See also: last week's Development page.

Development projects

News and Editorials

Eclipse.org has announced the release of a beta version of its Eclipse C/C++ IDE at the LinuxWorld conference. Initial versions of Eclipse supported only Java, the C/C++ support is provided by an add-on tool project.

The project is being sponsored by Red Hat and IBM, both companies are founding members of eclipse.org. The Eclipse.org board of directors include Borland, Merant, QNX Software Systems, Rational Software, SuSE, TogetherSoft, and WebGain.

The Eclipse Platform runs on Red Hat Linux 7.1 and SuSE 7.1, Motif is required. Eclipse also runs under Solaris 8 and various versions of Windows.

According to the Eclipse Project FAQ, the project is divided into three sub-projects, the Eclipse Platform, which is an open-ended IDE framework, the Java Development Tools, which provides Java language support, and the Plug-in Development Environment, which provides support for extensions such as the C/C++ environment.

Typical IDE functionality is included, it is possible to edit, compile, debug, and run software projects in Eclipse. CVS support is also included. Support for user defined plug-in extensions is also included. See the Eclipse Tools Project for examples.

Tools include a graphical source editor ("with advanced code browsing and navigation features like code assist, syntax based color highlighting and integrated help facilities").

The Eclipse Project software is licensed under the Common Public License, and third party components are licensed under their own licenses as detailed in the Eclipse.org Software User Agreement.

Databases

PostgreSQL 7.2rc2 available. The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released PostgreSQL 7.2rc2. This is a documentation and updated packaging release with a few bug fixes thrown in for good measure.

SAP DB version 7.3.00.20. Version 7.3.00.20 of the SAP DB database software is available. This version features a number of bug fixes.

Documentation

LDP Weekly News. This week's LDP Weekly News lists a new LDP WikiText Editing HOWTO, a new Linux MIDI HOWTO, and lots of updated documents.

Embedded Systems

Lineo contributes MIPS port To RTAI. Lineo has announced that it has contributed a MIPS processor port to the Linux Real Time Application Interface (RTAI) project.

RTAI 24.1.8 released. Version 24.1.8 of the Real Time Application Interface (RTAI) has been announced. The announcement also includes a letter from FSF attorney Eben Moglen stating that no user of RTAI need fear the RTLinux patent. (Thanks to Karim Yaghmour).

Embedded Linux Newsletter (LinuxDevices). The LinuxDevices.com Embedded Linux Newsletter for January 24 is out with the latest from the Embedded Linux community.

Mail Software

This week on Milter.org. This week's articles on milter.org look at several sendmail filtering issues and the use of SpamAssassin for splitting suspected spam into a seperate mail stream.

Printing Software

LPRng 3.8.5 available. A new version of the LPRng printing system is available. Version 3.8.5 features a minor fix that allows the lpq command to check all of the queues.

New on LinuxPrinting.org. The LinuxPrinting.org site mentions new versions of the CUPS frontend XPP and Gimp Print's GPR.

Science

Developer Release 0.0.2.0 of ResMedicinae (LinuxMedNews). LinuxMedNews looks at an open-source medical practice management system known as Res Medicinae.

Web-site Development

Zope Corporation Releases Zope 2.5. Zope Corporation has announced the release of Zope 2.5. There are a number of new features in this release; see the announcement for details.

Zope Members' News. This week, the Zope Members' News site looks at FunctionalTests 0.1 for Zope, Zope 2.4.4 beta 1, and MetaPublisher 1.2.8.

Python 2.1.2 upgrade fixes Zope 2.4.x crashes. A ZopeNewbies posting suggests that people who are having crashing problems with Zope 2.4.x should upgrade to Python 2.1.2.

Take control of your JSP pages with custom tags (IBM developerWorks). Jeff K. Wilson covers JSP tags on IBM's developerWorks. "Using the techniques he details in this article, you can add more complex logic to your JSPs, take firmer control of data display, and share data among tags -- all without having to teach your front-end Web developers how to write Java code."

