Gnome Summary for this week.

[Sri Ramkrishna <sri aracnet com>]

Attached is this week's gnome summary

This is the GNOME Summary for 2004-01-18 - 2004-01-24
    
==============================================================
Table of Contents
--------------------------------------------------------------

1. New GTK# Applications Appear in the GNOME World
2. Straw Tutorial
3. Gaim Status Rewrite
4. GTK +-2.3.2 Released (unstable)
5. Galeon 1.3.12 Released
6. Computerworld Article on GNOME 2.6
7. Ars Technica Interviews Robert Love
8. Initial GNOME 2.6 Modules List Released
9. Freedesktop.org Platform Release
10. GnomeMeeting 0.99.2 Released
11. Interview with Guntupalli Karunakar
12. Hacker Activity
13. Gnome Bug Hunting Activity
14. New and Updated Software

==============================================================
1. New GTK# Applications Appear in the GNOME World
--------------------------------------------------------------

Last week, we reported on Blam! which is a RSS aggregator written in
GTK#. This 
week saw the arrival of two more GTK# based programs. The first one,
Muine, is 
a music player that has some very interesting new UI ideas. WoodPusher
is, on 
the other hand, a networked Chess game. 
OSNews has a short, but good article about the possible "monarchy" of
Mono in 
future avatars of GNOME. 

        http://people.nl.linux.org/~jorn/Muine/
        http://www.pubcrawler.org/images/screenshots/sought.png
        http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5746

==============================================================
2. Straw Tutorial
--------------------------------------------------------------

Thomas Chung from FedoraNews has written a short but very informative
article 
on Straw (a RSS aggregator for GNOME) describing how to setup Straw in a
Fedora 
Core 1 system. 
Straw and Blam! - RSS aggregation in GNOME has never been better.
Yipee!! 

        http://fedoranews.org/tchung/straw/

==============================================================
3. Gaim Status Rewrite
--------------------------------------------------------------

Christian Hammond has been busy with his status rewrite for Gaim. This
work 
will help to make it less AIM-centric as well as create a core/UI split,
and 
help make it more advanced. 

        http://www.chipx86.com/blog/archives/000017.html

==============================================================
4. GTK +-2.3.2 Released (unstable)
--------------------------------------------------------------

A new development release is out for GTK 2.3.2. This release includes
many API 
fixes for new widgets and bug fixes. A blazingly fast fixed-height mode
that 
can be enabled for GtkTreeView. Also the new GtkFileChooser has also
been added 
in this release. This particular item has had a lot of attention in the
past 
few weeks. Documentation improvements have also been made. Read up more
in the 
ChangeLog. 

        http://www.gtk.org/
        http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2004-January/
msg00273.html

==============================================================
5. Galeon 1.3.12 Released
--------------------------------------------------------------

Galeon 1.3.12, the popular GNOME web browser has been unleashed with
plenty of 
improvements, new features, and bug fixes. These include a switch to
libegg 
from libbonoboui, GNOME icon themes and spinners, interactive add
bookmark/add 
tabs as folder dialogs, and lots of tab features. The documentation has
also 
been updated. 
Galeon is a GNOME web browser based on Gecko (the Mozilla rendering
engine). 

        http://galeon.sourceforge.net/

==============================================================
6. Computerworld Article on GNOME 2.6
--------------------------------------------------------------

Our very own Jeff Waugh had an interview after his presentation on
GNOME 
releases at the LinuxWorld conference in New York. The interview talks
about 
software patents, GNOME's relationship with Sun, and usability among
other 
topics. 

        http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php?
id=92684963&fp=16&fpid=0

==============================================================
7. Ars Technica Interviews Robert Love
--------------------------------------------------------------

Ars Technica has a great interview with Robert Love about Project
Utopia, the 
Linux scheduler, and various other tidbits. The interview has pertinent 
questions and a lot of technical detail on Linux's scheduling policies
and new 
features coming in the future. 

        http://www.arstechnica.com/etc/linux/love-interview-1.html

==============================================================
8. Initial GNOME 2.6 Modules List Released
--------------------------------------------------------------

Murray Cummings has released an initial set of proposed modules for
inclusion 
into the GNOME 2.6 release. This list will become the official new
module for 
GNOME 2.5.x that will eventually become 2.6. 

