See also: last week's Development page.

Development projects

News and Editorials

Apache support for WebDAV. Support for WebDAV has been made available as an open source module for Apache. WebDAV, which stands for "Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning", is a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol to allow collaborative editing and management of files on remote web servers.

The mod_dav module is provided under an Apache-style license. It is certain to be welcomed by ISPs, who can then provide manageable, editable web pages for their clients without having to allow local logins. "For the first time on the Web, Apache Server users can control information remotely and collaboratively, using interoperable tools that employ metadata and version control. The loosely knit members of the ASF are again break new ground by adopting the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) WebDAV standard."

To Scroll Down, Just Nod (NewsBytes). NewsBytes put out this brief article on Intel's plans to release a open source development library that would support "gesture recognition, object-tracking, face recognition and camera calibration, which will help researchers develop ways to enhance the ways people use computers". Hard information in the article is a bit scarce. As a result, we don't know the name of the library in question or the actual license that will be used, just that the library will be "without charge or royalty agreement". In addition, the Windows version of the library will be released first, with a Linux version due out before the end of the year.

Given that their major goal is to spark application development in order to produce more demand for their hardware, hopefully they will do the right thing and use a true open source license. Meanwhile, their various suggestions for future uses for the library are pure fun: " According to Intel, the home of the near future will see security systems with a camera that recognizes the contours of a homeowner's face, much as fingerprint and retinal recognition do today. And, once inside the home, since the computer is 'aware' of who you are and where you are, the PC can provide relevant information and the control of appliances just by making a recognizable sign toward a camera."

Browsers

Mozilla status report (Mozilla.org). The latest Mozilla status report is out. Several XBL widget bugs have been fixed in this release.

Article on XMLterm (Xml.com). Xml.com has run this feature article on XMLterm and semantic user interfaces from xml.com. XMLterm is a command line interface that runs under the Mozilla browser. "The early UIs for mainframe computers were textual and command-line oriented. This was followed by the graphical UI (GUI), which helped promote rapid growth in the use of personal computers. If one were to stretch this Web and UI analogy further, the next stage in the evolution of the UI should be ... the semantic UI! "

Electronics

LWN feature article: PCB. LWN's Forrest Cook has written this article describing the printed circuit design tool PCB. The process of going from a schematic to a working prototype circuit board is detailed.

Chip makers cozy up to Linux (ZdNet). ZdNet has run this article on recent Linux directions from chip makers. "We are in the midst of unveiling and rolling out our most significant architectural development in 15 years," said Jason Waxman, Intel's IA-64 marketing manager, referring to Intel's 64-bit Itanium chip roll-out, slated for later this year. "Fifteen years ago, the developer community was more centralized. Now, we're making (the Linux IA-64 software developer's kit) available on the Internet, so as to reach the broader development community."

Games

The Chopping Block (WorldForge). The June edition of The Chopping Block, a newsletter from the WorldForge multi-player game development project, is now available. Also, for the curious, they've also put up screen-shot for Acorn, their first game.

Embedded Systems

New open source real time API (Linux Devices). A new real-time Common API has been announced by Lineo Industrial Solutions Group. The API supports both the NMT RTLinux and DIPARM RTAI implementations of real-time Linux.

Intel releases COPS and vision library as open source. Intel has announced the release of its Common Open Policy Service (COPS) network configuration package under an open source license. Intel has also announced the open source release of a computer vision library, which "will provide a wide range of functions, including gesture recognition, object-tracking, face recognition and camera calibration."

Interoperability

June 12 Wine Weekly News. The June 12 issue of the Wine Weekly News has been released. Included is a feature on the X11 driver for wine.

June 12 Kernel Cousin for Wine. This week's Kernel Cousin for Wine has been released.

Cross GCC. Conectiva has announced Cross GCC , a system that allows DOS and Windows programs to be cross-compiled from a Linux host. Tools include gcc-dos and gcc-win.

Network Management

The BIRD Internet Routing Daemon. The BIRD Routing Daemon 1.0.0 has been released. "The BIRD project is an attempt to create a routing daemon running on UNIX-like systems (but not necessarily limited to them) with full support of all modern routing protocols, easy to use configuration interface and powerful route filtering language".

Network Distribution Systems

Freenet News. The first edition of the Freenet News has been posted. Those interested in the development of the Freenet project may want to have a look and encourage the author (Adam Langley) to continue writing these reports.

Office Applications

LyX Development News. Here's the latest LyX Development News with reports from the LyX Developers' Meeting and discussion of new features in the LyX word processor. "Asger Alstrup Nielsen went nuts and created an External material inset that allows you to include almost anything into a LyX document. Not only that but it's now possible to do amazing tricks with this new inset in combination with external scripts."