Finding CGI Scripts (O'Reilly). Dave Cross suggests some criteria for selecting Perl CGI programs and lists some pitfalls to avoid when doing so.

Miscellaneous

GNU.FREE 1.9 released. A new version of the GNU.FREE Java based electronic voting system has been released. Version 1.9 features XML configuration files, and bug fixes.

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

Desktop Development

Audio Applications

The latest from LINUXMUSIC. This week, the LINUXMUSIC site looks at a new version of LAoE, the Layer-based AudiO Editor, SooperLooper, a looping sampler, and the new MIDI-HOWTO.

Web Browsers

FreeWRL 0.30 released. For those of you who are finding your browsing experience to be a little flat: FreeWRL 0.30, a VRML and X3D browser, has been released. This is a beta release, and the developers are looking for some feedback.

Desktop Environments

Ximian switches Mono to X11 license. Here's a press release from Ximian stating that, henceforth, code from the Mono project will be covered by the X11 license. This change (from the GPL) means, of course, that Mono code can be linked into proprietary programs.

See also this ZDNet article on the change. "The change was made to accommodate Intel, which wanted to contribute to class library work but chafed at the GPL's requirement that software remain open-source only, said Ximian co-founder Miguel de Icaza."

New KDE 3.0 release plan. A new KDE 3.0 release plan has been posted. The plan calls for the first release candidate on January 28, with a final release on March 18.

Kernel Cousin KDE #31 Is Out. Issue #31 of Kernel Cousin KDE is available. "This week's summary includes talk about chemistry application Kalzium (1, 2) as a candidate for kdeedu, KDE artists' discussions (have a peak at the new tear-offs on text icons), word wrapping in dialogs, KDirAdm - an LDAP administration tool, animated icon support in KDE 3.0, and more."

KDE Icon Chatter. KDE.NEWS features a discussion about the philosophy behind the KDE icons and some new approaches that are being taken in KDE 3.1.

People of KDE: Chris Howells. This week's People of KDE features Chris Howells, maintainer of various KDE web sites.

Games

WorldForge Game Project Status. The WorldForge Status Report is out for January 2002. "The project's core focus right now is development of the game Mason, and many of the development areas revolve around that central effort. Mason is the second phase in the WorldForge Bootstrapping Plan (WF-BSP), which began with the completion and release of the game 'Acorn'"

The latest PyGame projects. This week's PyGame Projects include new versions of Samepygame, Bombers, Gigglebubble, and Opengeneral.

GUI Packages

Announcing Open Motif 2.2!. OpenMotif 2.2, the latest version of the venerable, not-quite-free GUI toolkit, has been announced. This release features ten new widgets. Red Hat Linux 7.x RPMs are available. A version 2.2.1 is also available, it fixes a few build problems.

Multimedia

KDE/aRts Video Roadmap Meeting Results. The results are in from the recent KDE/aRts video development strategy meeting. The IRC discussion resulted in two approaches being seriously looked at, development will occur in parallel.

Office Applications

Kernel Cousin GNUe #13. Issue #13 of Kernel Cousin GNUe is out. This week looks at a Car Dealer Management System, RPMS and Ximian, an HTML Client for GNUe forms, GNUe Tools version 0.1.1, database support for GNUe, and more.

AbiWord Weekly News #80. Issue #80 of the AbiWord Weekly News is available. The hunt continues for bugs that should be fixed prior to the 1.0 release.

Miscellaneous

gphoto2-2.0beta4 released!. Version 2-2.0beta4 of gphoto, the GNOME digital camera download program, has been released. This version features support for more cameras and a few bug fixes. Try it out and report any bugs back to the development team.

Programming Languages

Caml

Caml Weekly News for January 29, 2002. Here's the latest Caml Weekly News, topics include OCaml and games, OCaml in the kernel, floats and the OCaml C interface, Mp3tag 1.1, and more.