        
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2004-January/msg00591.
html

==============================================================
9. Freedesktop.org Platform Release
--------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel Stone has been appointed the freedesktop.org release manager and
is 
planning on a freedesktop.org Platform release. Daniel talks about what
the 
platform will consist of and what needs to be done before the release.
Check it 
out! 

        
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2004-January/msg00559.
html

==============================================================
10. GnomeMeeting 0.99.2 Released
--------------------------------------------------------------

The latest unstable release of GnomeMeeting has been released. Damien
already 
has all of the features that he wants in GnomeMeeting for the 1.0
release and 
is entering the polishing phase. If you are a beta tester or wish to
help out 
and submit bug reports, then please help Damien make GnomeMeeting 1.0 a
big 
success by contributing your skills. 
GnomeMeeting is a H.323 compatible videoconferencing and VOIP/IP
telephony 
application that allows you to make audio and video calls to remote
users with 
H.323 hardware or software (such as Microsoft Netmeeting). 

        
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2004-January/msg00525.
html
        http://www.gnomemeeting.org/

==============================================================
11. Interview with Guntupalli Karunakar
--------------------------------------------------------------

Hindi is one of the most widely spoken languages in the World (according
to 
many, it is ranked fourth). It is one of the major languages of India,
and it 
is estimated that the total number of people who can understand the
language 
exceeds 1.3 billion. The GNOME Hindi translation team's coordinator is 
Guntupalli Karunakar, and this week we decided to speak with him.
Karunakar is 
not only the coordinator of the Hindi team but has also been
instrumental in 
the formations of a number of Indian language l10n teams and takes a
keen 
interest in GNOME and Free Software related activities in India. He is
also one 
of the very few people who are working on KDE and GNOME simultaneously. 
1) Please share a little about yourself and your background... 
I am basically from Andra Pradesh in India (where Telugu is the mother
tongue), 
but did all of my education in Madhya Pradesh (where Hindi is the major 
language), so I am kind of multilingual already :). I hold a Bachelors
degree 
in Computer Science. Interests being reading (nowadays almost all
online), 
amateur astronomy and photography, programming for fun, and learning new
things 
in general. 
2) What is "Indlinux"? 
IndLinux is a volunteer project focusing on the localization of free
software 
to Indian Languages, primarily at the desktop level, working mainly on
the 
Hindi language and supporting the startup of localization teams for
other 
languages. It was founded by Prakash Advani (Linux evangelist) and
Venkatesh 
Hariharan (a freelance journalist). In its initial days it was supported
by 
FreeOS.com and at present by Netcore Solutions. The main goal being to
create a 
fully Indian language enabled distribution, with at least Hindi
reaching 
completion. 
3) How are you involved in Indlinux ? 
I came in as a full-time volunteer to keep a steady pace of activity and
to 
thoroughly look into all issues regarding i18n & l10n. Core role being 
coordinating activities with volunteers and making releases. Currently I
am 
Hindi coordinator for GNOME and KDE. This was one area in which very few
people 
were involved and very little attention being given. It's not much of 
technology / evangelism, but it puts me challenging situations where I
have to 
take initiative, act and lead from the front, which otherwise I would
shy away 
from. I have learned a lot more than i18n & l10n :). 
4) What prompted you to work on what many consider to be one of the most
boring 
jobs in the GNOME development - viz translation ? 
Though the major part is translation, my initial work was in fonts,
locale, and 
