The GnuCash Project Needs Help
Benoit Grégoire has posted
a plea for developer help
for
GnuCash, a popular
open-source personal finance management application.
I hate to admit it, but in our quest for new features, choices had to be made
and a lot of important things are currently being neglected. If the GnuCash
project can't manage to attract more contributors and refocus the efforts of
those it already has, it's going to become unmanageable. We often say that
Linux would survive even if Linus got hit by a bus. Well, right now I am not
too certain that GnuCash would currently survive if Derek Atkins got hit by a
bus.
Apparently, the project developers added a few too many features
too quickly, and now find themselves unable to cope with maintenance
of the code and documentation.
- Lower the entry barrier for new developers.
- Build an up-to-date architecture and API reference.
- Put together a report writing HOWTO document.
- Fix some problems with the core capabilities of the GnuCash engine.
- Improve interoperability with new modules and other financial software packages.
- Improve the GnuCash developer environment and web site:
- Add search capabilities for the mailing lists.
- Open up web site write access to more developers.
- Implement a Wiki system.
- Deal with frequently asked questions more efficiently.
Certainly, GnuCash is much too important of a project to just let
it fade away and die. Interested developers should consider
lending a hand. This would be a good opportunity to show the
skeptics how well the open-source development model works, even in
the face of adversity.
Comments (2 posted)
System Applications
Audio Projects
JACK Transport Design
A new document called the
JACK Transport Design is available for JACK.
"
The JACK Audio Connection Kit provides simple transport interfaces for starting, stopping and repositioning a set of clients. This document describes the overall design of these interfaces, their detailed specifications are in <jack/transport.h>"
Comments (none posted)
Planet CCRMA additions
The
Change Log for the
Planet CCRMA audio packaging project lists the latest new additions
to the collection.
Comments (none posted)
CORBA
omniORB 4.0.2 and omniORBpy 2.2 released
New versions of omniORB and omniORBpy, which provide a
CORBA ORB for C++ and Python,
have been announced.
Change information is in the source code.
Comments (none posted)
Database Software
PostgreSQL Weekly News
The August 6, 2003 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News
is out with more PostgreSQL database news.
"
Well, I've been talking about for a few weeks now, and it has finally
happened: 7.4 has gone beta! The tar ball was wrapped up Monday night,
and by now should be available from your local mirror."
Full Story (comments: none)
libgda/libgnomedb 0.91.0 released (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDesktop.org has
an announcement for libgda/libgnomedb 0.91.0.
"
libgda/libgnomedb are a complete framewok for developing database-oriented
applications, and actually allow access to PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, Sybase,
SQLite, FireBird/Interbase, IBM DB2, mSQL and MS SQL server, as well as
MS Access and xBase files and ODBC data sources."
Comments (none posted)
Electronics
New releases from gEDA
The
latest releases
from the
gEDA project
(GPL Electronic Design Automation) include
new versions of the gwave waveform viewer and the Icarus Verilog
electronic design simulation language compiler.
Comments (none posted)
XCircuit 3.1.18 available
Version 3.1.18 of XCircuit, an electronic schematic drawing package,
is available.
Change information is in the source code.
Comments (none posted)
Mail Software
ASSP Release 0.3.5 (SourceForge)
Version 0.35 of ASSP
has been announced.
"
The Anti-Spam SMTP Proxy (ASSP) Server project aims to create an open source platform-independent SMTP Proxy server which implements whitelists and Bayesian filtering to rid the planet of the blight of unsolicited email
(UCE). This release fixes two bugs."
Comments (none posted)
Macho 0.1 released
Version 0.1 of Macho is available.
"
The first public release of Macho, version 0.1, has been released by Miles
Egan. It is "an email web archiving system, similar in scope to pipermail
or mhonarc" written in Common Lisp. Among its features are the possibility
of generating standalone web archives, reasonable performance, easy
navigation of generated archives and support for type-ahead navigation."
Full Story (comments: none)
milter.org changes
New mail filter software on
milter.org
includes version 0.32 of milter-sender, and the initial release
of MilterQuota.
Comments (none posted)
Networking Tools
Quagga Routing Suite release 0.96
Initial version 0.96 of the Quagga Routing Suite, a fork of GNU Zebra,
has been released.
