 28, 2003 edition Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is available.

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XML

Why Choose RSS 1.0? (O'Reilly)

Tony Hammond illustrates the advantages of RSS for serials news feeds. "RSS, a set of lightweight XML syndication technologies primarily used for relaying news headlines, has been adapted to a wide range of uses from sending out web site descriptions to disseminating blogs. This article looks at a new application area for RSS: syndicating tables of contents for serials publications."

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Extending RSS (O'Reilly)

Danny Ayers talks about RSS flavors on O'Reilly. "This article shows how the RDF foundation of RSS 1.0 helps when you want to extend RSS 1.0 for uses outside of strict news item syndication, and how existing RDF vocabularies can be incorporated into RSS 1.0. It concludes by providing a way to reuse these developments in RSS 2.0 feeds while keeping the formal definitions made with RDF."

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IDEs

DrJava Stable Release (SourceForge)

A new version of DrJava, an open-source Java IDE, is available. "This release includes many large new features, including a more interactive debugger, Javadoc support, and support for reading input from System.in."

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Profilers

OProfile 0.6 released

Version 0.6 of OProfile, a system-wide source profiler for Linux, has been released.

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Miscellaneous

make++ version 1.19 (stable) released (SourceForge)

Sourceforge has an announcement for version 1.19 of make++. "make++ (or makepp) is a powerful but nearly 100% compatible replacement for make that includes many features required for reliable builds of complicated projects, such as automatic include file dependencies, automatic recompilation."

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