The road to GNOME 2.4 is getting mapped out and the path is starting become clear. The first development snapshot is out with a list of proposed new modules. There is currently a big debate among GNOME developers and users about what to include in the core GNOME release and what to release either seperatly or as part of fifth-toe and similar. On one side so it is hard to say no when someone offers up some really cool software for inclusion with GNOME, and on the other side so do we not want to bloat the desktop package with applications which only appeals to a small segment of current and future users. Gnomedesktop has both the release announcement with the current list of proposed modules and a collection of news files for the software in the release.
http://www.gnomedesktop.org/article.php?sid=1108&mode=&order=0
http://www.gnomedesktop.org/article.php?sid=1112&mode=&order=0
Colin Walters did a Net-rhythmbox 0.4.8 release recently which contains many nice bugfixes. And maybe just as importantly this could turn out to be one of the last if not the last release of net-rhythmbox as the net-rhythmbox and rhythmbox efforts are now being merged. Both Colin and Jorn are working hard on rhythmbox CVS making sure the next Rhythmbox release will rock the world and contain both the new UI work Jorn's been working on and all the bugfixes and feature additions Colin has been putting into net-rhythmbox.
http://www.gnomedesktop.org/article.php?sid=1105&mode=&order=0
GStreamer hacker Leif Johnson recently got permission from his company to release the set of CORBA Component model tools that he has been working on. While not targeted at GNOME one of Leifs hopes with getting the code released what that it could become a usefull development tool for GNOME eventually. So if you are interested in making CORBA development easier or just into cool technology in general; check out the ccmtools homepage.
http://ccmtools.sourceforge.net/
Eugenia Loli-Queru of osnews.com fame recently hosted a competition on osnews.com about implementing a Metacity theme based on a mockup she had made. It didn't take the community long to respond and at least two versions of the theme is available for download now. Check out the screenshots and download links on osnews.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3496
Christian Glodt grabbed the spotlight this week releasing mozilla-bonobo. It is a system that allows you to use bonobo-components as Mozilla plugins. This means that everything you have a bonobo-component for you will eventually be able to use as a Mozilla/Galeon/Epiphany plugin. This also saves GNOME developers some time since they can now just focus on making a good Bonobo component of their software instead of having to make both a bonobo component and a Mozilla plugin. Be sure to check out the Mozilla-Bonobo homepage for some cool screenshots and download instructions.
http://www.mind.lu/chris/mozilla-bonobo/
Igalia released their first public release of Fisterra, and Open Source ERP application this week. Enterprise Resource Planning applications lies at the heart of todays companies, handling their financials. Fisterra currently supports invoicing, stock and payment management, POS (Point-Of-Sale), distributed work and offline replication. It uses Gnome technologies and PostgreSQL (libgda from the GNOME-DB project). A big thanks to Igalia for releasing this important piece of software under the GPL. If you are working as an consultant for businesses make sure to see if Fisterra fits their needs. More information and screenshots on the Fisterra homepage.
GNOME has long had the gnome-pilot library that allows some synching of information between certain GNOME applications, like Evolution and PalmOS devices. Well as the market has become more fragmented and Cell phones are getting more and more PDA functionality many are looking for things that gnome-pilot do not support. Enter Multisync, a plugins based system that already offers lots of functionality and already supports many PocketPC devices and mobile phones. Hopefully they get proper Palm support soon to and GNOME 2.6 will have a smashing framework for synchronisation.
http://multisync.sourceforge.net/
The Anjuta developers announced the first beta release of the wonderfull Anjuta integrated development environment for GNOME 2 recently. Features in the release includes: New Preferences management, Tools management, Watch and Backtrace moved to messages pane, GNOMEVFS based file browser and customization, Pango fonts in editor (Anti-Aliased fonts), Project configuration for GUI editor and version and Advance search and replace. A big congrats to the Anjuta team for this release.
http://anjuta.sourceforge.net/
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=275673
Jonas Aaberg released a long stream of applets recently using his General Applet Interface Library (GAI). The GAI website features as many as 12 applets currently. So if you are missing the applet of your dreams maybe you can find it there. Remember there is nothing wrong with having a cool looking panel on your desktop :)
Kristian Rietveld has been working on making the GNOME about box nicer. He has put together a webpage with some shots of it in action. The look is based upon the new GNOME website design, but unlike the website the about dialog do not aim for Urban legend status ;). Looks great Kris!
http://www.math.leidenuniv.nl/~kris/new-gnome-about/
This week debuts a new translation; Japanese. So now we have French, German, Hungarian, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Japanese - all the links below.
http://www.gynov.org/gnome-summary/gnome_summary.php4
http://cactus.rulez.org/projects/gnome/summary/
http://developer.gnome.or.kr/news/
http://debian-br.cipsga.org.br/resumo-gnome/
http://es.gnome.org/actualidad/
http://www.gnome.gr.jp/summary/index.html
Thanks for Paul Warren for these lists.
| Most active modules: | Most active hackers:
|
Currently open: 9260 (In the last week: New: 596, Resolved: 495, Difference: +101)
Modules with the most open bugs (excluding enhancement requests):
| Module | Open Bugs | New/Opened in last week | Resolved in last week | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nautilus: | 808 | 52 | 28 | +24 |
| gtk+: | 620 | 22 | 18 | +4 |
| galeon: | 536 | 63 | 46 | +17 |
| gnome-panel: | 284 | 42 | 27 | +15 |
| gnome-vfs: | 236 | 4 | 2 | +2 |
| GIMP: | 188 | 19 | 25 | -6 |
| control-center: | 177 | 15 | 13 | +2 |
| GnuCash: | 149 | 7 | 2 | +5 |
| gnome-applets: | 143 | 12 | 9 | +3 |
| sawfish: | 112 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| balsa: | 110 | 15 | 13 | +2 |
| dia: | 106 | 7 | 4 | +3 |
| gnome-terminal: | 99 | 14 | 15 | -1 |
| metacity: | 98 | 8 | 4 | +4 |
| libzvt: | 95 | 2 | 0 | +2 |
Gnome Bugzilla users who resolved or closed the most bugs:
| Bug Hunter | Bugs Resolved/Closed |
|---|---|
| yaneti@declera.com: | 44 |
| newren@math.utah.edu: | 42 |
| kmaraas@gnome.org: | 40 |
| mpeseng@tin.it: | 30 |
| aldug@astrolinux.com: | 24 |
| hadess@hadess.net: | 20 |
| callum@physics.otago.ac.nz: | 20 |
| andrew@sobala.net: | 16 |
| maclas@gmx.de: | 15 |
| aguelzow@taliesin.ca: | 13 |
| bordoley@msu.edu: | 12 |
| sven@gimp.org: | 11 |
| jdahlin@async.com.br: | 11 |
| pawsa@theochem.kth.se: | 11 |
| padraig.obriain@sun.com: | 11 |
Guess it is time for me to admit that there is no way I can manage to keep up a weekly schedule of these summaries. So I hereby declare the weekly GNOME summaries dead, and declare the GNOME summaries for officially started :).
I would also like to comment on how smooth the GNOME community seems to be running these days with bugfixin and HIGification happening on a grand scale. I think Murray Cumming hit the nail when he in a recent advogato entry said that the future is big because people are not waiting for other people to do stuff for them. And that is what is happening now with both new and old contributors creating patches and fixes for things, instead of waiting for the person with the maintainer tag to do it for them.
Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller
gnome-summary@gnome.org
Join the Friends of GNOME! http://www.gnome.org/friends