Reuters reports that legal expertsstill doubtful about whether Microsoft can reach a compromise
with the government. “Microsoft executives may still conclude they are better off holding out for a final ruling from the
judge than making major concessions to the government, antitrust attorneys said in interviews this
week.”

Sean Lamb writes, “I’ve published a quick, first-impression review of Sun’s StarOffice 6.0 beta over at Linux Orbit. Long story short, I’m impressed. Check the full review to see why.”

CNet reports that the Hewlett-Packard I-Cluster is a “Mandrake
Linux-powered cluster of 225 PCs
that has benchmarked its way into
the list of the top 500 most powerful
computers in the world. “

Wired.com has a story saying the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism bill is moving forward as a House
panel says it finds a compromise between security and civil liberties.

CNet reports that security software maker Zero-Knowledge Systems is shutting down its premium service that lets people surf the Internet and send
email with almost complete privacy by using pseudonyms.

Slashdot has a report on Max Lanfranconi of the
OpenOffice project speaking to the Silicon Valley Linux User Group about the new StarOffice beta.

“Maciej Stachowiak and the rest of the release team have been busily working on
an early platform release of GNOME 2.0. The platform itself only consists of
those libraries that will be part of the final environment; essentially this
release is so that those developing the GNOME libraries can get a snap shot of
where the current state of play is. Some particularly adventurous application
developers can also start to consider what they’ll need to do to port their
application to the new platform.”

GNOME Summary 2001-09-23 - 2001-09-29
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 22:18:37 +0100
From: Steve George 
To: gnome-list@gnome.org
Cc: gnome-announce-list@gnome.org
Reply to: gnome-hackers@gnome.org


This is the GNOME Summary for 2001-09-23 - 2001-09-29
    
==============================================================
Table of Contents
--------------------------------------------------------------

1. GNOME 2.0 Platform Alpha
2. Minutes of the GNOME 2.0 Release Team Meeting - 2001/09/21 by Jeff Waugh
3. Linux.com Interviews Lauris Kaplinski
4. Basic Bonobo use by Michael Meeks
5. The GNOME Installation Guide by Karsten Reincke
6. Diet of bugs: the 30-30-30 plan by Elliot Lee
7. RFC on GStreamer event system
8. Java-GNOME 0.7.0 released
9. MrProject 0.4.0
10. Unofficial Unsupported Ximianized ISO Images
11. Hacker Activity

==============================================================
1. GNOME 2.0 Platform Alpha
--------------------------------------------------------------

Maciej Stachowiak and the rest of the release team have been busily working on
an early platform release of GNOME 2.0. The platform itself only consists of
those libraries that will be part of the final environment; essentially this
release is so that those developing the GNOME libraries can get a snap shot of
where the current state of play is. Some particularly adventurous application
developers can also start to consider what they'll need to do to port their
application to the new platform. 

        
http://lists.gnome.org/archives/gnome-2-0-list/2001-September/msg00114.html

==============================================================
2. Minutes of the GNOME 2.0 Release Team Meeting - 2001/09/21 by Jeff Waugh
--------------------------------------------------------------

I think it's fair to say that the GNOME developers have wanted to improve the
co-ordination of the releases to make them less stressful and generally more
polished. The 2.0 team is larger and seems to be off to a good start with
regular meetings outlining actions and points. The minutes show progress being
made on parceling out tasks, organising bugzilla and working on methods to
converse with the community. Good luck to their efforts! 

        
http://lists.gnome.org/archives/gnome-2-0-list/2001-September/msg00219.html

==============================================================
3. Linux.com Interviews Lauris Kaplinski
--------------------------------------------------------------

Lauris discussses his work on Sodipodi, why it uses the SVG format for it's 
native file format, how he feels about the GNOME platform and more. This is a 
good interview that cover the work well and has some interesting views on GNOME 
development as well. 

http://www.linux.com/enhance/newsitem.phtml?sid=93&aid=12529

==============================================================
4. Basic Bonobo use by Michael Meeks
--------------------------------------------------------------

Michael continues his series delving into the dark and powerful workings of 
Bonobo, one of the GNOME key technologies. If you've found Bonobo difficult to 
grasp and any aconym minefield then this series should throw new light. Lets 
hope that Michael gets the bug and decides to keep going after this series! 

