Development

OpenOffice.org 1.1 beta released

Version 1.1 beta of the OpenOffice office suite has been released.

Some of the more important new capabilities include:

• New import/export formats including PDF, Macromedia Flash, DocBook, XML.
• Support for Complex Text Layout and vertical languages.
• Better Java integration including big speed improvements.
• Accessibility support throughout the suite.
• Support for add-on components.
• Preliminary support for recovering damaged files.
• MySQL data source support.
• Better online help information.

This long list of changes details many other new features. OpenOffice is doing a good job of closing in on the capabilities of Microsoft Office, this release should help to make Linux a stronger desktop contender.

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ALSA 0.9.2 released

Version 0.9.2 of the ALSA driver, library and utils packages have been released. A number of bug fixes have been included.

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PyJack 0.1 Released

The initial release of PyJack, version 0.1, is available. "This is a Python module which provides an interface to the Jack Audio Server. It is possible to access the Jack graph to manipulate port connections, monitor graph change events, and to perform soft-realtime audio capture and playback using Numeric Python arrays."

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Ogg Traffic

The March 24, 2003 edition of Ogg Traffic is available with the latest Ogg Vorbis audio compression software news. Discussion topics include: Status Updates, Speex goes 1.0, Xiph.org goes 501(c)3, and New Icecast2 Binary for Win32.

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Speex 1.0 released

Version 1.0 of the Speex audio codec has been released. See the announcement for the whole story.

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omniORB 4.0.1 and omniORBpy 2.1 released

New versions of omniORB and omniOrbpy, the high performance CORBA ORB for C++ and Python, have been released. Change information is in the source code.

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MySQL 4.0.12 declared stable

Version 4.0.12 of the MySQL database is available for download. "MySQL Version 4.0.12 has been declared stable for production use in March 2003. This means that only bugfixes are done for the 4.0 release series, and only critical bugfixes for the older 3.23 series." Thanks to Bryan Henderson.

See the release announcement for more information.

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Linux in Education Report

Issue #92 of the Linux in Education Report is out. Topics include: developing educational boards for GCompris, the first Schoolforge IRC meeting, OpenStudio's progress, a web based reading game, an essay on Software Engineering with Linux, the Site@School content management system, and more.

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gerbv 0.13 released

Version 0.13 of gerbv, the Gerber file viewer has been released by the gEDA project. This is a bug fix release, see the announcement for details.

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Mozilla Minotaur Project Formally Launched (MozillaZine)

MozillaZine covers the release of Mozilla Minotaur. "In a newsgroup posting, Scott MacGregor has formally announced the launch of Minotaur, a project to create a stand-alone mail client based on the Mozilla suite's Mail & Newsgroups component."

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Foomatic 3.0.0beta2 released

Version 3.0.0beta2 of the Foomatic printer support database has been released. "This will be the last beta release before the final release of Foomatic 3.0.0 in around two weeks (at least not later than first of May). This release does not contain any major new features; it mainly fixes bugs and improves the Adobe-compliance of the generated PPD files."

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Analog 5.32 released

Version 5.32 of the Analog web server log file analyzer is available. The changes include recognition of the Safari and Camino browsers, a new logformat specification, and more.

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Quixote 0.6 beta 5 available

In the march toward version 0.6, version 0.6 beta 5 of the Quixote web application framework has been released.

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ZConfig 1.0 released

Version 1.0 of Zconfig, a Zope configuration library, is available. "ZConfig's model is very different from the model support by the ConfigParser module found in Python's standard library, and is more suitable to configuration-intensive applications."

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Squeezing SOAP (IBM developerWorks)

Brian D Goodman covers the use of GZIP and SOAP on IBM's developerWorks. "GZIP encoding over HTTP is pretty much old school. "Been there, done that" is the attitude of most. However, if you have been working with a few of the current SOAP implementations, you'll find that they don't take advantage of it. While knowing they will eventually come around, if you are building real world Web service solutions and want a performance boost, GZIP is for you."

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heartbeat 1.0.2 released

Version 1.0.2 of heartbeat has been released by the High-Availability Linux Project. "This release contains a number of minor bug fixes, and is compatible with Red Hat 8.0."

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Audacity 1.1.3 released

Version 1.1.3 of the Audacity multi-platform sound editor is available. "This version adds a gain and pan control to every track, supports high-quality resampling, and has many other new features and bug fixes." See the release notes for details.

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ecasound 2.2.2 released

Version 2.2.2 of Ecasound, a multi-track audio processing utility, has been released. "A new native Python implementation of the ECI API has been added to the package. Ecasound.el (ecasound-emacs) has been updated to version 0.8.2. Oggs and mp3s can be now streamed directly from network. Author information is now visible in the LADSPA plugin descriptions. Changes in ALSA-0.9 support improve usability of ecasound with the new ALSA dmix PCM plugin." Some important bug fixes are also included.