"
This release contains
many patches, from a variety of contributors, over the last GNU Zebra
release, 0.93b (released over a year ago), in particular improving
upon the OSPF protocol daemon ospfd. The 0.96 release of Quagga is a
shakedown release, a prelude to releasing a 1.0 version at some
(hopefully) not too distant stage in the future."
Full Story (comments: none)
Printing
GSview BETA 4.41 available
Version 4.41 Beta
of GSview,
a graphical interface for Ghostscript, is available.
"
Main changes are a fix to prevent the X11 version crashing on startup and to improve responsiveness when displaying on a remote X11 server."
Comments (none posted)
LinuxPrinting.org database addition
The latest addition to the
LinuxPrinting.org
printer support database includes improved docs for the
Apple LaserWriter Pro 630 driver.
Comments (none posted)
Web Site Development
Aegir CMS enters 1.0 feature freeze
The Aegir Content Management System (CMS) has reached the
version 1.0 feature freeze.
"
Starting from Monday 11th we want to ask all of you to perform last
bugfixes and heavy testing so that we could release 1.0 Stable on Monday
25th."
Also, the licensing for Aegir CMS
has been changed
to the GPL.
Full Story (comments: none)
Archetypes 1.0 Released (SourceForge)
SourceForge has
the announcement for version 1.0 of Archetypes,
a framework for the development of new Content Types in
Zope/CMF/Plone.
"
This new release
includes a whole bunch of bugfixes, improved FTP support for
BaseContent-based objects with the new RFC822Marshaller (made
default), slight UI cleaning, fixed handling of error messages on form
validation."
Comments (none posted)
Network programming with the Twisted framework, Part 3 (IBM developerWorks)
David Mertz continues his series on the Twisted Framework with
part 3.
"
In the previous installment of this series, David looked at some higher-level techniques for writing Web services, including serving dynamic pages using the .rpy extension. In this article, he moves on to look at dynamic Web serving, and how to generate dynamic Web pages using the Woven application for templating pages."
Comments (none posted)
Desktop Applications
Audio Applications
gmorgan-0.10 and 0.11 released
Version 0.10 of
gmorgan,
an organ synthesizer program with auto-accompaniement, is available.
Changes include a new skin engine, new patterns, bug fixes, and more.
Version 0.11 was released shortly afterward and features some bug
fixes.
Full Story (comments: none)
CAD
gCAD3D 0.72 released
Version 0.72 of a Linux-based CAD/CAM system called
gCAD3D
is available.
"
State is preliminary. Dokumentation is mainly german !"
Thanks to James Feeney.
Comments (1 posted)
Desktop Environments
gDesklets - GNOME Desktop Applets (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDekstop.org
looks at
gDesklets.
"
gDesklets provides an advanced architecture for desktop applets - tiny displays sitting on your desktop in a symbiotic relationship of eye candy and usefulness.
Populate your desktop with status meters, icon bars, weather sensors, news tickers... whatever you can imagine!"
Comments (2 posted)
Scaffold 0.1 ''Bring on the scaffolding!'' (GnomeDesktop)
Version 0.1 of Scaffold
has been announced.
"
The Scaffold team (formerly known as anjuta2) just released version
0.1 of the GNOME based Development Environment. Scaffold is a plugin-based
IDE specifically designed for GNOME with the goal to provide an integrated
development environment in which GNOME programs can be developed."
Comments (none posted)
KDE-CVS-Digest for August 8, 2003
The August 8, 2003 edition of the
KDE-CVS-Digest is out. Here's the content summary:
"
The Kopete developers release a new version. Kmail message threading is improved. Knode, a news reader, is integrated into Kontact. Korganizer printing gets improved. Koffice uses the new version of WvWare for MSWord import. Juk playlists are improved. Plus many bugfixes."
Comments (none posted)
KDE Traffic #60
Issue #60 of
KDE Traffic
is online. KDE.News
summarizes the contents:
"
Well, you asked for it and now you've got it, a very content-filled KDE Traffic has just been released. Covered items include KPilot, the KDE man page generator, a new KDE development book in the works, a new KInfocenter module for FireWire and proposed new features for KMail."
Comments (none posted)
KDE Traffic #61
Issue #61 of
KDE Traffic
is online. The
KDE.News summary says:
"
KDE Traffic #61 has been released, with news about KGhostview, KCalc, KRandr
inclusion, Qt 3.2 requirement, KMail, KProcess, and more. Now let's just
wait for everything but the kitchensync. Anyway, get it here, if you dare.
