Development
Heartbeat 1.0.1 released
The High-Availability Linux Project (Linux-HA) aims to: "Provide a high-availability (clustering) solution for Linux which promotes reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) through a community development effort."
The primary software product from Linux-HA is called heartbeat.
Heartbeat:
"implements serial, UDP, and PPP/UDP heartbeats together with IP address takeover including a nice resource model including resource groups. It currently supports multiple IP addresses and a simple two-node primary/secondary model. It is both extremely useful and quite stable at this point in time.
"
A number of the prominent sites using Linux-HA are listed on the Heartbeat Success Stories page.
Version 1.0.1 of heartbeat has been announced, this version is:
Version 1.0.1 also includes a number of important bug fixes.
Heartbeat is available for download here.
System Applications
Audio Projects
Ogg Traffic
The February 23, 2003 edition of Ogg Traffic is available with the latest Ogg Vorbis audio compression software news. Discussion topics include: Status Updates, Integer Speex, Portables, Portables, Portables!, and Bringing Vorbis support to Nero software.JACK 0.50.0 released
Version 0.50.0 of the JACK Audio Connection Kit is available. Changes include: audio block sizes are fixed during runtime, partial blocks are no longer delivered, thread scheduling is hidden from clients for better portability, JACK now compiles under gcc-3.3 without errors, support has been added for 64-bit platforms, and transport control improvements have been implemented. See the release notes for more information.
CORBA
MICO 2.3.9 released
Version 2.3.9 of MICO is available. "The acronym MICO expands to MICO Is CORBA. The intention of this project is to provide a freely available and fully compliant implementation of the CORBA standard."
Database Software
MySQL 4.0.11 released
The announcement for MySQL 4.0.11 has gone out. This release includes a small set of new features (start transaction, new inner join syntax) along with a number of bug fixes.
Education
Linux in education report
Issue #90 of the Linux in education report is available. Topics include a CFP for the Romanian RoEduNet Conference, the Linux In Education Portal, Linux adoption in Indian schools, a mini-conference on April 5 in Grand Prairie, Texas, the Concord Consortium, and lots of new educational software.
Networking Tools
"Homesteading the Noosphere" problems on Zebra
Users of the GNU Zebra TCP/IP routing software have had some problems getting response from the code's author. A co-project has been formed to deal with the issue. "This bring an interesting twist to ESR 'Homesteading the Noosphere': What if the maintainer once did a great job, then is not up to par with what its community expects, but instead of giving away control or refusing to do so, just remains silent on the subject and acts as if the problem does not exist?"
Printing
LinuxPrinting.org news
The latest changes on LinuxPrinting.org include the addition of all PCL 5e entries to the HPIJS driver and the addition of many printers to the Kyocera printer driver.
Web Site Development
Creating Dynamic Websites with Lisp and Apache
A new web site called Creating Dynamic Websites with Lisp and Apache is now operating.Building a Vector Space Search Engine in Perl (O'Reilly)
Maciej Ceglowski writes about vector-space search engines on O'Reilly. "As a Perl programmer, sooner or later you'll get an opportunity to build a search engine. Like many programming tasks - parsing a date, validating an e-mail address, writing to a temporary file - this turns out to be easy to do, but hard to get right. Most people try end up with some kind of reverse index, a data structure that associates words with lists of documents. Onto this, they graft a scheme for ranking the results by relevance."
Zope Members News
The most recent headlines on the Zope Members News include: Silva 0.9.1 released, GivingSpace demonstration started on Zope, New ZPhotoSlides 1.0 released !, BZPUG meeting for feb 2003, Zope roadmap available at zope.com, and more.Zope Newbies
New article topics on Zope Newbies include: Where to find a first-rate evangelista, and How to Interview a Programmer.
Miscellaneous
RT 3.0 Beta 2 (use Perl)
Use Perl has an announcement for version 3.0 Beta 2 of RT, the Request Tracker open source task and ticket tracking platform. "It contains a number of improvements and bug fixes relative to Beta 1, released several weeks ago."
Desktop Applications
Audio Applications
JACK Rack 1.4.1 released
Version 1.4.1 of JACK Rack is available. This version adds: "Some fixes and extra bits for the midi stuff; makes things much more responsive."
WaveSurfer 1.4.7 available
Version 1.4.7 of WaveSurfer, an audio editing program, is available. Changes include packed 24 bit file support, highlighted transcription labels, support for Snack 2.2.1, Windows and MacOS improvements, and bug fixes. See the Change History document for details.Hydrogen 0.7.5 released
Version 0.7.5 of Hydrogen, a sample-based drum machine/step sequencer, is available. This marks the first "semi-usable" release of the utility.
CAD
Fourth release of PythonCAD now available
Release number four of PythonCAD is out. "The fourth release has major improvements in dimensioning. Angular dimensions are now available, and linear dimensions will be displayed. There is also more visual feedback when creating any dimension, and the display of the dimension text has been improved."
