See also: last week's Development page.

Development projects

Browsers

DOM Core Level 2 Conformance Tests. Bob Clary has put together as set of DOM Core Level 2 Conformance Tests which use the JavaScript bc TestFrame class to test browser functionality.

Databases

OraSoft tools to be supported by Advantio (Gnotices). Gnome's Gnotices has noted that a commercial entity known as Advantio has been set up to support Orasoft, the GPL licensed suite of Gtk and GNOME tools that interface to Oracle databases.

Education

Linux in Education Report for November 20th. Issue number 33 of the Linux in Education report is now online. Topics in this release include a discussion on the problems with finding true desktop publishing software and links to tools like TypingKoach, a typing tutor; and KQuick, a language translator.

Fabula project seeks help (mozDEV.org). Fabula is a Mozilla based program that consists of a reader and a maker. "Fabula is an easy-to-use program which allows children and teachers to create their own bilingual, multimedia storybooks complete with digital photos." Mozilla.org is looking for someone to take over the development and web page maintenance for the Fabula project, see the Fabula Contacts Page for more info.

Math War teaches math skills. Now your kids can learn math skills in the context of a Linux game with Math War. "MathWar is more or less like playing with flash cards, with the exception that there is a computer player who can attempt to answer if the human player is too slow. A game of MathWar consists of a set number of rounds. A round consists of two cards and a mathematical operator (add, subtract, or multiplication). The first player to guess an answer for a round gets that rounds point if the guess is correct. Otherwise, the correct answer is displayed, and no points are awarded."

Electronics

New gEDA PAL software: Icarus PAL (gEDA). The gEDA project has announced a new project, Icarus PAL. Icarus PAL aims to bring PAL software to the open-source world. Currently, it only supports the 22v10 PAL devices and can read JEDEC files. "My plan, as I'm sure you are aware, is to make an Icarus Verilog target module that makes uses this toolkit to generate 22v10 designs. We use a lot of 22v10 parts in my day job, so this is something *I* might even use:-)"

Embedded Systems

Embedded Linux GUI/Windowing Quick Reference Guide (LinuxDevices.com). LinuxDevices.com posted a reference guide for graphical interfaces suitable for use in embedded Linux devices. The guide lists numerous alternatives to the standard X Windows server/Toolkit UI used on desktop Linux systems. Most entries in the guide include typical memory footprints.

ThinkNIC modifications online. ThinkNIC, the Internet computer from Larry Ellison, has posted the list of changes and links to updated source for the GPL code in their Linux based system. A link to an ISO image for their 1.2 CD is also provided.

While not officially open to resellers due to the low profit margins on the base system, the company apparently is open to the possibility of value added resellers. (Thanks to Jay R. Ashworth.)

Network Management

OpenNMS Volume 1, Issue 35. The November 21, 2000 issue of the OpenNMS Update has been published. Topics include the current code freeze for the upcoming 4.0 release, stress testing, and giving some yearly thanks to those who deserve it.

Office Applications

Eazel Nautilus Preview2 impresses, frustrates (ZDNet). ZDNet takes a look at the 0.5 Preview2 release of the Eazel Nautilus file browser. "In use, Nautilus is flexible and fun. The user can quickly change themes and can further customize appearance by dragging and dropping color swatches and background images onto various Nautilus panes. Dragging two swatches onto opposite sides of the pane results in a gradient fill. The vector-based graphics theme is especially interesting, with its curvy icons."

gimpi: Gimp images group formed. An eGroup known as gimpi has been formed recently. The purpose of Gimpi is to exchange images that are created or manipulated with the Gimp.

On the Desktop

From the Desktop: I Stands For Ice, Ice, Baby and Intro spection (LinuxPlanet). IceWM is a GNOME compliant window manager which is now the default for Debian distributions. LinuxPlanet takes a closer look at IceWM. "Some particular strengths of this interface are the taskbar and an easily configurable collection of setting files in ~/.icewm. Using some clearly written documentation available on the IceWm site, I was able to quickly get things set up the way I wanted them."

GNOME on the Road; Rolling out the Red Carpet (LinuxPlanet). Linux Planet covers the portable version of GNOME with a discussion of Helix Code's Red Carpet package installer and the basic mail, graphics, and PIM desktop tools that GNOME provides. `Pronto's big strength is filtering. It handles this on a level we don't often see with other mail clients, with support for the normal globbing characters many are used to, or full Perl regular expressions for people looking for fine control. It also features virtual folders, which allow you to search for keywords or expressions and "can" the search into a folder for easy access without having to move mail around between them.'