rendering which are pretty interesting. What really interested me was
that I 
would be learning a lot about different scripts and how they are handled
on a 
computer. When I had first joined, I had almost forgotten the
Devanagari 
character sequence and I was also poor in linguistics, grammer etc. Now
I know 
the languages a lot more, can read and understand 5 languages :). Also
being 
involved in translation activity, I have improved my vocabulary :) 
5) Which are the active Indic language teams that are working on GNOME
l10n 
right now ? What are their status (stats-wise)? 
The leading languages are Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil - each has
completed 
a significant portion of translation work and detailed stats can be seen
on the 
GTP status pages. Hindi and Bengali are at about 74% of GNOME
essentials, with 
Malayalam and Tamil at about 50%. 
6) What are the standards that you follow while translation computer
related 
terms - is there a third party standards document, or do you have your
own set 
of rules and terminology ? 
Hindi is spoken by about 400 million people, mainly northern India,
there are 
four states where its main language. And in each area is spoken
differently. So 
getting to a standardized terminology is a mammoth task. A glossary/
dictionary 
was created but not publicly available, also its terminology was found 
difficult for day to day use. We started off without any standard in
view that 
as people see it working, they will give feedback and it can be
improved. We 
intend to do some user workshops, where they can give us direct
feedback. Also 
work is on for a unified translation database which can be used for 
localization for any application. This will help us maintain a
consistent 
terminology. This database will be available online for review and
update by 
interested people. 
7) Recently Microsoft released a Hindi interface pack for Windows XP
(finally 
they seem to have woken up ;-)). Do you plan to gradually migrate
towards the 
terminology that Microsoft is using, or do you want to proceed with your
own 
terminology standards? 
We don't intend to copy them ;-). There are few terms where they have
used 
better translations, so we would be using them for consistency across
platform, 
rest we are maintaining our own. Its kind of 80/20, 80% we use ours, 20%
part 
which they do it differently & are common we are using them. One of our 
translators Ravishankar Shrivastava, went through XP hindi interface,
he 
prepared a comparative list and concluded that (to pat our own backs) we
had 
actually done a better job ;) . Since we are open source, improvisation
is 
easier and quicker, so we will be sort of evolving our own standards. 
8) Hindi, as I understand, has numerous distinct dialects and forms. How
do you 
plan to address the difference within the dialects ? 
This is a really tricky issue, the best we are doing right now is having
people 
from these regions do the translations. We recently held a Gnome Hindi 
translation workshop 
(http://www.indlinux.org/wiki/index.php/HindiTranslationWorkshop), where
we had 
participants from diverse backgrounds, main achievement being
translation of 
Gnome Glossary and review of some existing translations. We plan to have
couple 
more workshops like this, and also couple of usability ones where we
will have 
first times users using it and giving feedback. Dialect is as such not a
big 
issue, since its at a day to day communication level, in media (print, 
electronic) there is a common form of Hindi written and spoken across
whole 
region, though there are still variations from layman usage to
literary. 
9) From a general, DE independent perspective, what are the biggest
hurdles for 
Indic enabled GNU/Linux system at this stage ? 
Printing, we have to get that hacked/fixed. Second being sorting order 
(collation sequence) for some Indic locales. 
10) From a GNOME based perspective, what are the biggest hurdles for a
fully 
Indic enabled GNOME at this stage ? 
Since much of the rendering, fonts part is done, only printing and full 
translations left. Majority work is in translations. Custom Indic themes
for 
