The important news was that Martin Baulig and Sander Vesik were selected as the GNOME 2.0 Release Co-ordinators. They will start by building their release team and working out what needs to be done.
http://lists.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-May/msg00000.html
The GPP is a community driven effort to produce binary packages for GNOME. Everyone can help with this by either packaging or testing, so if you'd like to join the efforts see the project page.
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gpp/
Eli Goldberg emailed to say that final release candidates for the 1.0.3 release will be starting this Monday the 7th May, with the final release due on May 11th. There are lots of new features, including:
Files can now be moved and copied through Cut, Copy, and Paste menu items.
New Delete feature which bypasses trash.
New News sidebar downloads headlines off news sources that provide RSS feeds.
Tree view is faster and does not use processor when closed.
Candidate builds will be available at
http://developer.eazel.com/download/candidate/
by rsync (rsync developer.eazel.com::candidate), or through the Eazel Installer.
Karsten Reincke released a new version of his guide on how to compile GNOME 1.4 from source files. Most people prefer to use the binaries from their distribution, but if you want to get the releases hot off the press this is how to do it:
http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-05-05-017-20-NW-GN
Christian Schaller, co-editor of this summary, describes his GUADEC 2 experiences. For the inside scoop on what happened including serious alcohol abuse and the Norwegian monarchy!
http://www.linuxpower.org/display.php?id=210
Michael Hall continues his indepth report on the new features in Ximians latest release. His main concerns were that small areas of inconsistency within the UI remained. Overall he enjoyed the experience particularly praising the additions Ximian have made for new-users such as doorman and redcarpet.
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/3301/1/
Sean Dreilinger reviews GNOME 1.4 and gives it a positive 7/10. His main issue was the size of the download but overall found it "an effective and stable environment", for the full article:
http://linux.cnet.com/linux/0-2136888-7-5736933.html
This fast and light GTK+ based desktop environment recently added some features to make it work with GNOME seamlessly. The developer talks about the environment so far and his future plans which may include voice integration.
http://www.moongroup.com/stories.php?story=01/05/01/0821338
David Kaelbling announced that the SGI packages on their freeware site have been updated. Due to scheduling constraints they are not precisely 1.4 but are a lot closer.
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-announce-list/2001-April/msg00042.html
Martin Baulig released an update on the GNOME 2.0 status and what hackers can do to help. Some scripts provided by Vicious can help take much of the pain out of compiling from CVS.
http://lists.gnome.org/archives/gnome-hackers/2001-May/msg00009.html
Seth Nickell tells us that the GNOME Usability Project is being reoganised:
"Calum Benson and his team of merry usability hackers, writers,
dreamers, philosophers and poets will strive to address usability
issues in GNOME and help set a direction for the GNOME interface
into the near and distant future."
Their initial focus is to develop some proper UI rules and fix the major UI problems. Usability is really important as GNOME widens it's userbase. If you'd like to get involved and work with some great people follow the link.
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup
Lauris Kaplinski released an initial GNOME Print FAQ. Detailing how it works, the growing list of applications supported and how developers can help.
http://lists.ximian.com/archives/public/gnome-print/2001-May/000632.html
Module Score-O-Matic:
(Top 20 most active modules for this month by number of CVS commits)
101 nautilus
55 evolution
43 gnumeric
30 ximian-setup-tools
28 web-devel-2
27 gdm2
26 galeon
25 eel
22 guppi3
21 gimp
20 gnome-i18n
18 trilobite
18 libxslt
18 gtk+
16 pan
16 libbonoboui
16 gtranslator
15 gtkhtml2
13 uf-view
13 gnome-xml
User Score-O-Matic:
(Top 20 hackers for this month by number of CVS commits)
68 ramiro
56 minmax
37 jirka
32 pablo
28 martin
28 darin
25 veillard
21 owen
19 mitch
19 michael
19 kabalak
19 cactus
18 rodrigo
17 trow
16 jpr
15 menesis
15 hansp
15 gman
15 charles
15 bansz
Software altered this week:
rubrica - Address book application.
Guikachu - Resource file editor for PalmOS pocket computers.
gramps - A genealogy program.
GnoZip - Archiving application that handles zip/bz2/gzip.
Pan - Multi-threaded Usenet newsreader.
Gnobog - GNOME Bookmarks Organiser helps you organise your links.
Gnomermind - MasterMind-type puzzle game.
Batalla Naval - A networked multiplayer battleship game.
grapevine - NEW, a user notification system.
netmon_applet - Network load monitor that supports Linux and Solaris.
glame - (GNU/Linux Audio Mechanics) featureful audio processing application.
gno3dtet - 3D tetris like game.
Overflow - Visual programming environment.
gtranslator - Translator helper application.
gwireless_applet - Wireless link quality monitor.
Gnucash - Easy-to-use personal finance application.
Gewels - Jewels game.
Spat - Intranet Messaging client.
David - C/C++ code editor.
Gaim - An AIM client.
gjiten - Japanese word and kanji dictionary.
GSnes9x - Front-end to the Snes9X SNES emulator.
GRot13 - rot13 encryption application.
IceWM - GNOME compliant Window Manager designed for performance and size.
uf-view - cartoon viewer for User Friendly and others.
pyFind - Find utility.
Moleskine - Source code editor in pygnome.
Glimmer - All-purpose editor.
galeon - Gecko browser with native GNOME look
Tenes Empanadas Graciela - Multiplayer turn-based strategy game.
gThumb - Image viewer and browser.
See the software map on www.gnome.org (or Freshmeat) for more information about any of these packages.
Best Wishes,
Steve