AbiWord Weekly News (June 8). This week's AbiWord Weekly News is now available. Note that the FreeBSD port of AbiWord is looking for a new "owner".

Review: Applixware Office 5.0 for Linux (CNN). Here's a review of ApplixWare Office 5.0 by Nicholas Petreley that appeared in CNN. "This suite is far more than it appears to be. And that's a good thing, because it appears to be quite lame. But Applixware Office usually falls short only when you evaluate it according to the competition's rules."

On the Desktop

Interview of Andy Hertzfeld on Eazel (Be Open). Be open.com has published this interview of Andy Hertzfeld on Eazel. "Listening to legendary Macintosh developer Andy Hertzfeld wax about the beauties of the Open Source development community is a bit like listening to an old Winterland-era hippie describe his experiences after stumbling into an all-night rave."

Interviews of KDE's David Faure (LinuxUK). Linux UK has published this interview of David Faure. "In KDE we have always tried as much as possible to put things in the libraries so that writing a application is as easy as possible, and it means that navigation is consistent. There is still the freedom to do something completely different; you can put the file menu on the right, and you can change anything you want, but we make it simple if you want to make the application compliant with what people are used to in terms of user interface."

Science

Open source software in medicine. This article discusses the current state of open source software in the British healthcare system. "The most straightforward aspect of the penetration of open source software into healthcare is using Linux for what it does best: acting as a solid network server. Sheffield GP David Bellamy discovered Linux several years ago. He runs the commercial EMIS database system--the English market leader--for clinical applications in his practice. But when he needed a server and firewall for his upgraded network 18 months ago, he installed Redhat 5.0 on a Pentium 75 box he had retired from personal use at home."

Supercomputing

IBM supports Linux superclusters (ZdNet). IBM will soon be supporting Linux superclusters , "Despite the threat it poses, IBM will soon begin offering support for Linux superclusters, according to an IBM official interviewed this week here at SP World. Such support may ultimately fuel faster adoption of Linux supercluster systems."

Telecommunications

Bayonne GNU telecom server. The Bayonne telecom server project has hit the 3rd Milestone. "In announcing the third milestone release of Bayonne, the telephony server of the GNU project, I believe it would be of benefit to more clearly define what Bayonne is. In the broadest possible sense, Bayonne is what could be called a "middleware" platform for developing telephony voice response services, though it is unlike any existing telephony middleware present today."

Web-site Development

Zope Weekly News. Here is this week's Zope Weekly News. It covers upcoming events, the 2.2 release, and more. "Mike is working with O'Reilly this week to clarify the status of his book. If all goes well we should have a definitive answer on making it official Zope documentation by the end of the week."

The Zope Weekly News has been expanded greatly, with more in-depth reports from various portions of the Zope development effort. Checking the new format out will be worthwhile.

Zope 2.2.0 beta 1 released. The first beta version of Zope 2.2.0 has been released.

Section Editors: Liz Coolbaugh and Forrest Cook

Project Links
Gnome
High Availability
ht://Dig
KDE
MagicPoint
Midgard
Mozilla
YAMS
Wine
Worldforge
Zope

More Information
AppWatch
Freshmeat
LinuxDev

Development tools

Java

Report from JavaOne. Nelson Minar sent us a report from JavaOne that he had posted to the java-linux list. "The biggest news I heard is that Java 1.4 ('Merlin') should be released simultaneously on Windows, Solaris, and Linux."

Linux JDK 1.3.0. The Early Release Developer Kit for Linux JDK 1.3.0 has been made available. This package includes development tools, the IBM Java Runtime Environment for Linux, sample code and Java source files.

Perl

use Perl News. The use Perl site has information on the upcoming yet another Perl conference , a review of the Perl Whirl 2000 cruise, information on numerous new perl modules.

Perl 101 (Developer Shed). Developer Shed is running a series called Perl 101 that covers the language from the basics to advanced topics.

Python

Python/XML. A package of tools for writing XML applications in python is now available on Source Forge.

Does Programming in Python Marginalize You? (LinuxDev.Net). This LinuxDev.Net column worries that Python will remain marginal. "I worry that using Python can actually marginalize a programmer. Python is hard to beat for writing applications that run on a single computer. But that's yesterday's computing model. The future of computing, heck, the present of computing, is in writing programs that run through a web browser. And the fact of the matter is that 99% of web browsers surfing the internet run Java and JavaScript, which gives these languages a huge advantage over Python, an advantage that Python's superior design may not be able to overcome."

Tcl/tk

Dr. Dobbs' Tcl-URL. This week's Tcl-URL is available, with pointers to the latest Tcl/tk news.

Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh and Forrest Cook

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