On Writing A Bonobo Control. Dirk-Jan C. Binnema recently posted a tutorial on writing Bonobo Controls. Bonobo is the component model of the GNOME project and Controls are user interface components that are accessed via CORBA.

GNOMEnclature: Intro to Bonobo (IBM developerWorks). George Lebl continues his discussion on the Bonobo component architecture for GNOME in his IBM developerWorks column. "Components can also be used for things that have nothing to do with the user interface. A component for editing the password file, for example, can be used in the user administration application. In this case, the password file can be an abstract interface (which you wouldn't have to parse or write)."

Pango Status Report. Owen Taylor has posted an update to Pango, the project designed to abstract text rendering and layout issues from widget sets. Pango is an offshoot of GTK+/GNOME, although it is not tied to either project. This update is in association with the recent GTK+/Glib 1.3.2 developer releases.

Science

Stallman Replies to VistA Licensing Issues (Linux Med News). Linux Med News has posted a note from Richard Stallman concerning a licensing controversy with the VistA medical source code project. "I am not a lawyer, but I have spoken extensively with lawyers about copyright questions. Presuming that the VistA software is in the public domain, if you combine it with a GPL-covered program you must release the combination *as a whole* under the GPL. Using the VistA code in this way is allowed because public domain status permits practically anything."

FreeMed 0.2.0 (Phoenix) Released (Linux Med News). Linux Med news reports on the release of FreeMed 0.2.0. FreeMed is a GPL licensed Medical Record and Practice Management system with a web based interface.

Web-site Development

Zope Weekly News. Here is the Zope Weekly News for November 16. Documentation issues seem to be at the top of the agenda again.

Zope 2.2.3 released. Zope 2.2.3 has been released, see the announcement for details. This is a bugfix release. The 2.2.3 release was quickly followed by Zope 2.2.4 beta 1, which addresses some permission problems in 2.2.3. (Thanks to Paul Hewitt).

Section Editor: Forrest Cook

Application Links
GIMP
Mozilla
Galeon
High Availability
ht://Dig
mnoGoSearch
MagicPoint
Wine
Worldforge
Zope

Open Source Code Collections
Berlios
Freshmeat
OpenSourceDirectory
Savannah
Le Serveur Libre
SourceForge
Sweetcode

Programming Languages

ERLANG

Updated XML tools for ERLANG. The ERLANG home page lists updated versions of the ERLANG's XMLtools and the verifying XML parser.

Java

Connection Pools (IBM DeveloperWorks). Siva Visveswaran has written an article on Java Based Connection Pools. This technique is used for sharing server resources among clients.

Make room for JavaSpaces (IBM DeveloperWorks). Susanne Hupfer writes about distributed data structures in Java. "The design of any space-based application typically revolves around one or more distributed data structures. These are data structures that exist in a space where multiple processes can access and work on them at the same time -- something that is often difficult to achieve in distributed computing models."

Perl

Perl5 porters for November 13-20, 2000. The Nov 13-20 Perl5 Porters digest is out. Topics covered include fixing the Regexp Engine, UTF8 and Charnames, and PerlIO, among other things.

PHP

PHP Weekly Summary for November 20, 2000. The November 20, 2000 issue of the PHP Weekly Summary is available. PHP CVS updates are discussed, as are OpenSSL encryption functions, a PHP versioning scheme, and a formal PHP language specification.

Python

Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! (November 20th). This week's Python-URL! is out. Topics include a comparison of Ruby and Python, and a discussion on turning lists into dictionaries with the tuple package.

Python-dev summary. Here is A.M. Kuchling's Python-dev summary for November 15. The Python developers are starting to look forward to the 2.1 release, and this summary covers some of the ideas that they are considering.

Programming with Python - Part 3: Extending Python (Linux.com). In this third issue of a continuing series Jason Tackaberry looks at the extensibility and embeddable nature of Python. "When you're programming strictly with Python, you don't have to worry about the particulars of reference counting, except to avoid cyclical references. Programming with Python/C is a different story, however. If you forget to decrement an object's reference, memory will be leaked, destructors won't be called, and the result will be a broken mess."

Snack Sound Toolkit 2.0.3 released. Version 2.0.3 of the Snack Sound Toolkit for Python has been released. This version includes bug fixes, better documentation, and an improved test suite.

Tcl/tk

Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! (November 20th). This week's Tcl-URL! is out. Topics include a discussion on the signficance of Postscript and another on module packaging alternatives.

Section Editor: Forrest Cook

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