GNOME are also needed (basically where icons, graphics etc relate to
Indian 
culture - eg. A different logo for GNOME Indic than the foot (Maybe we
could 
have a Rama/Venkateshwara foot ;-) 
11) What improvements would you like to see in the translation tools
that are 
used at present? 
Current tools like Kbabel are very good, though we don't have all
translators 
using it. Actually many still use a simple text editor like gedit,
yudit, takti 
etc. Gtranslator is a barebones kind, not as sophisticated as Kbabel.
Actually 
the tools needed to be tweaked to make them Indic aware, I am not myself
clear 
on this, but it basically attempting at machine translation or
autotranslation. 
There are some efforts by other teams in this area we need to link up
with 
them, many a times rough translation throws up really weird
translations ;-) . 
12) Any wishlist for the procedure that is used for GNOME translation ? 
None as such, only have to make all translators use Free Software for 
translation ;-) 
13) Putting aside the translation stuff for a moment, what is one thing
about 
the current GNOME desktop that absolutely bugs you and you want it
changed as 
soon as possible? Likewise, what is one thing that you absolutely love
about 
the GNOME desktop? 
To be honest I am not really a desktop user - most of the time I am
using 
WindowMaker, though all apps I use are Gtk/Gnome based (Ok - except
Kbabel) . 
When releases are around and a lot of testing to be done then I use it.
About 
the things I like - autocompletion/suggestion with tab in file dialogs,
much 
like in bash, obviously nautilus file manager and gconf - making
configuration 
data management easier. Since I am not a heavy user of it, I cannot
point out 
exactly, but I don't like the way its being tailored for corporate
users, many 
desktop settings have been hidden, limiting control from user end. 
14) So, what is the plan for the next 6 months? 
To be honest, right now we are into KDE Hindi work,since 3.2 release is
around. 
We will be getting back to GNOME in February preparing for Gnome 2.6,
but will 
be preparing a common base for Gnome Hindi and KDE, so that we have
consistent 
terminology for both desktops. Translations wise we intend to attain 80%
status 
for Hindi for both GNOME and KDE. We should be having Milan 1.0 (Gnome
Hindi 
interface) ready in couple of months. 
15) The long term plans? 
A full blown Indian language enabled distribution, though its structure
is not 
yet in place. Right now we have been just making live CDs based on
Morphix. By 
2004 end we will be having localised desktops for all major languages
(at least 
those in unicode range). Need to accelerate work for Punjabi, Oriya and
Telugu. 
16) Apart from l10n work, please tell our readers about the other GNOME
related 
activities in India. 
After Novell setup a team in Bangalore, and Miguel and Nat's presence at
Linux 
Bangalore/2003, a lot of activity has started, IRC channels #gnome-
india, 
#bangalore (on irc.gimp.org) have become active. A new mailing list and
website 
have come up for promoting Gnome. Then there are the localisation teams
for 
Bengali, Hindi, Kannada & Tamil who are actively working on Gnome
translation. 
Recently localisation teams for Marathi , Gujarati & Punjabi have also
started. 
Then there is Naba Kumar's Anjuta a Gnome based C/C++ IDE . Also a team
in 
Bangalore with Wipro Technologies who is doing lot of Gnome work. 
17) Finally, any advice for the other fledgling translation teams ? 
It's a long journey and one has to make a beginning, however small. Main
issue 
to tackle is how to get more people participate actively. There has to
be few 
people who can see to it that things are moving, they have to keep
motivating 
volunteers, and groom future coordinators, Team composition should be 2-
3 
people (coordinators, evangelists - aware of whole l10n process, play
the pivot 
role ), 4-5 advocates (who need not do translation work, but help pass
on 
message to interested people, get more people to work, interact with end
users, 
shout it to the world on what they are doing etc), at least 5-6 people
who do 
the real work, in all aspects of localisation and also groom new
volunteers. 

