AbiWord Weekly News #160, (2003, week 34, released 2003.09.07)

Welcome to this issue 160 of the AbiWord Weekly News.

Follow-ups:

      Russian speakers did step up, but where are all the Klingons!?

This week in development

      The final preparation phase of AbiWord 2.0 now in progress.   Lots of good news, and a new section for related projects, too.   And, guess what Dom's been doing...for money!

Request for user assistance

      If you want an equally rich and powerful Windows release, we really, really could use some Windows developers.   A whole mess of people with even just an hour a week could help.   Of course, the "three with only two hours a week" model hasn't been helping!   We're desperate!   We'll take a line a day if there's enough of you!   Please help...please!   Doesn't a platform like yours deserve a chance?

      Windows users, your help is doubly requested*.   We would like to see more bug reports coming from the Windows crowd, so, if you're feeling more daring, please download and try out the Win32 binaries when they're available.   If you want some sweet functionality in AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom, you will have to participate.   You could also consider joining Project Blue Ant.

Silliness of the Week

      This week's SOTW comes from a recently avid reader (slash-guy-I-talk-to-down-at-the-bar-where-"bar"-means-something-to-do-with-email).   Danny "dricci" Ricci, famous switcher assister (pc-to-mac type) had some interesting thoughts about virii.   Naturally, I concurred with him so much that I had to put it up here, with some minor editing.   The following three paragraphs are copyright to Danny Ricci; no reposting is allowed without his permission by US and International Copyright Law, even though he would like to take the Mickey F*ing Mouse/Sonny F*ing Bono copyright act and that God D*ed DMCA and shove them up George W's A*.

      After reading the opinions of various "normal" Windows users on virii-related issues, I've come to the conclusion that virus and worm writers should not be prosecuted.   Instead, prosecute the dumb users who don't patch their systems — Ignorance is NOT an excuse for reeking havoc.

      If you don't regularly update your system patches and virus definitions, and then get a virus or "owned" — YOU SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE!   If my car break lights burn out, and I don't get them fixed, and I come to a sudden stop and get rear-ended, I get the ticket and possibly even sued.   You don't have to be a tweaker or "1337 h4xx0r" to update your computer; every modern operating system made within the last 5 years has had software update features.   I don't mod my car but know enough to regularly check out my lights/breaks/fluids/etc and get them repaired if necessary, and I just use it to get back and forth.   So I don't care if you "just use it for e-mail and browsing" and aren't a "1337 h4xx0r," LEARN THE BASIC OPERATION OF YOUR SYSTEM AND KEEP IT IN GOOD OPERATING ORDER LIKE ANY TYPE OF MACHINE SHOULD BE KEPT!

      The only exception I can see to this is if there isn't a patch or update available for the exploited vulnerability — With the exception to that being if you randomly open attachments or don't take proper steps to secure your computer with a firewall and closing down unused services.   Oh, and, if you use Outlook or Explorer, that should be a mandatory life sentence.

This Issue

      And remember, I give you an email address so you can talk to me, in case you're not on either mailing list.

In this issue:

• Discussion
• Development
• Bug Update
• Release HackDown
• Abi's Relatives

Editor(s) of this issue:  E. A. Zen

      If you're interested in using AbiWord for the first time, receiving a more up-to-date version, any particular version or special release, feel free to visit the new  Latest Releases page.

DISCLAIMER:  It should be generally noted that anything said before the "In this issue:" line is purely editorial.   Actually, everything I say is purely editorial.   You kind of get used to it.

Discussions

Traffic on the  developer mailing list has settled at about 200-400 postings per week.   This week, interesting topics on the developer list included:

1. please add or fix cvsquery.cgi for tinderbox
   cvsup? :   Having problems keeping your tinderbox uptodate?   Jeremy learns that the occasional disappearance of the cvsquery.cgi will happen.   It usually comes back, though.   CVSUP, however, is officially dead at this time (officially being: as far as Mark knows).