        
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/components/library/co-bnbo2.html?dwzone=co
mponents

==============================================================
5. The GNOME Installation Guide by Karsten Reincke
--------------------------------------------------------------

This already well-known guide on how to compile GNOME from source receives an 
update to 1.4.1. It's packed through with Karstens experience of compiling the 
whole thing, which is no mean deal. In addition it's a good location to find 
some of the premier additional programs that any GNOME addict should have on 
the desktop, complete with marks. If you find the contents useful why not drop 
an email, the whole thing must have taken ages to put together! 

http://www.karubik.de/gig/index.html

==============================================================
6. Diet of bugs: the 30-30-30 plan by Elliot Lee
--------------------------------------------------------------

Sopwith whips everyone into shape with a new workout plan to crush the bug 
infestation on bugzilla. He reckons if 30 people squash 30 bugs per day for 30 
days we'll crush the millions of bugs in GNOME bugzilla. Whether his maths is 
wrong or whether he'll be the sole hacker left standing bug gun in hand, only 
time will tell! So lend a hand to this worthy cause if you can. 

        
http://lists.gnome.org/archives/gnome-devel-list/2001-September/msg00036.html

==============================================================
7. RFC on GStreamer event system
--------------------------------------------------------------

Wim Tayman posted an RFC (Request For Comments) on the proposed event system in 
GStreamer. Anyone who'd like to influence the design should shout now. 

http://www.geocrawler.com/lists/3/SourceForge/1504/25/6701265/

==============================================================
8. Java-GNOME 0.7.0 released
--------------------------------------------------------------

Jeffrey Morgan recently announced a new release of the Java bindings of GNOME. 
A little outside the time period for this Summary, but since he tells us that 
you can compile them with the gcj to native code it seemed worth breaking the 
rules. 

http://www.geocrawler.com/archives/3/7035/2001/9/0/6620219/

==============================================================
9. MrProject 0.4.0
--------------------------------------------------------------

Mikael Hallendal of the Project Management application under development. There 
are lots of new enhacments including network diagram, calendering and progress 
tracking components, along with a slew of bug-fixes. The Web site has some nice 
screenshots to tempt you to download and play with it! 

        
http://lists.gnome.org/archives/gnome-announce-list/2001-September/msg00027.html
http://mrproject.codefactory.se/

==============================================================
10. Unofficial Unsupported Ximianized ISO Images
--------------------------------------------------------------

Chema Celorio emailed to tell us about his new personal project of adding 
Ximian packages to various distribution ISO's. So if you'd like to install a 
new distribution but don't want to have to pay the telephone costs for 
downloading Ximian later then here's another way to do it. Even if you don't 
want the ISO his intro paragraph is worth the read, well it made me smile 
anyway. 

http://uuxii.cofradia.org/

==============================================================
11. Hacker Activity
--------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for Paul Warren for these lists.

Most active modules:
 159 evolution
 91 galeon
 89 gnucash
 85 gnome-utils
 57 SashMo
 54 web-devel-2
 46 gnome-i18n
 34 glib
 32 walk500
 30 gtk+
 27 gnumeric
 25 gnome-control-center
 24 gnome-core
 24 guppi3
 22 gtkhtml
 20 gtkmm-root
 19 gimp
 18 procman
 17 gnome-python
 16 gtranslator
[135 active modules omitted]

Most active hackers:
 78 peticolas (gnucash)
 71 carlos
 70 linas
 56 kabalak
 45 kmaraas
 40 fejj
 39 hadess
 39 darin
 35 stano
 33 jody
 31 jbaayen
 30 ajshankar
 28 pablo
 25 keld
 25 michael
 24 hp
 23 minmax
 23 owen
 22 jcorwin
 22 murrayc
[124 active hackers omitted]


A short Summary this week as Christian and myself have both been packed with 
real life.  Fortunately, GNOME still continues to power away so no doubt there 
will be extra news for us to report next time!  Until then,

Steve
gnome-summary@gnome.org

ZDNet reports that UK IT heavies are none too pleased with Microsoft’s new convoluted licensing programs, even going as far to demand that the government intervene. From the report: “IT managers themselves said the new licensing scheme might put them off buying from Microsoft
in future. “We have no budget to sign up for Microsoft’s new scheme. I’m hoping to get a Linux
server in the door and maybe we’ll be able to say goodbye to Microsoft,” said the IT manager of
an international recruitment firm. Another said that if the schemes resulted in too much expense
and inconvenience, his company would “think twice about Microsoft”.”

ServerWatch reports: “After building much anticipation and amid a flurry of activity from other high-end server vendors in
the past two weeks, IBM Thursday launched its long-awaited, high-powered Unix server that up
until now had been code-named “Regatta.”

Built using technology from the Project eLiza initiative, the now officially named eServer p690 crowns
Big Blue’s five-year effort to deliver a new class of Unix systems that incorporates microprocessor
breakthroughs and mainframe technologies.”

The hacking monkeys at Ximian are proud to announce the availability of
the Beta 5 (aka 0.15) release of Evolution.

