See also: last week's Development page.

Development projects

News and Editorials

The LinuxFund has announced the funding of a new round of grants for open-source software and open-hardware developers. Five projects will each receive a $1000 grant. This round's projects include the Simple DirectMedia Layer, Ocularis, the Leviathan Project, OpenDecoder, and GNUpdate.

• Simple DirectMedia Layer is a multi-platform multimedia library that provides access to audio and graphics framebuffer devices for developing games and other multi-media software.
• Ocularis is a project that aims to improve accessibility for the visually impaired and includes interfaces to speech software and X window system simulation. The project aims to provide the tools to allow the visually impaired to communicate and work through computers without assistance from others.
• The Leviathan Project is a proposed book library management system that will handle book check in and out, renewals, and holds. The goal is to replace expensive proprietary systems that are currently in use by cash poor libraries.
• OpenDecoder aims to create an open hardware based Ogg Vorbis audio decoder so that audio technology may be built without the encumbrance of the proprietary patents that hamper MP3 projects.
• GNUpdate is a universal package management system that will allow Debian and Red Hat users to use each others' package formats. GNUpdate also has the capability of performing automatic package updating, and management of local CVS repositories.

Standards

Linux Standard Base 0.9. The Linux Standard Base project is getting toward the end of its specification process. Version 0.9 of the LSB has been released, and is in a 30-day comment period. Once the comments have been addressed, the LSB will go to the Free Standards Group for adoption.

Audio

GLAME 0.4.1 released. A new version of the GLAME audio editing tool has been released. This version fixes some bugs that turned up in the recently released GLAME 0.4.0.

CORBA

Manage CORBA with scripting (Unix Insider). Unix Insider takes a look at CORBA in a Regular Expressions article: "For the purpose of this column, the main point to take from CORBA's history is that the protocol is a smashing success. We mean this in a precise sense: CORBA 1.0 was difficult, expensive, and esoteric. Ten years later, CORBA costs little or nothing (at least in some varieties), it is widely used, and hobbyists and students expect to use it safely."

Databases

PostgreSQL version 7.1.1 released. A new version of the PostgreSQL database has been released. Version 7.1.1 contains mostly bug fixes and optimizations. upgrading from version 7.1 does not require a dump/restore operation. Some new interactive documentation is also available for PostgreSQL version 7.1.

Documentation

Linux Documentation Project News for May 8, 2001. Here's the May 8 edition of the LDP weekly news.

Embedded Systems

LinuxDevices.com Embedded Linux newsletter. Here's the latest LinuxDevices.com Embedded Linux newsletter, with pointers to the LinuxDevices articles for the past week. Topics include an updated tiny SBC list, conference information, an open-source camera server, several video systems, and more.

Graphics

Cal3D - 3d character animation library. The initial release of Cal3D, a free, skeletal based character animation library has been announced. "This release is significant due to the extreme scarcity of Free Software options for skeletal-based animation, and thus may provide a very important advancement for Free Game development projects."

Mail Software

Mailman version 2.0.5 released. Another new release of Mailman, the Gnu mailing list manager has been announced. Version 2.0.5 is a bugfix release that fixes a problem with stale lock files.

Network Management

OpenNMS Update v2.19. For the latest news on OpenNMS, a project that is building a fully distributed network management platform, check this week's OpenNMS Update v2.19. The OpenNMS team will be talking tomorrow at the Boulder Linux User Group, if you are interested in meeting them in person.

Printing Systems

CUPS 1.17 released. Version 1.1.7 of the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) has been released. This version has improved configuration scripts, better documentation, a number of non-root command modes, and lots of bug fixes.

Security

OpenSSH 2.9 released. OpenSSH 2.9 has been announced. This release includes a number of new features, some fixes, and makes version 2 of the SSH protocol the default.

Software Development

An Introduction to Extreme Programming (O'Reilly). O'Reilly's Linux DevCenter features an article on Extreme Programming, somewhat of a catch-phrase these days. "In its purest form, Extreme Programming is simple. The central tenet is, 'Find the essential elements of creating good software, do them all of the time, and discard everything else.'"

Web-site Development

OpenACS 3.2.5 announced. OpenACS is an Open Source toolkit for creating "Web services with a collaborative dimension". It is based on the ArsDigita Community System (ACS) but uses PostgreSQL instead of Oracle. OpenACS 3.2.5 has just been announced and includes multiple, important security fixes as well as support for PostgreSQL 7.1.

Midgard Weekly Summary (May 4th). Like many "weekly" development reports recently, the Midgard Weekly Summary took a hiatus for a month or two. However, it is back now with a lot of news to cover. One particular highlight, Henri Bergius (one of Midgard's original architects) has started a new commercial firm, Nemein Solutions, which uses Midgard as a core technology.

Zope Weekly News for May 4th. The Zope Weekly News for May 4th is out. Topics include a Berkeley Storage beta, the Zope book, Zope 2.4 progress, SmartObjects compared to an ODB, and more.

Squishdot 1.1.0 released. A new version of the Zope based Squishdot news publication system has been announced. The Squishdot 1.1.0 The list of changes includes a number of changes, including improved searching, modified HTML parsing, and use of Zope 2.3.2 Btrees.

MoinMoin 0.9 released. A new version of MoinMoin, a Python based Wiki program has been announced. Version 0.9 adds some new XSLT features, more user configuration actions, and several bug fixes.

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

C++

Convert C to C++ with a Python program. A new Python script that converts C code to C++ has been announced.

Caml

Caml Weekly News for May 9, 2001. The latest edition of the Caml Weekly News is out. Topics this week include an announcement for a new French Caml book and a beta release of the Caml Development Kit.

Java

Simplify XML programming with JDOM (IBM developerWorks). IBM's developerWorks features an article by Wes Biggs and Harry Evans on XML programming with JDOM. "In many ways, the Java language has become the programming language of choice for XML. With groundbreaking work from the Apache Software Foundation and IBM alphaWorks, there are now complete tool chains for creating, manipulating, transforming, and parsing XML documents."

Lisp

SBCL 0.6.12 released. Version 0.6.12 of SBCL, Steel Bank Common Lisp, has been released. This version includes bug fixes, optimizations, and some patches from CMU Common Lisp have been worked in.

Perl

Apocalypse 2. Larry Wall has released Apocalypse 2, the second article in a series describing Perl 6. Atoms, molecules, data types, variables, names, literals, context, lists, files, and properties are covered.

Using SOAP::Lite with Perl (IBM developerWorks). Joe Johnston discusses the use of Perl to work with SOAP. "Marrying SOAP, the darling protocol of the Web services world, to Perl, the grande dame of Web programming languages, is a natural fit. This article will present a no-nonsense approach to using SOAP::Lite, Perl's window into SOAP Web services."

PHP

PHP Weekly News for May 7, 2001. The May 7, 2001 edition of the PHP Weekly News is out. This issue covers PHP 4.0.6 RC1, Advanced Data Types, extension dependencies, variable, class and function naming issues, and more.

Python

This week's Python-URL. Dr. Dobb's Python-URL for May 7 is out, with coverage of the new iterator proposal, the Java Python Extension, dealing with fixed point calculations for currency, and more.

Developing a full-text indexer in Python (IBM developerWorks). The next installment in the Charming Python series looks at an indexer module for better searches.

Tcl/Tk

This week's Tcl-URL. Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL for May 7 is out, with the latest from the Tcl/Tk development community.

Section Editor: Forrest Cook

Next: Commerce