Dec 24, 2012 

Featured projects, December 24, 2012

Hope you’re having a marvelous holiday season! Here are the projects we’re featuring this week.

  • Stellarium

    Stellarium renders 3D photo-realistic skies in real time with OpenGL. It displays stars, constellations, planets, nebulae and others things like ground, landscape, atmosphere, etc.

  • West Point Bridge Designer and Contest

    A national virtual bridge engineering contest with prizes for age 13 to grade 12, but anyone can enter. Based on the award-winning West Point Bridge Designer client software, now open source through this project. Web site infrastructure supports worldwide participation in qualifying and semifinal rounds with a tiny administrative staff.

  • eSpeak: speech synthesis

    Text to Speech engine for English and many other languages. Compact size with clear but artificial pronunciation. Available as a command-line program with many options, a shared library for Linux, and a Windows SAPI5 version.

  • Zenoss Core – Enterprise IT Monitoring

    Zenoss Core is an enterprise network and systems management application written in Python. Zenoss provides an integrated product for monitoring availability, performance, events and configuration across layers and across platforms.

  • AkelPad

    A simple notepad-like text editor with many features. It is designed to be a small and fast.

  • Sims3 Tools

    Tools using the s3pi library and other related works – package editor (with simple objk, vpxy and language string editors and a DDS file tool), object cloner and sims3pack packer/unpacker. Runs on Windows, MacOS and Linux.

  • ShellEd

    ShellEd is a superb shell script editor for Eclipse. The benefits of this plugin are the integration of man page information for content assist/hover help and the ability to run your project’s shell scripts without leaving Eclipse. Check it out!

  • Arch Bang

    ArchBang is a simple GNU/Linux distribution which provides you with a lightweight Arch Linux system combined with the OpenBox window manager. Suitable for both desktop and portable systems – It is fast, stable, and always up to date.

  • Kiwix

    Wikipedia offline & more

Dec 21, 2012 

December community newsletter

Subject: JStock is project of the month; Games for the Holidays; The year in review;

It’s hard to believe that the end of 2012 is just a few days away. It’s been a great year for SourceForge. More about that later. Let’s start with this month:

JStock is the Project of the Month

JStock is a free stock market software for 26 countries. It provides stock watchlist, intraday stock price snapshot, stock indicator editor, stock indicator scanner and portfolio management. Free SMS/email alert supported.

Earlier this month we spoke with Yan Chen Cheok, the lead developer on this project. You can listen, or read, to find out more about JStock, at http://sourceforge.net/blog/potm-201212/. And, if you’re interested in the stock market, you can use JStock to help you become a smarter investor.

Please vote for the January Project of the Month. You’ll find the list of candidates, and a link to the vote, at http://sourceforge.net/blog/potm-vote-201301/. (You’ll need to be signed in to Twitter to vote, as a preventative measure against robo-voting.) Note: Vote is closed. Stay tuned for the January POTM announcement.

SourceForge is hiring

SourceForge, and our sister sites Slashdot and Freecode, are looking for some additions to our team. We’re looking for a Systems Programmer/Analyst, who will work on the team that oversees production and development systems, databases, systems integration, infrastructure, and networks for the Geeknet Media sites (Slashdot, SourceForge, Freecode) and associated services. You’ll find details of this position at http://bit.ly/SwenWE.

We’re also looking for a Senior Systems Administrator in the Chicago, IL area. You can find more details on that position at http://bit.ly/TMypNj.

Finally, we’re looking for a Front End Engineer for our Dexter, MI office. The details of that position are at http://bit.ly/TlCJBo.

If you’re interested in any of these positions, please click the red “Click Here to Apply” button on that site.

Games for The Holidays

If you’re a video game buff, new games for the holidays are always a winner. And if they’re free, that’s even better. Last year around this time, we did a blog entry (https://sourceforge.net/blog/games-for-the-holidays/) about free games, and since then we’ve done a number of features about the many games on SourceForge. We even tried to create a comprehensive list – https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/community-docs/SourceForge%20Games/ – which is still very much a work in process.

Platform Updates

Our team of engineers is constantly pushing out updates to the developer platform. However, we’ve done a rather poor job in the past of telling you what they’re up to, which is an injustice both to them and to you.

We’ve started a new series of blog posts, which you’ll find at http://sourceforge.net/blog/tag/updates/, where we’ll tell you what they’ve pushed out. We don’t cover everything, because much of it, although important, is behind-the-scenes stuff you won’t necessarily see. But we’ll cover the changes that we think will affect your daily use of the site, or which fix problems that many of you are likely to have seen.

We tend to operate in two-week sprints, but we also do minor pushes in between the major ones, so the frequency of these posts will vary from week to week. We hope that you find them helpful in keeping up with the progress of our platform.

Two recent additions include the 5-star ratings feature (http://sourceforge.net/blog/five-star-reviews-coming-to-your-project) and the addition of your Twitter handle to your project summary page (http://sourceforge.net/blog/your-projects-twitter-stream/). We think that both of these features will enhance your attachment to your community.

You can also see what we’ll be working on next (see the Milestone list on the left) and vote on tickets for upcoming milestones, at http://sourceforge.net/p/allura/tickets/.

Help Wanted

Every now and then, every project needs a little help. We have a forum at https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/helpwanted/ where you can post your needs, or your desire to help.

Here’s some projects that are looking for developers or designers to help them out.

Sqliteman is looking for someone to adopt the project. Sqliteman is a sqlite3 GUI frontend for developers and db users, written in C++ and QT4. If you’re interested, respond to the article at https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/helpwanted/programmers/thread/9ef2c155/

Aurora Game Manager is looking for a creative developer and a PC gamer to jump in on the effort. They describe more of what they’re looking for at https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/helpwanted/programmers/thread/3c17f54e/ Aurora is written using Java Swing.