Desktop Environments
Desktop Configurability: Is More Better?
KDE.News reports on an ongoing KDE design issue: "One of the oft-recurring debates on KDE mailing lists is, how configurable should the KDE desktop be? With recent indications that GNOME seems to be heading in the "less is better" direction, independent KDE developer Mosfet has written an editorial urging why KDE should not follow suit."
FootNotes
Headlines on the GNOME desktop FootNotes site include: Mono 0.20 hits the streets, Synchronize Evolution address book with Pocket PC!, Gnome (2.2) Installation Guide 02/2003 has been launched, Software that 'just works', GNOME System Tools 0.23.0 is OUT!!, We Want You... To Write Documentation, CNET: Mozilla upstart looks up to Safari, and more.KDE-CVS-Digest
The February 21, 2003 KDE-CVS Digest is out. Here's the summary: "Highlighting large merges of Safari code, Xinerama support, msword filters and Kmail bugfixes. Kopete continues to be heavily developed, along with continuing work on Arts. Plus numerous bug fixes."
Games
LGP announces from-scratch game development project
Linux Game Publishing has announced a new project to increase the appeal of Linux gaming by sponsoring the development of a from-scratch Linux title. Developers will work in a team to produce a game that LGP will publish.
GUI Packages
XFree86 4.3.0 release
Version 4.3.0 of XFree86 is available. "The 4.3.0 release is scheduled to be tagged in the CVS repository late on 27 February 2003. It will be available from the CVS repository at that time. Source tarballs, source patches, and binaries for will be available over the week following that." Change information is in the source code.
FLTK Developments
The latest new software for FLTK, the Fast, Light ToolKit includes flcdsim 1.0, a simulator for a 2 line, 16 character LCD display.Accessibility in wxWindows
The WxWindows cross-platform GUI project has released a new document on accessibility titled: Accessibility in wxWindows that addresses a number of accessibility issues.
Interoperability
Kernel Cousin Wine
Issue #158 of Kernel Cousin Wine is out. Topics include: Wine-20030219, TransGaming Update, WineX Game Manager 2, TaxCut 2002, Why Develop MSVCRT.DLL?, Problems with OpenGL 5, Testing Petzold's Example Programs, and Patch Manager.Wine release 20030219
Release 20030219 of Wine is available. The main changes include: Better dead keys support, Many debugger fixes, More Direct3D work, and Lots of bug fixes.
Office Applications
AbiWord Weekly News
Issue #132 of the AbiWord Weekly News is out, with the latest AbiWord word processor development news.Kernel Cousin GNUe
Issue #69 of Kernel Cousin GNUe is out with the latest GNU Enterprise development news. Topics include: How User Interface drivers interact with Forms, HTML User Interface for Forms, Stock Keeping Units, Improvements to Common, Using wikiwikiweb in DCL, and Converting GNUe Small Business to use CVS (0.5.x) version of Forms.
Web Browsers
mozillaZine
The latest mozillaZine topics include: Minutes of the mozilla.org Staff Meeting of Wednesday 19th February 2003, Happy Fifth Birthday to mozilla.org, Mozilla Finishes First in ADC Mac Browser JavaScript Tests, Tree Branches for Mozilla 1.3, Asa Dotzler to Speak at Linux Users' Group of Davis Meeting, Minutes of the mozilla.org Staff Meeting of Wednesday 12th February 2003, Google Zeitgeist Browser Stats Now Recognise 'Netscape 5.x', and Mozilla: The Browser with Everything and the Kitchen Sink.
Languages and Tools
Caml
Caml Weekly News
The February 18-25, 2003 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with lots of useful Caml developments.The Caml Light / OCaml Hump
This week, the new software on The Caml Light / OCaml Hump includes: CocOCaml, MozCaml, OCaml-MySQL, heap, Bdd, and more.
FORTRAN
G95 FORTRAN Compiler
Work continues on the G95 FORTRAN compiler project. "G95 is in a pupal state. Perusing the g77 source, we estimate that about 200,000 lines of code will be necessary to implement g95. G95 is currently about 51,000 lines long, making it about version 0.255."
Java
Magic with Merlin: Java networking enhancements (IBM developerWorks)
John Zukowski looks at J2SE 1.4 networking features on IBM's developerWorks. "In this article, John Zukowski shows you what's new and different in Java technology networking, including the latest networking features in J2SE 1.4: IPv6 support, URIs, network interfaces, secure sockets, and unbound sockets. Share your thoughts on this article with the author and other readers in the accompanying discussion forum."
Java Swing: Menus and Toolbars, Part 5 (O'Reilly)
O'Reilly continues its Book Excerpts series on Java Swing with part 5, Menus and Toolbars.
Lisp
CL-PDF 1.1 released
Version 1.1 of CL-PDF, a Common Lisp library for generating documents in Adobe Acrobat format, has been released.