COBOL

TinyCobol 0.56. TinyCobol 0.56 has been released. "This release contains mainly bugs fixes, and some enhancements. It includes updates to the main compiler, run-time, the regression test suite. (Thanks to Rildo Pragana)

Java

Saucon Technologies Changes Web Application Development Landscape With a New Open-Source Project Called Japple. Saucon Technologies has announced that it is making its Japple Web-based Java development platform available as open-source. Japple is being released under the LGPL license.

AspectJ brings AOP to the Java language (IBM developerWorks). Nicholas Lesiecki introduces Aspect-Oriented Programming and AspectJ from Xerox PARC. "Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a new programming technique that allows programmers to modularize crosscutting concerns (behavior that cuts across the typical divisions of responsibility, such as logging). AOP introduces aspects, which encapsulate behaviors that affect multiple classes into reusable modules. With the recent release of AspectJ by Xerox PARC, Java developers can now take advantage of the modularization AOP can provide." AspectJ features the Open Source Mozilla Public License.

The Debate Over Java Data Objects (O'Reilly). Dion Almaer talks about Java Data Objects (JDO) on O'Reilly's ONJava site. "Since becoming a JSR, however, JDO hasn't met with a universally warm reception. Some people love the idea of standardizing on persistent objects, and some like to criticize."

Lisp

New Lisp Software. This week's new Lisp tools include OpenMCL 0.10, with newly added MacOS support, and Steel Bank Common Lisp 0.7.1 with a few bug fixes.

Perl

Perl 6 Porters Digest. The January 23, 2002 edition of the Perl 6 Porters Digest is out. Topics include Apocalypse 4, Parrot Strings, and more.

PHP

PHP-GTK 0.5.0 is released. PHP-GTK 0.5.0 has been released. "It has some major enhancements and bugfixes. The version has been bumped from 0.1.1 to indicate that the extension is now mature, stable, and can be used for a variety of applications."

PHP Weekly Summary for January 29, 2002. The January 29, 2002 PHP Weekly Summary is out. Topics this week include manual translation, a new SQLanywhere extension, an IPC extension, bug fixes, and more.

Making the PostgreSQL and PHP Connection (O'Reilly). Joshua D. Drake discusses PostgreSQL and PHP integration on O'Reilly's ONLamp site. "PHP is the most widely used Apache module available and provides a strong platform for Web application development. However, most people who use PHP with open source databases use PHP with MySQL. As an invitation to using PostgreSQL, I have written the following article on using PHP and PostgreSQL."

Python

This week's Python-URL. Dr. Dobb's Python-URL for January 28 is out, with the usual collection of interesting stuff from the Python development community.

The Daily Python URL. This week's new entries on the Daily Python URL include pointers to articles on a Python font editor, open-source PDF programming, Python and XML, the SCXX, Python/C++ API, and more.

Ruby

The Ruby Weekly News. The January 28, 2002 issue of The Ruby Weekly News features a pre-release of the BotFrenzy game, a Ruby XML publishing framework, TaskMaster for running task objects on multiple machines, and more.

Tcl/Tk

This week's Tcl-URL. Here's Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL for January 30. "Let's be philosophical: tcl is a nice, powerful language, that gets the job done. But it ain't sexy, it don't get no press, it don't get no respect. As such, should it be quietly buried in favour of the flash and style of, say, Java?"

XML

XML for Data: Modeling many-to-many relationships (IBM developerWorks). Kevin Williams looks at XML and many-to-many relationships. "Relational databases are, by their nature, more flexible than hierarchical data storage structures such as XML. Many relationships that are simple to model in relational databases (such as the relationship between invoices and parts in a shipping system) turn out to be fairly difficult to model in XML. In this column, I'll take a look at a typical many-to-many modeling challenge, and go through some options you have when creating an XML model for that information."

Miscellaneous

Source Code Scanners for Better Code (Linux Journal). Here's a Linux Journal article on automated source code auditing tools. "Flawfinder also shows some intelligence when it comes to scanning for vulnerabilities. For example, in tests using intentionally insecure code, Flawfinder was able to distinguish between strcpy() from a constant sized string and variable length strings and tell the difference between vulnerabilities and false hits."

Section Editor: Forrest Cook

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