GNOME has a long time has a client for the Jabber Instant messaging system called Gabber. The development has been slow lately, but its maintainer Julian Missig is now back in action. He has even put up a nice article where he reviews Apple's iChat client for and tries to draw lessons and ideas for use for his continued development of Gabber. An interesting read for anyone using instant messaging clients under GNOME or are developing such. Julian also did a interview recently with jabber.org that you can read.
http://missig.org/julian/jabber/iChat/
http://www.jabber.org/people/interviews/x-virge.html
Miguel de Icaza wrote in to tell us that he is running a survey to see where we should take Mono, now that Mono has matured and is becoming a serious tool for people. The purpose of the survey is to see what the most pressing needs for people are. So if you want to help the Mono community help you, then go take this survey! Also on the Mono newsfront is a neat new compiler with a GTK# GUI, screenshot linked below.
http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/monosurvey
http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/debugger.png
Linux Journal is running an article about GSpy a security camera application for GNOME. If you are threatned by burglars or worse, and want to be protected by the best security a gnome can have, then make sure to read this one.
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6232
Joe Barr has an article on Linuxworld about our favourite personal finance application. If you haven't already tried this fine application now is probably the time to do so. The GnuCash community is also activly looking for hackers to help port GnuCash to GNOME 2, so interested parties should use this opportunity to join one of our best development teams.
http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2002/0916.gnucash.html
Sun Microsystems are starting to reveal their plans with GNOME. A new series of desktop machines sporting our favourite Desktop is in the making including a Linux distribution from Sun. The news.com article refers to the machines as 'purple boxes' so maybe these new desktops will have the same cool purple look of Sun's servers.
http://www.lwn.net/Articles/10234/
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-958487.html
It is not only Red Hat and Sun that are starting to make GNOME desktop deals. Ximian made a press release this week announcing that LinOra Corporation will be switching their Windows desktops over to Ximians desktop offering. Hopefully this deal is just one in a long string. Maybe it is time for you to get your boss to start a pilot project with GNOME desktops at your company? If he/she is unsure about support you can just point them to Ximian and say that other people are already doing it.
http://www.ximian.com/about_us/press_center/press_releases/index.html?pr=linora
As you might have guessed one of the trademarks of Evolution is that it evolves. And as part of that Ximian released the first Evolution 1.2 beta this week. Tons of new features, speedups and other improvements. So if you where not using Evolution before, you have even fewer reasons to not start now.
http://www.gnomedesktop.org/article.php?sid=665&mode=&order=0
http://developer.ximian.com/projects/evolution/release_notes/1.1.1_beta1.html
James Willcox is continuing his crusade to give us a great recent files implementation in GNOME 2.2. The code is maturing in the libegg module in GNOME CVS and more and more GNOME applications are starting to use it. James is also working on a global recentfiles entry for the GNOME system menu which has just gotten some nice looking icons due to the new icon theme code from Alex Larsson. This code will be commited as soon as Alex GEP to move that code from Nautilus to libgnomeui goes through. Screenshot of this neat feature below and a link to the GEP.
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~jwillcox/files/screenshots/panel-recent-menus-3.png
http://developer.gnome.org/gep/gep-7.html
Colin Walters have been working hard lately adding support for Internet Radio to Rhythmbox. Thanks to our inside sources in the Rhythmbox development team we where able to get this screenshot showing the new feature.
http://verbum.org/~walters/shots/21.html
Dennis E. Powell has written a nice editorial on Linux and Main about how the linux desktop has had a ressurection and what an important part things such as the GNOME Accessibility framework is playing in this. Definetly an interesting read.
http://www.linuxandmain.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=228
Manuel Clos announced Gnome CD Master 1.1.6 this week. It is a really nice tool for creating audio cds under GNOME. Finally you can put that cdburner to some good use :).
http://cdrdao.sourceforge.net/gcdmaster/
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2171&release_id=110864
The GStreamer team announced the GStreamer 0.4.1 release this week. Tons of bugfixes went into this release to help Rhythmbox and other applications get stable. A few features has crept in however like a experimental flash plugin and iRadio metadata support. The GStreamer team plan on putting out a new release with more bugfixes in around two or three weeks time. At that time we also hope to have our new ASF plugin ready.
http://www.gstreamer.net/releases/0.4.1/
http://www.gstreamer.net/releases/0.4.1/notice.php
The GNOME 2.2 juggernaut has had its engine fired up and is starting to move forward. Jeff Waugh put out the call for the first 2.1.x snapshots this week so there is no use in wasting time before getting aboard. Once the juggernaut has started to move it stops for no one, so if you want to be aboard with the cheering crowd, when the juggernaut crash through the competition like a supersonic lawnmover through a Smurf village, then get on now. Jeffs full announcement below.
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2002-September/msg00438.html
We now have French, Spanish, Hungarian, Korean and Portuguese - all the links below.
http://www.gynov.org/news/index.php4
http://es.gnome.org/actualidad/
http://cactus.rulez.org/projects/gnome/summary/
http://developer.gnome.or.kr/news/
http://debian-br.cipsga.org.br/resumo-gnome/
Thanks for Paul Warren for these lists.
Most active modules:
|
Most active hackers:
|
Currently open: 7690 (In the last week: New: 591, Resolved: 515, Difference: +76)
Modules with the most open bugs (excluding enhancement requests):
| Module | Open Bugs | New/Opened in last week | Resolved in last week | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nautilus: | 796 | 24 | 27 | -3 |
| gtk+: | 616 | 27 | 14 | +13 |
| galeon: | 329 | 118 | 94 | +24 |
| gnome-vfs: | 294 | 3 | 4 | -1 |
| GIMP: | 273 | 9 | 6 | +3 |
| gnome-applets: | 208 | 26 | 7 | +19 |
| sawfish: | 195 | 3 | 0 | +3 |
| gnome-core: | 145 | 29 | 14 | +15 |
| gnome-panel: | 134 | 38 | 26 | +12 |
| control-center: | 131 | 18 | 12 | +6 |
| gnome-pilot: | 96 | 6 | 5 | +1 |
| medusa: | 94 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| gnome-terminal: | 89 | 17 | 31 | -14 |
| balsa: | 88 | 17 | 29 | -12 |
| metacity: | 86 | 12 | 10 | +2 |
Gnome Bugzilla users who resolved or closed the most bugs:
| Bug Hunter | Bugs Resolved/Closed |
|---|---|
| yaneti@declera.com: | 79 |
| jfleck@inkstain.net: | 41 |
| kmaraas@gnome.org: | 31 |
| chbm@chbm.nu: | 26 |
| mark@skynet.ie: | 23 |
| charles@rebelbase.com: | 23 |
| andrew@sobala.net: | 22 |
| hp@redhat.com: | 22 |
| dennis_cranston@yahoo.com: | 15 |
| mpeseng@tin.it: | 14 |
| jody@gnome.org: | 13 |
| vincent@vuntz.net: | 12 |
| alex@ximian.com: | 10 |
| murrayc@usa.net: | 10 |
| otaylor@redhat.com: | 9 |
Managed to do some good news hunting for you this week I think. The GNOME community rolling at the moment with lots of cool developments on the inside and lots of mainstream attention from the outside. Just as it should be :)
Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller
gnome-summary@gnome.org