Muahaha."
Comments (none posted)
Financial Applications
CK-Ledger v.0.7.1 released (SourceForge)
Version 0.7.1 of CK-Ledger
has been announced.
"
New features include traditional Chinese translation, simplified Chinese translation, Postgresql 7.3.2 compatibility, enhanced payroll generation process and enhanced email advice when HR staff action on timesheet and leave application. Other enhancements and bug fixes are also included.
CK-Ledger (with 15 modules, Ledger Admin, Ledger, Bank Reconciliation, Inventory, Service, AP, AR, PO, SO, Quotation, POS for Cashier, POS for Manager, HR, Staff Self Service, Payroll) runs on top of phpGroupWare."
Comments (none posted)
Games
PCGen 5.3.3 is available (SourceForge)
Version 5.3.3 of PCGen
has been released.
"
PCGen is a Java-based RPG character generator and
maintenance program that works on all platforms (Windows,
Mac OS X, Linux, etc). All datafiles are ASCII so they can be
modified by users, and are available through the pcgendm
project. An XML conversion is underway.
We're very pleased to announce that with this release we now
include Sword and Sorcery's Relics and Rituals!"
Comments (none posted)
New PyGame Tutorial
A
new tutorial
is available for the
PyGame project.
"
Shandy Brown has been working on a large new tutorial. At this point it has become fairly mature, but is still looking for further review. Please read how Shandy describes the bigger picture of pygame game design."
Comments (none posted)
Graphics
GIMP 1.3.18 Released
Version 1.3.18 of
the GIMP is available.
"
After a hectic few weeks of pre-camp hacking there are a number of improvements that have been added recently. We decided that it was worthwhile commemorating the camp with a release. So here it is. Notably, the path tool has been improved, and we have several new edge detection algorithms available."
Comments (none posted)
Gimp-Print 4.3.19 (development) (SourceForge)
Version 4.3.19 of Gimp-Print
has been announced.
Comments (none posted)
GUI Packages
Fl_Scope version 0.0.2 released
FL_Scope is an
oscilloscope widget for
FLTK, the Fast Light ToolKit.
Version 0.0.2 is available.
Comments (none posted)
Create a VNC system with tclRFB (IBM developerWorks)
Cameron Laird
writes about Virtual Network Computing (VNC) on IBM's developerWorks.
"
Suppose you have a graphical application running on a Linux box, and you've been instructed to port it to a Windows desktop or make it into a Web application. A nearly instantaneous answer is to feed the application display into a VNC server on the Linux host and rely on Windows- or Web-hosted VNC clients to view the application remotely. That achieves in an afternoon what might otherwise take weeks to port at the level of source code."
Comments (none posted)
Interoperability
Wine Traffic #182
Issue #182 of
Wine Traffic is available.
Topics include:
CrossOver Plugin 2.0, Linux Mag Blurb, Disney Uses Wine,
Beginnings of Microsoft Installer Support, Windows API DB,
and DirectX / Operation Flashpoint.
Comments (none posted)
Office Applications
Evolution 2.0 weblog
For those of you interested in where Evolution 2.0 development is going, the
Evolution Blog is now online. There's lots of information on development plans, along with the occasional screenshot. Among other things, it seems that 2.0 will have SpamAssassin built into it.
Comments (5 posted)
Video Applications
FreeFrame 1.0 Release (SourceForge)
An
announcement for FreeFrame 1.0 is on SourceForge.
"
Well after a lot of work, we're there - public release of FreeFrame 1.0 - the
new realtime video effects plugin format for VJ software. FreeFrame allows
plugin developers to develop one plugin that will work in a variety of video
programs. Today's FreeFrame release coincides with the release of versions of
VJamm and Resolume featuring native support for the standard. We are also
releasing today plugin developer kits for C++ and Pascal developers, in
addition to sample host code for application developers wishing to support
the standard."
Comments (none posted)
Web Browsers
Epiphany 0.8.3 released (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDesktop.org
looks at
the 0.8.3 release of the Epiphany lightweight web browser.
This version features lots of bug fixes and language translations.