The time is drawing near for the 1.0 release. This means that time is
almost up to stress-test and report bugs for Ximian Evolution. Prizes
will still be awarded to those reporting the nastiest, thorniest, and
the most total bugs. To report a bug, please visit
http://bugzilla.ximian.com or use the GNOME Bug Report tool, Bug Buddy.

Every Thursday, between 9 A.M. and 9 P.M. Eastern Standard Time (US),
                  developers and users of Evolution gather to find, isolate, and destroy
                  bugs.  To participate, open your IRC client and visit the #evobugs
                  channel, located on the irc.gnome.org/ server.

                  Just like with Beta 4, Beta 5 binaries features LDAP, PalmOS, and SSL
                  built-in support.  Solaris packages will not be released with Beta 5;
                  please stay tuned for Beta 6.


                  AVAILABILITY
                  ------------

                  If you use Ximian GNOME, you can install this version by subscribing to
                  the Ximian GNOME channel in Red Carpet (System -> Get Software).

                  If you do not have Ximian GNOME installed, you can download Evolution
                  binaries from our FTP server

                          ftp://ftp.ximian.com/pub/ximian-gnome/

                  or compile the source tarballs at

                          ftp://ftp.ximian.com/pub/source/evolution

                  For more information, the main Evolution web page is located at

                          http://www.ximian.com/products/ximian_evolution/

                  The Evolution development page is located at

                          http://www.ximian.com/devzone/projects/evolution-devel.html


                  CHANGES SINCE BETA 4 (0.14)
                  ---------------------------

                  Shell:

                          * Fixed a problem with shortcuts not appearing when created by
                            the mailer. (Ettore)

                          * Fixed right-click menu behavior for folders in the folder bar.
                            (Ettore)

                          * Got Rename to work again. (Ettore)

                          * Fixed some folder copy/move/dnd bugs. (Ettore)

                          * Added a menu item to configure the Pilot settings. (Ettore)

                          * Fixed some other miscellaneous bugs/crashes. (Ettore)

                          * Added ability to run the intelligent importers from the
                            File->Import menu item. (Iain)

                  Mailer:

                          * Fixed the multiple error-dialog problem. (Michael)

                          * Fixes to PGP decrypting and verification code. (Jeff)

                          * Made vFolders work much better. (Michael)

                          * Added a confirm expunge option to the mail settings dialog.
                            (Jeff)

                          * Fixed the update-IMAP-unread-counts bug. (Jeff)

                          * Show messages in the user's preferred charset if the message
                            itself doesn't contain charset information or if the message
                            charset is wrong (ie the system can't convert the text to
                            utf-8). (Jeff)

                          * Many backend fixes. (Michael, Jeff, Dan)

                          * Fixed the crash that accompanied the invalid address warning.
                            (Trow)

                          * Properly encode the mailto: links we generate inside of
                            displayed messages. (Trow)

                          * Improve the signature editor. (Iain)

                  Calendar:

                          * Backend improvements. (JP, Rodrigo)

                          * The alarm daemon can now re-enter properly. (Federico)

                          * Alarms can now have zero-time offsets. (Federico)

                          * Warning fixes. (Chris)

                          * Fixed custom Glade widgets on non-Linux systems. (Dan)

                          * Fixed crashing problems in the event/task editor. (Damon)

                  Addressbook:

                          * Miscellaneous bug fixes. (Trow, Toshok, Clahey, JP, Peter)

                          * Better handling of addresses containing commas or other
                            special characters. (Trow)

                          * Fixed bugs related to sending mail by left-clicking on an
                            address inside a message. (Trow)

                          * Auto-completion now matches against contact nicknames. (Trow)

                          * Added help text and generally cleaned up the contact editor.
                            (Anna)

                          * Handle multiple wombats properly. (Toshok)

                          * Made which book to use for address completion configurable (no
                            gui for this yet). (Toshok)

                          * Made Print Preview work in addressbook. (Clahey)

                  Pilot:

                          * Now syncs exception dates in calendar and addressbook notes.
                            (JP)

                          * Does not overwrite custom data on pilot. (JP)

                          * Address completion no longer marks records as changed. (JP)

                          * Miscellaneous other bug fixes. (JP)

                  Summary:

                          * Cache images instead of repeatedly reloading them. (Iain)

                          * Only redraw when the summary is visible. (Iain)

                          * Use the encoding specified in the RDF file. (Takuo Kitame)

                          * Leak fixes. (Larry)


                          * "Show today's tasks" works. (Iain)

                          * Make the preferences dialog nicer. (Iain)

                  Importers:

                          * Handle the case where the Netscape transport is nothing. 
                            (Iain)