Perl
This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)
The February 17-23, 2003 edition of This Week on Perl 5-Porters is available. "In this week's p5p summary, some stories are continued, and new ones begin. Read about the safe signals, the recent support for assertions, and a load of fixes and of new bugs, waiting to be fixed."
use only This::One => 1.23; (use Perl)
Brian Ingerson has written a module that allows version specific module loading in Perl. "Have you ever wanted to make sure that use only loaded a particular version of a module? Or have you ever wanted to install several versions of a module, and easily be able to pick which one you want to load? I've written a module called only.pm to help you do just that.
PHP
PHP Weekly Summary
Topics on this week's PHP Weekly Summary include: Compiling PHP 5 CVS with Redhat, XML-based PHP extension generator, Advanced md5, sha1, 4.3.0 security flaw CGI, Leaking COM under Win32, file_put_contents(), cURL crash, More OpenSSL functions coming?, Dates and times.Working with Permissions in PHP, Part 2 (O'Reilly)
John Coggeshall continues his series on PHP permissions. "In my last column, we took a step away from PHP to discuss the Unix permissions system. In today's column we return to PHP to show you how to apply what you learned last time; again, this column applies only to those who work with PHP in an environment that supports Unix-like permission."
Python
Python 2.3a2 released
Guido van Rossum has announced the release of Python 2.3a2, the second (and likely last) alpha release of Python 2.3.Python-dev Summary
The latest Python-dev Summary, covering activity through February 15, is now available. It looks at a new acquire/release syntax proposal, extended function syntax, capabilities, improving execution speed, and several other topics.Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! for February 24, 2003
Here's the Dr. Dobb's Python-URL, with weekly news and links and for the Python community.The Daily Python-URL
This week's Daily Python-URL article topics include: The Major Leagues, RELEASED: Python 2.3a2, Python Package Index (PyPI) now on python.org, twander, FDFToolkit for Python, and more.Metaclass programming in Python (IBM developerWorks)
David Mertz, and Michele Simionato explain metaclass programming concepts in Python. "Most readers are already familiar with the concepts of object-oriented programming: inheritance, encapsulation, polymorphism. But the creation of objects of a given class, with certain parents, is usually thought of as a "just so" operation. It turns out that a number of new programming constructs become either easier, or possible at all, when you can customize the process of object creation. Metaclasses enable certain types of "aspect-oriented programming," for example, you can enhance classes with features like tracing capabilities, object persistence, exception logging, and more."
Scheme
Scheme Weekly News
The February 25, 2003 edition of the Scheme Weekly News is out. Topics include: Only the clock is the wrong side of midnight, Siag Office 3.5.6, GNU TeXmacs 1.0.1.5, STklos 0.54, HtmlPrag 0.4 Gauche-gl 0.2.2 and Gauche-gtk 0.3, and Swindle 20030217.
Tcl/Tk
Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!
The February 25, 2003 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is out with another week's roundup of Tcl/Tk articles.
XML
Design XML schemas using UML (IBM developerWorks)
Ayesha Malik writes about the business applications of UML. "Unified Modeling Language (UML) is an industry standard that is used in modeling business concepts when building software systems in an object-oriented manner. Recently, XML has gained ground in becoming a key enabler of these systems in terms of transport of information and commands. XML schemas, which are used to define and constrain the nature of XML exchanged, have consequently come into the limelight. This article discusses the use of UML in designing XML schemas and gives a hands-on approach for using the UML framework to create your XML vocabularies."
The Pace of Innovation (O'Reilly)
Kendall Grant Clark discusses XML language development on O'Reilly. "In last week's column I suggested, only half-jokingly, that one motivation for new XML developments was to give techie journalists like me something new to write about. In making this silly claim, I was primarily reacting to what is widely seen as a kind of monotonous redundancy on the XML-DEV mailing list, an important part of the XML development community. If XML-DEV is any indication, the development community believes there are innovations remaining to be achieved with XML, but since the pace of innovation has slowed, it returns repeatedly to core, essentially, contested issues seems to relieve some of the psychological burden of expecting new things and not getting them."
XP and XML (O'Reilly)
Eric van der Vlist writes about extreme programming (XP) and XML on O'Reilly. ... "the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that both XP and XML could benefit from working more closely together. And there may even be some hope for remote pair programming. I can't pretend to have real experience with XP but only with some of its practices, which I have been able to follow despite my remoteness. Therefore, most of this article is theoretical, but I hope that these ideas will still be useful."
Miscellaneous
Manage packages using Stow (IBM developerWorks)
Mugdha Vairagade introduces Stow on IBM's developerWorks. "This article is about Stow, a software installation management utility for Linux that offers a number of advantages over the tried-and-true Red Hat and Debian package management systems. With Stow, you can package applications in standard tar files and keep application binaries logically arranged for easy access."
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