Comments (none posted)
Independent Status Reports (MozillaZine)
The Mozilla
Independent Status Reports for August 11th, 2003 are out.
"
The latest set of status reports includes updates from QuickNote, JS Console,
HON, SmoothWheel, the Creating Applications with Mozilla book, mozdev and
MultiZilla."
Comments (none posted)
Word Processors
AbiWord Weekly News
The August 10, 2003 issue of the
AbiWord Weekly News has been published.
"
Dom announces the official calendar of releases until 2.0, while several peripherally Abi events occur. Within AbiLand, however, the Open Text Summarizer gets a dialogue, X/HTML gets extended, and just before 1.99.4, our SuSE builder and Documentation manager sod off for awhile! All that and a tutorial on how to summarise text in this week's AWN. "
Comments (none posted)
Miscellaneous
LilyPond 1.8 released
Version 1.8 of LilyPond, a musical engraving program, has
been released.
"
This release is focused on internal and external cleanups: Scheme and
LilyPond input can now be seamlessly mixed. Entry and layout of texts,
chord names and chords has been revised and cleaned up entirely."
Full Story (comments: none)
PasswordSafe 1.9.2c released (SourceForge)
Version 1.9.2c of PasswordSafe
has been announced.
"
Password Safe is a password database utility. Users can keep their passwords securely encrypted on their computers. A single Safe Combination unlocks them all.
Release 1.92c is available for download. This is a maintenance release,
fixing a few minor annoyances".
Comments (none posted)
Languages and Tools
Caml
Caml Weekly News
The August 5-12, 2003 edition of the Caml Weekly News has
been published, take a look for new Caml language software.
Full Story (comments: none)
Java
The Java Speech API, Part 1 (O'ReillyNet)
Mandar Chitnis and Lakshmi Ananthamurthy
look at the Java Speech API in the first in
a series of articles on O'Reilly.
"
Speech technology has advanced to the point where it's practical to consider
speech synthesis and speech recognition in certain applications. In the
first of two articles, Mandar Chitnis and Lakshmi Ananthamurthy explore
JSAPI, an API for accessing various speech engines, building a simple
application with speech synthesis."
Comments (none posted)
JGraphpad 2.2.2.1 'Whiteboard' released (SourceForge)
Version 2.2.2.1 of JGraphpad
has been released.
"
This release offers whiteboard functionality, can print across multiple pages, comes with two new layout algorithms and remembers file paths and window positions from previous sessions. JGraph is the most powerful, lightweight, feature-rich, and thoroughly documented open-source graph component available for Java."
Comments (none posted)
Lisp
ECL 0.9b released
Version 0.9b of ECL (Embeddable Common-Lisp) has been released.
"
This version features much improved
ANSI compliance, the new special form C-INLINE for inserting C/C++ code
where a Lisp form is allowed, improved FFI support, new filesystem access
functions, better code inlining, the AUTOLOAD extension, and more. Support
for the Sparc/Solaris and Alpha/Linux platforms has also been added."
Thanks to Paolo Amoroso.
Full Story (comments: none)
Perl
This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)
The August 4-10, 2003 edition of
This Week on perl5-porters is available.
"
The bulk of the discussion, this week, was about platform-specific
adjustments for the upcoming 5.8.1, and other testing feedback. However,
don't miss the other interesting topics : v-strings (again),
autoboxing, and the usual load of features and bugfixes."
Comments (none posted)
Perl Design Patterns, Part 2 (O'Reilly)
O'Reilly has published
part two
of Phil Crow's series on Perl Design Patterns.
"
This is the second in a series of articles which form one Perl programmer's response to the book, Design Patterns (also known as the Gang of Four book or simply as GoF, because four authors wrote it)."
You may want to start with
part one
first.
Comments (none posted)
PHP
PHP Weekly Summary for August 11, 2003
The
PHP Weekly Summary for August 11, 2003 is out. Topics include:
4.3.3 RC 3, PHP compiler, Java-like archive, cleaner HTML errors, imlib extension.
Comments (none posted)
PHP 4.3.3RC3 released
Version 4.3.3RC3 of PHP
has been announced.
"
This is should be the last release candidate prior to the final 4.3.3 release. Please test this release as much as possible, so that any remaining issues can be uncovered and resolved."
See the
NEWS file for change details.