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galan-0.2.14 released

Version 0.2-14 of galan has been announced. "galan is another modular synthesizer. It supports sub patches like pd and jmax. But has separation of mesh and Controls. It also supports OpenGL Scene Graphs which can be controlled by your audio data, the sequencers etc..."

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Hydrogen 0.7.6 available

Version 0.7.6 of Hydrogen, a Gnu/Linux drum machine, is available.

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Wave Composer Not Toilet (wcnt)

A new modular audio synthesis program known by the amusing name of Wave Composer Not Toilet (wcnt), is available. "Wav Composer Not Toilet is another modular synthesis program, but unlike many others does not work in real time at all. wcnt gives you sequencing, sampling, and synthesis without the need for fast hardware, although a little patience is required!"

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Bonobo support for Vim (GnomeDesktop)

A developer patch of the Vim editor for bonobo has been announced. "Take a look at the project page".

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KDE 3.1.1: It's not Odd at all! ;-)

KDE.News reports on the release of KDE 3.1.1, the first maintenance release of the KDE 3.1 release series.

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KDE-CVS-Digest for March 21, 2003

The March 21, 2003 edition of the KDE-CVS-Digest is out. "KDE 3.1.1 released, a WYSIWYG mode for Quanta, many bugfixes in KMail, KWin, Kicker and Konqueror."

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KDE Accessibility 1.0 is Here + Interview

KDE.News reports on the release of the first stable version of the KDE Accessibility module, which includes the KMagnifier, KMouseTool, and KMouth accessibility aids.

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Gnome and KDE viewpoint on the future of the X Window System (GnomeDesktop)

A group of developers from both the GNOME and KDE projects comment on the future of the X Window System. "We acknowledge the dedication of the XFree86 project in providing us a free and innovative implementation of the X11 industry standard, something we benefit from on a daily basis. Therefore, we want to share our joint point of view with the community."

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Sawfish 1.3 Released

Version 1.3 of the Sawfish (formerly Sawmill) window manager has been announced.

New features in this version include:

• Implementation of the EMWH "show desktop" mode.
• Changes to client window gravity when reparenting windows.
• Support for the EWMH SKIP_TASKBAR' state.
• New muliple properties for window history keys.
• Multi-thread awareness for more placement modes.
• Updated language translations.
• Lots of bug fixes including GTK 2.2 compilation support.

Sawfish 1.3 is available for download here.

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GNOME-games, the future and maintainership (GnomeDesktop)

Ross Burton writes about his progress on gnome-games 2.4.0. "I have started to prune the games for gnome-games 2.4.0, the first development release 2.3.0 was just released with gnibbles, gnobots2, iagno2 and xbill removed."

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GIMP 1.3.13 Released (GnomeDesktop)

The FootNotes site has an announcement for version 1.3.13 of the development release of the GIMP, a powerful graphical manipulation program.

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wine20030318 available

Version 20030318 of Wine has been announced. Changes include direct sound improvements, support for file locking, progress on the kernel/ntdll separation, and bug fixes.

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Wine Weekly News

Issue #162 of the Wine Weekly News is out. Topics include: Wine-20030318, File Locking, .NET Success, DPRINTF to TRACE Conversion, Finding DLL Imports, and Completely Broken Test App.

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AbiWord 1.1.4 released. (GnomeDesktop)

FootNotes has an announcement for the release of AbiWord version 1.1.4. "This version of AbiWord is basically feature complete for the final 2.0. It offers substantial new features and tons of bug fixes over 1.1.3.

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AbiWord Weekly News

Issue #136 of the AbiWord Weekly News is out, with the latest AbiWord word processor development news. "Smell that? It's the sweet sent of Wisconsin Maple Syrup and a new release cycle! The latest stable that's just come out, 1.0.5, is about to be joined by a new developers' build, 1.1.4. The Latest Releases page will be updated with information for both on the evening of 1.1.4's release (probably by 6pm CT Sunday). Large portions of the on-list discussions focus on the two releases while commits focus towards bug squashing."

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Balsa-2.0.10 and Balsa-1.4.3 released (GnomeDesktop)

Two new versions of the Balsa email client have been released. "Balsa team would like to officially announce balsa-2.0.10 and balsa-1.4.3 releases. Both releases are available at balsa.gnome.org. balsa-1.4.3 is based on GNOME1 libraries. balsa-2.0.10 is a GNOME2 port.

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Evolution 1.2.3 Released (GnomeDesktop)

GnomeDesktop reports on the release of Ximian Evolution 1.2.3. This update includes some security related bug fixes.

See the release notes for additional details.

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GNOME Ticker 0.4 released (GnomeDesktop)

Footnotes has the announcement for the initial release of GNOME Ticker, a stock market ticker application.