2. Enchant 0.4.0 released ,
   Re: Enchant 0.4.0 released and
   :   RH9 users need not apply.   Dom's ever so happy to announce the release of Enchant 0.4.0, and it's reached near maturity to the point that Dom looks forward to declaring it final with the next major release of AbiWord, AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom*.   Unfortunately, there seems to be some configure issues for RH9 users, one of which appears to be related to having a preceeding version of aspell installed.   No final solution at this time; however, the latest Enchantery has been added to GnomeSpell, so, GNOME users might consider using that instead, which will also gain a pretty GUI, too.   Anyone able to get Enchant 0.4.0 to work on RH9 are welcomed to explain the process or submit a patch.

3. POLICY: all patches go to the list ,
   Re: Re: POLICY: all patches go to the list and
   Re: POLICY: all patches go to the list :   To prevent regression damage this close to the release of AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom, all coding is to be presented in the form of patches to the list for Dom's and Martin's blessing.   Additionally, we learn that a ruler is a scroll bar and that Rui is unfit for military service.   You know...this war on terror thing...I need to gain some weight.   Additionally if Johan Björk is hard for you non-dead-key-optional users to type in, you may refer to him as Johan Bj=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=F6rk.   Oh, and he's come back to get the QNX port back on track!

4. MinGW/MSys binary uploaded to SF :   Heading to Abi's SourceForge page, you'll find a functional AbiWord 2pre2 executable.   You'll notice the Latest Releases page here has gotten nothing in, what, a month?   Laziness combined with the assumption (by the time I was getting there) "AbiWord 2.0 is, like, in three days...I'll wait.

5. AbiWord 1.0.7 "Valkyrie" Unleashed! :   Annunciomenté!   This is, effectively, IT!   That's all she wrote, Kids.   Despite earlier promises, there will be no further major maintenance of 1.x branch.   For people who NEED the 1.x series for whatever reason shall be pleased with the bug fixin's within.   For people who aren't dependent upon the older version, it's highly, highly, highly recommended that you switch to the 2.x series upon release, that is, if not willing to test the pre-releases available now.

6. Re: AbiWord translation (ru-RU) :   Someone* has heeded the call for the Russian translator.   Now, AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom will be more linguistically complete.   We're still waiting for a Klingon translation of AbiWord, however.   This is extremely important.

7. ATTN: Release postponed :   AbiWord 2.0 will be coming out later than the original planning date.   As a show of support, Jody (Gnumeric) and Rodrigo (Gnome-DB) said they will hold of on the first release of Gnome Office.   It is at this time that Horatio Hornblower, I mean, Dom Lachowicz will be incorporating necessary bug fixes and final tweaking.   Though the delay is expect to take to around September 14th, the reasons and results are a good thing.   I'm sure Abi-Users, as well as the rest of Gnome Office's users, are will to wait for that most desirable of all releases... the one named after a Star Trek movie....

Traffic on the  user mailing list is sporadic at best.   Often, a good topic comes up, but users tend to only respond to the original poster rather than the list (as well), which limits what I would add, as the only lone threads I post are announcements of importance or points of great interest.   This week, interesting topics on the user list included:

1. Disabled "save" :   This is just your reminder that if you will be using the mailing lists for bug reports to please be using the latest version, especially if it's a developers' build.   Otherwise, you might be reporting a fixed bug, but don't let that discourage you from testing the builds out!

Development

      Track who put in how much and why.   And, while you're at it, consider whether you'd like to keep your own cvs build as well.   Tables...ooh....

      Current pows are here. This will probably be replaced LONG after 2.0 has come out..

Name:  More Windows Maintainers
Description:  Jordi and Jeremy could always use help
Advertisement:  Help free people from the oppression of MSWord today!
Recommended Outline:  You must become magical to know how to fix this.
Comments:  Wouldn't be a bad idea to start with the printing bug...
System:  Windows
Challenge level:  ****. 4 stars out of 5
Current Heros:  Jordi Mas, Jeremy Davis, Michael Pritchett

Bug Update

Bug Market

      This week's activity: ResoUnconf +27 (29 : 2), VeriNew +12 (17 : 5), ClosAssi unch (0 : 0),

      Two markets staying positive while ClosAssi refuses to budge an inch ither way, something you wouldn't expect this close to a major release.   Louis Bugkeyser explained that this is due to the limited bug fighting abilities which directly relate to current commit by approval only policy.   Alan Bluespan explained that it remains necessary to prevent regressive bugs from recurring.   Later, both remarked that too many 1.x bugs still remained open, in reference to the news that 1.0.7, aka Valkyrie, is expected to be the final 1.x series.

