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Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 12:11:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Havoc Pennington <hp@redhat.com> To: gnome-announce-list@gnome.org, gnome-list@gnome.org Subject: GNOME Summary, July 18-25 This is the GNOME Summary for July 18-25. ============================================================= Table of Contents ------------------------------------------------------------- 1) gnome-core and gnome-pim 2) Gnomba 3) GnomeHack release 4) GConf 5) GTK+/Gnome Application Development goes to press 6) If you have a cvs.gnome.org account, read this 7) Dax Kelson RPM updates 8) WM Spec churning along 9) Report from IBM conference 10) Hacking Activity 11) New and Updated Software ============================================================== 1) gnome-core and gnome-pim -------------------------------------------------------------- New releases of gnome-core and gnome-pim, updating your calendar, panel, and so on. Here's the announce, describing where to get them and what the changes are: http://www.gnome.org/mailing-lists/archives/gnome-announce-list/1999-July/0035.shtml ============================================================== 2) Gnomba -------------------------------------------------------------- A GNOME Samba browser appeared: http://www.pobox.com/~gandalf/proj/gnomba Looks nice, check it out. I think these guys have delinquently failed to update the software map, however. ;-) Nudge, nudge, guys. ============================================================== 3) GnomeHack release -------------------------------------------------------------- If you haven't tried GnomeHack, try it out. It works pretty well. I've played several games without seeing bugs. (Of course, I suck and die pretty fast. :-) http://www.xmission.com/~andersen/erik/gnomehack/gnomehack.html It's definitely nicer than moving a little @ character around. Oooh, I just noticed that Erik is *also* a software map delinquent. Bad Erik. ;-) ============================================================== 4) GConf -------------------------------------------------------------- I'm playing around with a new configuration system (a replacement for libgnome/gnome-config.h). This is like the Windows "registry," only without the bad parts. :-) If you're curious, look at gconf/doc/thoughts.txt in CVS; you might also be interested in http://www.debian.org/~wakkerma/config6/ Not too much code yet. It will be Gnome-independent, thus the name "GConf" instead of "GnomeConf". Oh, the initial thread about this starts here: http://www.gnome.org/mailing-lists/archives/gnome-devel-list/1999-July/0121.shtml thoughts.txt in CVS is a revision of my mailing list post. ============================================================== 5) GTK+/Gnome Application Development goes to press -------------------------------------------------------------- Several people have asked when my book is coming out; the pages were finalized and sent to the printer on Friday. So, it will take about a month to print and ship to stores. That is, expect the book in late August, or thereabouts. The final page count was over 500 pages, a good bit more than the planned 350; so this is a weighty tome on Gnome. I promise it's only 50% filler. :-) (just kidding) ============================================================== 6) If you have a cvs.gnome.org account, read this -------------------------------------------------------------- A post from Elliot about using this machine: http://www.gnome.org/mailing-lists/archives/gnome-devel-list/1999-July/0120.shtml ============================================================== 7) Dax Kelson RPM updates -------------------------------------------------------------- Bleeding-edge RPMs, read the announce here: http://www.gnome.org/mailing-lists/archives/gnome-list/1999-July/0594.shtml ============================================================== 8) WM Spec churning along -------------------------------------------------------------- Work seems to be progressing on the Gnome/KDE/etc. window manager extension spec; at least, major players are talking without any flames so far. You can read the archives here: http://www.gnome.org/mailing-lists/archives/wm-spec-list/1999-July/ Please stick to lurking unless you're very sure you should post, we want to keep the list on-track and undistracted. ============================================================== 9) Report from IBM conference -------------------------------------------------------------- The following report was written by Peter Teichman <pat4@acpub.duke.edu>, who just returned from the GNOME booth at the IBM Solutions '99 conference: I have just returned from a week in Las Vegas, where IBM's Solutions '99 conference was being held. Nat Friedman was there from Sunday until Thursday, and Miguel de Icaza was there for Wednesday and Thursday. Solutions '99 was a conference for developers. The feel was definitely one of supporting strong technologies, rather than marketing. IBM had given a booth to the Free Software Foundation and the