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Caml Weekly News

The March 25, 2003 edition of the Caml Weekly News is available with the latest Caml language news.

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Java Swing: Menus and Toolbars, Part 7 (O'ReillyNet)

O'Reilly is running part 7 in the series on Java Swing. "In the final part of this book excerpt series on Swing menus and toolbars from Java Swing, 2nd Edition, learn how to use toolbars."

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Taming your Tomcat: Filtering tricks for Tomcat 5 (IBM developerWorks)

Sing Li shows how to work with Tomcat 5 on IBM's developerWorks. "The new Tomcat 5 server takes filters to a new level of deployment flexibility. Tomcat 5's support for the upcoming Servlet 2.4 and JSP 2.0 specifications gives filter writers a new way to integrate and deploy these flexible components -- tapping directly into the request dispatcher's operations. In this article, Sing Li takes you on a guided tour of the new enhancement and gives you some hands-on training. See how Tomcat 5 can benefit Web application frameworks and lead ultimately to the design of maintainable high-performance systems."

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SBCL 0.7.14 released

SBCL (Steel Bank Common Lisp) version 0.7.14 is available. "This version provides a better implementation of SXHASH on simple bit vectors, no longer ignores type declarations for special variables, and fixes a number of bugs and other issues."

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This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)

The March 17-23, 2003 edition of This Week on perl5-porters is out. "Read on for the short notes I've taken about all those recent developments -- pack(), FETCH()es, threads port, et al."

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PHP Weekly Summary

Topics on this week's PHP Weekly Summary include: 64 bit issues, continued, Undocumented .ini options, superglobals with Zend Engine 2, htmlentities() Cyrillic support, error docref, and ICU extension.

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Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!

The Dr. Dobb's Python-URL for March 24, 2003 is available, with weekly news and links for the Python community.

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Ruby-GNOME2-0.4.0 is released! (GnomeDesktop)

Version 0.4.0 of Ruby-GNOME2, the Ruby language bindings for GNOME 2 has been released. "The biggest additions includes Win32 support, support for more Gtk widgets, and the usual set of bug-fixes."

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The Ruby Weekly News

Topics on this week's Ruby Weekly News include: Ruby Tutorial v0.3, Strong advantages over Python, XML too hard (YAML opportunity?), and lots of new Ruby software.

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Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!

The March 24, 2003 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is available with the latest Tcl/Tk development news.

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An XML Hero Reconsiders? (O'Reilly)

Kendall Grant Clark looks at whether XML is too difficult on O'Reilly. "In a recent weblog entry, one which has been picked up by Slashdot, Bray asks whether XML has become too hard for programmers. Faced with writing code "to process arbitrary incoming XML", Bray confesses that the experience was "irritating, time-consuming, and error-prone" -- quite an admission from someone as instrumental in the creation of XML as Bray. The point here -- before someone accuses me of hero worship -- isn't that Tim Bray is always right. He isn't. The point is that when Tim Bray starts talking about XML's problems, it makes sense for the XML development community to pay some attention."

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XMLTP/L, XMLTP Light (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal looks at XMLTP Light. "XMLTP/L, or XMLTP Light, is a lightweight RPC protocol that uses XML to encode the stream of data. XMLTP/L has been designed to do fast RPC calls over an intranet, within an enterprise. More specifically, the first purpose of XMLTP/L is to forward transactions (RPCs) to a database server. But, it also can be used to do method calls to any server that follows the common RPC technique introduced by XML-RPC and older client/server protocols."

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The Road to XHTML 2.0: MIME Types (O'Reilly)

Mark Pilgrim writes about the migration to XHMTL 2.0 on O'Reilly. "Now here's a dirty little secret: browsers aren't actually treating your XHTML as XML. Your validated, correctly DOCTYPE'd, completely standards compliant XHTML markup is being treated as if it were still HTML with a few weird slashes in places they don't belong.
Why? The answer is MIME types."

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Gnome C++ development with Gtkmm2 (DevChannel)

DevChannel has an article on the C++ wrapper libraries for the GNOME C framework. "There are many powerful tools and libraries available to take advantage of the GNU Network Object Modeling Environment(GNOME). This article will introduce the C++ wrapper libraries for the GNOME foundation's GNOME C framework. In this article, the term Gtkmm should be taken to mean the entire family of libraries that make up Gtkmm/Gnomemm."

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Space-Based Programming (O'Reilly)

Bernhard Angerer introduces space-based programming on O'Reilly. "'Space-based programming' heralds a new way of building distributed applications. The dominant methods of distributed programming are based on remote procedure calls (RPC), most notably embodied in the technologies CORBA, EJB, and COM/DCOM. Space architecture supplies a surprisingly compact model that completely replaces the RPC paradigm. Its inherent, minimalistic approach predisposes it to a wide range of applications while endowing it with the advantages of modularity, scalability, and source code economy."

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