      For information about how to view the chart, please read 142's Special Interest.

Bug Votes

      These are the week's Top 20 Bugs in the categories  problems and  requests for enhancements.   Influence next week's results by  casting your own votes.   Ah, another release, another change of what bugs are on the "Most Wanted" list.

      Jumping up, at the end of 1.0.x, 2362, printing across half a page, continues being a major pain, and 5579, The cursor can be displayed a few characters from its act, enters the field with a high starting vote.

Release HackDown

      This is an AbiWord Weekly News original concept:  The Release Hackdown.   In the table below, you can watch what bugs are being fixed in preparation for the very next release.   Check the key at the bottom to understand formatting.

      No pressure, guys, I'm sure only 2000 or so people will be watching to see what you do weekly.   That breaks down to about 285 people daily and 12 people hourly, so, it's like being peeked at once every five minutes, literally.   "Isn't that veird!?"

Stable

      Nothing past 1.0.7, so, this is its memorial.

Head

      On our way to two-point-oh, affectionately referred to as, AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom.

      You'll notice I've removed 5023, format footnote dialogue needs 'do not restart' option, as it was redundant from 5232, Win32 Meta.   Long standing annoyance/issue was 5676, gtk printing is broken; at the same time 5691, End of line disappear when toggling a word from roman to italics is added as "a serious usability issue."   Additionally, 4627 has had a bug knocked off of it.

      See Announce: 2.0 release plan for more details on the intended route towards Abiword II: The Wrath of Dom.

Abi's Relatives

      This will probably be cleaned up and expanded over by next week.   There are several projects that are used as a part of or in conjunction to AbiWord.   From Gnome Office in general to libwpd, there's quite a bit of stuff to keep track of the ongoing changes.   Right now, I'm only included OTS, as Nadav keeps me apprised on this and, therefore, is part of the reason for adding this section.   With WV and Enchant about to go 1.0, I anticipate including even more after this week.

OTS

      "This week there was almost nothing new in OTS."   That's why I love Nadav!   Never keeps me busy, just entertained.   Actually, there is more.   Daniel Brodie has been whippin' that OTS for Gedit plugin hard into shape.   Beautiful GUI by the way.   He and Paolo, that's gedit's Paolo of course, have worked on wonderful bits, like undo support, color selection, and, our favourite, HIGrrrification™.

      In unrelated news, Nadav believes the AWN Rocks.   Nadav is right.   Rock me gently...rock me slowly...take it easy or...don't you know?

      Back to the news news, not the news news news, but just the news news of this news, you can check out (read: download) the OTS plugin for Gedit here!

      Now back to the smooth hits of the sixties and seventies....

Open Source, Open Books.

      Approximately once a month, don't hedge bets, I'll get this updated by asking (read: whining at) dom.   In the meantime, whenever you want to see how much is in and where it gets diverted, just peek down here.

      Word of caution, numbers lightly fudged due to (hopefully) temporarily incomplete data.   Like a consultant's suggested price, you'll find hidden meaning in the data if you stare long and hard.   Surgeon's General's Warning:  Staring long and hard may have psychotropic affects; keep out of reach of people who like that sort of thing.

      I cannot promise the time of de-fudging, nor can I promise there will be de-fudging any time soon. However, I feel confident that there will be some de-fudging going on.

Current Balance: $1604.34
Interest earned: $8.64

Expenditures: $950
$400 to pay for Martin's Boston Gnome Summit Trip
$400 to buy Andrew Dunbar a new computer
$ 60 to misc./entertainment expenses at GNOME summit, GUAD3C, other, paid out of dom's pocket
$225 Patch Prize (those already successfully awarded)
-   $ 45 Will Lachance
-   $ 45 Marc Maurer
-   $ 45 Ruud Vring
-   $ 45 Patrick Lam
-   $ 45 Dom Lachowicz

Unique contributors: 58*
paypal: 57
check :  3
cash  :  1
*58: plusse 3 repeat offenders whom we love dearly

Contributions: $2723.00
Less paypal and other banking fees: $115.00