GNOME project, and we went out to man the booth. The FSF was represented by Tim Ney, who some of you may have met at other conferences recently. It was very interesting to see IBM's stance toward Free Software and GNU/Linux - it looks as if they are actually doing things right. They are working on native ports of all their major applications, and appear to be genuinely trying to release the source to anything they can. Moreover, they are trying *not* to crowd the market. I was initially skeptical about IBM's involvement in the community, but talking in depth with several of their employees leads me to believe that they have the right ideas about how to be involved in the community. The main focus of our booth was giving GNOME demos and educating people about the technologies involved in the project. Since this was a conference for developers, most people were very interested in the work that has gone into our infrastructure. The biggest hits appeared to be Bonobo, the Canvas, and our reliance on XML tools. The XML people from IBM (and their AlphaWorks projects) were there in full force, and they seemed impressed that we have standardized all our file formats on XML. Another big hit was found in Gill, our rendering program for the World Wide Web Consortium's Scalable Vector Graphics. We ended up showing Gill off quite a bit. Overall, I think we interested many people in the GNOME project. I think it was good to get the word out at a major industry conference like this one, especially one where the conference attendees were looking toward possible GNU/Linux ports of their software. Everyone we talked to who was in that position now understands the strengths of the GNOME framework for developing applications. On Tuesday, Nat and I made the rounds through the conference floor. We ended up evangelizing Free Software to the other software vendors. To my surprise, no one there blew us off. Some companies had already been considering the model, and some seemed interested once we described it a bit. I don't think that we changed any minds, but we certainly made headway. And these were some of the largest software vendors around: http://www.solutions99.ibm.com/html_docs/exhibitors.html Wednesday afternoon there was a Linux BOF, which Nat and I attended. I put in a plug for the Free Software Foundation's booth afterward, and many people picked up our literature. I was hoping that some people would come by the next day and see a GNOME demo, at very least. Several groups sounded like they were interested in opening the source to their products, and I also wanted them to come by for discussion. We did end up having increased traffic the next day, and showed off much of GNOME, like we had done the days before. It was nice for us that this was a developers conference, as they were more interested in the technical parts of GNOME that we consider so important. We were able to talk more about our framework for building applications, rather than just demo the Panel and existing apps. Miguel gave a talk later on Thursday, where he described the major structural parts of GNOME. He complained afterward that the talk wasn't as funny as he would have liked, but I thought it was the best technical introduction to the GNOME framework that I had heard. The overall feel of the conference was that GNU/Linux and the GNOME environment are finally making their way into larger markets. IBM looks to have the right idea about their work in the area, and I think it is good for them to be an ally. Peter Teichman pat4@acpub.duke.edu ============================================================== 10) Hacking Activity -------------------------------------------------------------- Module Score-O-Matic: 31 ggdb 25 gimp 24 gnumeric 23 gnome-libs 15 mc 15 gtk-- 15 gtk+ 15 gnome-ddruid 15 gnome-applets 13 gill 13 gconf 12 web-devel-2 12 gnomeicu 11 nethack 11 goose 10 gxsnmp 10 gnome-debug 10 gnome-core 10 gmf 9 gnome-filer 9 bonobo 8 dryad User Score-O-Matic: 53 martin 25 spapadim 20 mmeeks 18 msw 18 hp 16 sopwith 15 kenelson 14 hvr 13 sipan 12 vinc 12 karsten 12 hestgray Notice the gnome-ddruid module, which is a spiffy disk partition editor msw is working on. It's quite nice. There's still a bunch of work on assorted IDE/debugger thingies, I still haven't tried them. They must be nearing usability, I'd think. ============================================================== 11) New and Updated Software -------------------------------------------------------------- Mosquito gvsy GSnes9x gaspell Gnomba GNOME Weather GnomeTranscript vsa GnoMail GnomeHack gsrnd gx10 teleGNOME gproc GnomePM Glacier GPeriodic GFlash Trinity gquest GIntMon irssi gnofin atilo gaddr ghost-edit gdiary gphoto screem gchbkgrd Smart-ass comment: a couple authors have entries in the software map with no web page, no tarball, no author's email address, no version number, indeed, no information whatsoever. :-) You know who you are. The map entries aren't very useful if they don't point to any software. :-) =========================================================================== Until next week - Havoc