Open Source News
March 31, 2004
Plone 2.0 released
Version 2.0 of Plone, a web Content Management and Publishing system that is based on Zope, has been announced. "Over a year in development, the Plone Team released the 30+ languages strong Plone 2.0 today." See the announcement for a long list of changes.
SVG and its Path into the Linux Desktop
Christian Schaller writes about Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) on the GNOME platform in an OS News article. "Computer graphics have long been dominated by bitmapped images. However, the free software community has taken an innovative lead by adopting scalable graphic formats on its desktops. In this article I cover the history and rise of scalable graphics on the desktop from my viewpoint - a proponent of its use in the GNOME platform."
GIMP 2.0 released
Gimp.org has the news that the GIMP 2.0 release has happened. "This release is a major event, marking the end of a three year development cycle by a group of volunteers and enthusiasts who have made this the most professional release of the GIMP ever." A list of new features is available in PDF format; it includes a great deal of internal restructuring, a reorganized toolbox, an improved text tool, various path tool improvements, a full-screen editing mode, and much more.
Oscar 2.0 Has Open Source Drug Reference
Version 2.0 of OSCAR, the Open Source Clinical Application Resource medical record system, is out. "David Chan is announcing the availability of OSCAR version 2.0 which features Drugref.org's Free and Open Source drug database, easy internationalization, a laboratory module, improved billing and more."
Using MySQL from PHP, Parts 1 and 2
John Coggeshall has written a part 1 and part 2 of his series on using MySQL from PHP.
CBTracker: a checkbook manager for the rest of us
NewsForge takes a look at CBTracker. " Do you want to balance your checking account on your Linux desktop, but don't want to have to learn double-entry accounting in order to do it? Join the crowd. GnuCash is the best known personal finance manager for Linux. It's a dandy, but many shy away from it because they can't (or won't) cope with the complexity of real accounting just to balance their checkbook. If that's you, check out Tony Maro's GPL'd CheckBook Tracker. It might just be the answer to your reconciliation blues."
Switching from PHP to Zope/Python
Kuro5hin is carrying a lengthy article about one developer's switch from PHP to Zope for web application development. "Zope is a beautifully integrated set of solutions to common web development problems. It works in a substantially different way to traditionally scripted web-applications. Think of it as a collection of objects help with web publishing rather than a set of scripts to do a job."
Marc Andreessen: "Linux Has Matured"
BusinessWeek talks with Marc Andreessen about Linux. "Another key thing to remember is that everyone coming out of college is familiar with Linux. It has overwhelming market share in colleges and universities. In every computer science program I'm aware of, it's the default language people teach on. They like it because it's open-source, and you can look at how it really works. The reason that's important is because those kids leaving college will enter the workforce and bring those skills to their employers."