        http://www.indlinux.org

==============================================================
13. Gnome Bug Hunting Activity
--------------------------------------------------------------

This information is from http://bugzilla.gnome.org, which hosts bug and
feature 
reports for most of the Gnome modules. If you would like to join the bug
hunt, 
subscribe to the gnome-bugsquad mailing list.

Currently open: 10667 (In the last week: New: 638, Resolved: 561,
Difference: 
+77)

Modules with the most open bugs (excluding enhancement requests): 

  nautilus: 746 (In the last week: New: 56, Resolved: 45, Difference:
+11)
  gtk+: 663 (In the last week: New: 33, Resolved: 23, Difference: +10)
  control-center: 270 (In the last week: New: 13, Resolved: 14,
Difference: -1)
  gnome-vfs: 248 (In the last week: New: 10, Resolved: 9, Difference:
+1)
  GnuCash: 222 (In the last week: New: 6, Resolved: 7, Difference: -1)
  gnome-panel: 217 (In the last week: New: 29, Resolved: 11, Difference:
+18)
  gnome-applets: 185 (In the last week: New: 36, Resolved: 12,
Difference: +24)
  GIMP: 141 (In the last week: New: 60, Resolved: 51, Difference: +9)
  galeon: 140 (In the last week: New: 24, Resolved: 21, Difference: +3)
  epiphany: 131 (In the last week: New: 19, Resolved: 19, Difference: 0)
  dia: 125 (In the last week: New: 3, Resolved: 6, Difference: -3)
  GStreamer: 124 (In the last week: New: 16, Resolved: 3, Difference:
+13)
  balsa: 121 (In the last week: New: 6, Resolved: 12, Difference: -6)
  sawfish: 119 (In the last week: New: 0, Resolved: 0, Difference: 0)
  gnome-terminal: 117 (In the last week: New: 11, Resolved: 15,
Difference: -4)
  
Gnome Bugzilla users who resolved or closed the most bugs: 
  
  kmaraas gnome org: 42 bugs closed.
  poobar nycap rr com: 28 bugs closed.
  walters verbum org: 25 bugs closed.
  kirillov math sunysb edu: 25 bugs closed.
  maclas gmx de: 21 bugs closed.
  mitch gimp org: 20 bugs closed.
  richard imendio com: 20 bugs closed.
  callum physics otago ac nz: 15 bugs closed.
  chpe+gnomebugz stud uni-saarland de: 15 bugs closed.
  gnome flowerday cx: 13 bugs closed.
  msuarezalvarez arnet com ar: 12 bugs closed.
  bill haneman sun com: 12 bugs closed.
  padraig obriain sun com: 12 bugs closed.
  ted gould cx: 11 bugs closed.
  svu gnome org: 11 bugs closed.
  
==============================================================
14. New and Updated Software
--------------------------------------------------------------

General Applet Interface Library  - Library simplifies applet
development
gThumb  - Image viewer and browser.
Muine  - Music player
GNUbik  - A 3D rubik cube game
Gretools vocabulary builder  - Vocabulary building tool for GNOME
GnoCHM  - A CHM file viewer
GNOME Commander  - File manager
Balsa  - Gnome Mail Client
GtkDatabox  - Fast display of numerical data

For more information on these packages visit the GNOME Software map: 
http://www.gnome.org/softwaremap/latest.php

==============================================================
12. Hacker Activity
--------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for Paul Warren for these lists.

Most active modules:
 129 evolution
 89 gimp
 83 beast
 76 gtk+
 62 epiphany
 58 balsa
 55 muine
 55 rhythmbox
 50 gpdf
 47 evolution-data-server
 40 gossip
 39 gdesklets
 36 conglomerate
 34 gtkmathview
 30 galeon
 27 gnucash
 25 nautilus
 25 gok
 24 yelp
 24 libgnomeui
[177 active modules omitted]

Most active hackers:
 62 mitr
 62 adrighem
 55 serrador
 53 kmaraas
 53 danilo
 51 jbaayen
 47 timj
 44 PeterB
 42 walters
 42 rodrigo
 36 rcoscali
 34 jpr
 34 luca
 33 stw
 31 mitch
 31 cneumair
 31 rhult
 29 redfox
 28 alastairmck
 28 aflinta
[176 active hackers omitted]


Gnome Summary is brought to you by: Sri Ramkrishna, Sayamindu Dasgupta,
Jim 
Hodapp, and Andrew Coulam. 
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