Comments (none posted)
Python
Python-dev Summary
The July Python-dev Summary is available. It inaugurates a new format, and
looks at the Python 2.3 release, the deprecation of string exceptions, CVS
issues, startup times, and more.
Full Story (comments: 1)
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!
The August 7, 2003 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!
has been sent out. Take a look for links to many Python articles.
Full Story (comments: none)
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!
The Dr. Dobb's Python-URL for August 12, 2003 is out. Discussions covered
this week include Python's supposed lack of proper Symmetric Multiprocessor
scalability and much more.
Full Story (comments: none)
SPE (Stani's Python Editor)
Version 0.15 of
spe,
Stani's Python Editor, has been released.
"
Spe is a Python IDE for Blender with with syntax checking, autoindentation, autocompletion, interactive shell, call tips, locals and Blender browser, drag&drop, customizable menus and toolbar,...It requires a full Python installation and www.wxPython.org".
Comments (none posted)
The Standard Python Library
Fredrick Lundh is writing
an ongoing series that explores various components of
the Standard Python Library.
Comments (none posted)
Ruby
Ruby-GNOME2-0.6.0 Has Been Released! (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDesktop.org has
an announcement for version 0.6.0 of Ruby-GNOME2, the Ruby language
bindings to GNOME.
"
New bindings include GnomeVFS and
GtkHtml2. Integration with the Ruby-GStreamer project has also been
successfully completed. A lot of new code in this version so, please, give
it a good run through to weed out any bugs introduced."
Comments (none posted)
Tcl/Tk
Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!
The August 8, 2003 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL has been
published. Take a look for the latest Tcl/Tk development news.
Full Story (comments: none)
Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!
The August 12 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL is out
with another week's worth of Tcl/Tk development news.
Full Story (comments: none)
XML
Make the most of Xerces-C++, Part 1 (IBM developerWorks)
Rick Parrish
writes about Xerces-C++ on IBM's developerWorks.
"
This two-part article offers an introduction to the Xerces-C++ XML library. Part 1 explains how to link the library into applications written in Linux and Windows. Ample code demonstrates parsing with the SAX API, and a sample application shows you how to create a bar graph in ASCII art. In Part 2, I'll demonstrate how to load, manipulate, or synthesize a DOM document, and you'll see how to create the same bar graph using Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). C++ programmers who read these articles should be able to easily add XML parsing and processing capabilities to their applications."
Comments (1 posted)
Extensible 3D: XML Meets VRML (O'Reilly)
Len Bullard
writes about X3D
on O'Reilly.
"
The Virtual Reality Modeling Language is very much alive and being used to solve real problems. In this article, we will examine the new VRML standard, Extensible 3D (X3D), as well as software and other resources available to support it. Examples and a short tutorial on the new X3D XML-format are provided."
Comments (none posted)
New and Improved String Handling (O'Reilly)
Bob DuCharme
shows some techniques for dealing with strings using XSLT 2.0.
"
In my June column last year, I discussed XSLT 1.0 techniques for comparing two strings for equality and doing the equivalent of a "search and replace" on your source document. XSLT 2.0 makes both of these so much easier that describing the new techniques won't quite fill up a column, so I'll also describe some 1.0 and 2.0 functions for concatenating strings."
Comments (none posted)
IDEs
Boa Constructor - 0.2.6 in CVS (SourceForge)
Version 0.2.6 of
Boa Constructor,
a cross platform Python IDE and wxPython GUI Builder,
has been announced.
"
Since the 0.2.3 release, the following major features were added (and are
available in CVS): Sizers; Support for sub-menus and separators; Alternative
image handling with wxPython.tools.img2py modules; Support for
BicycleRepairMan; Help projects; and Improved plug-in preferences/settings
handling."
Comments (none posted)
Miscellaneous
Advanced Weblications with SashXB (IBM developerWorks)
Wing Yung
writes about SashXB on IBM's developerWorks.
"
This article is intended for developers who are familiar with SashXB. It covers several advanced topics, such as callbacks, GTK widget manipulation, and the use of several common SashXB extensions, using code examples from an LDAP-based Intranet directory navigation and search tool written for SashXB.
In an earlier article, John Corwin and I gave an introduction to the architecture and use of SashXB, an open source, Linux application environment that gives JavaScript programmers access to native functionality."
Comments (none posted)
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