XOOPS is looking for PHP developers, and for designers. XOOPS is a PHP CMS which was recently the SourceForge project of the month. You can follow up on the post at https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/helpwanted/programmers/thread/80250c4a/ if you’re interested.

The Vega Strike project is looking for artists to design 3D cockpit interiors. That request can be seen at https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/helpwanted/artists/thread/22208746/ and you can follow up on that post.

And, as importantly, there’s another forum for developers in search of a project. If your project is looking for new talent, have a look at the developer profiles posted at https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/helpwanted/developers/ and see if one of them is what you’re looking for.

Projects of the Month – a year in review

We’ve had some really great Projects of the Month this year, with very closely contested votes many months. At http://sourceforge.net/blog/2012-projects-of-the-month/ we review all of the featured projects for 2012, including the current project of the month, JStock.

Top Growth Projects

We’re always on the lookout for projects that might be doing interesting things, and a surge in downloads is one of many metrics that we look at to identify them. Here’s the projects that had the greatest growth in the last month.

Stellarium: A realistic, real-time 3D simulation of the night sky. http://sourceforge.net/projects/stellarium

Moodle: Moodle is a Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a Free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites. http://sourceforge.net/projects/moodle

Eclipse and Java Video Tutorials: Free video screencam tutorials for Eclipse and Java. Includes “Eclipse and Java for Total Beginners”, “Using the Eclipse Workbench”, “Introducing Persistence”, and “Using the Debugger”. Intended for beginning and intermediate users and programmer http://sourceforge.net/projects/eclipsetutorial

Lazarus: Rapid applications development tool and libraries for FPC http://sourceforge.net/projects/lazarus

West Point Bridge Designer and Contest: A national virtual bridge engineering contest for kids of all ages. http://sourceforge.net/projects/wpbdc

Zenoss Core – Enterprise IT Monitoring: Zenoss Core is an enterprise network and systems management application written in Python. Zenoss provides an integrated product for monitoring availability, performance, events and configuration across layers and across platforms. http://sourceforge.net/projects/zenoss

MO Virtual Router: Virtual Wi-Fi For Windows 8 http://sourceforge.net/projects/movirtualrouter

Kiwix: Wikipedia offline & more http://sourceforge.net/projects/kiwix

AkelPad: A simple notepad-like text editor with many features. It is designed to be a small and fast. http://sourceforge.net/projects/akelpad

tuntaposx: Unix-style tun and tap virtual network interfaces for Mac OS X. http://sourceforge.net/projects/tuntaposx

PosteRazor – Make your own poster!: Want to print a poster? PosteRazor cuts an image file into pieces and you can print them on your printer and glue them together to a poster. Easy FLTK based user interface. Uses FreeImage for image loading. Creates PDFs as output. http://sourceforge.net/projects/posterazor

xplanner-plus: XPlanner+ is a web-based project planning and tracking tool. http://sourceforge.net/projects/xplanner-plus

ShellEd: ShellEd is a superb shell script editor for Eclipse. The benefits of this plugin are the integration of man page information for content assist/hover help and the ability to run your project’s shell scripts without leaving Eclipse. Check it out! http://sourceforge.net/projects/shelled

Sims3 Tools: Tools using the s3pi library and other related works – package editor (with simple objk, vpxy and language string editors and a DDS file tool), object cloner and sims3pack packer/unpacker. Runs on Windows, MacOS and Linux. http://sourceforge.net/projects/sims3tools

RapidMiner — Data Mining, ETL, OLAP, BI: No 1 in Business Analytics: Data Mining, Predictive Analytics, ETL, Reporting, Dashboards in One Tool. 1000+ methods: data mining, business intelligence, ETL, data mining, data analysis + Weka + R, forecasting, visualization, business intelligence. http://sourceforge.net/projects/rapidminer

Arch Bang: ArchBang is a simple GNU/Linux distribution which provides you with a lightweight Arch Linux system combined with the OpenBox window manager. Suitable for both desktop and portable systems – It is fast, stable, and always up to date. http://sourceforge.net/projects/archbang

NASA WorldWind: NASA World Wind is a graphically rich 3D virtual globe for use on desktop computers running Windows. It combines NASA imagery generated from satellites that have produced Blue Marble, Landsat 7, SRTM, MODIS and more. http://sourceforge.net/projects/nasa-exp

PhotoFilmStrip: PhotoFilmStrip creates movies out of your pictures in just 3 steps. First select your photos, customize the motion path and render the video. There are several output possibilities for VCD, SVCD, DVD up to FULL-HD. Creates animated slideshows. http://sourceforge.net/projects/photostoryx

py2exe: A distutils extension to create standalone windows programs from python scripts. http://sourceforge.net/projects/py2exe

In Closing …

As always, thanks for being part of the SourceForge community.

If you want more frequent updates than this newsletter, there’s several places where we make those updates. We’re on Twitter – http://twitter.com/sourceforge We’re on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/sourceforgenet We’re on Google+ – https://plus.google.com/u/1/102470258162390195749/posts And if you follow the opensource and software Reddits, http://www.reddit.com/r/opensource and http://www.reddit.com/r/software respectively, you’ll see the occasional post from us there, too.

And, of course, there’s our blog – http://sf.net/blog – where we post longer articles about our projects and our platform.

Keep coding.

The SourceForge Community Team
[email protected]

Dec 21, 2012 

SVN upgraded to 1.7.7

The SVN server has been upgraded to 1.7.7. You can read the SVN 1.7.7 release notes at http://subversion.apache.org/docs/release-notes/1.7.html.

While the release notes state that you don’t have to do anything on the client side due to this upgrade, please note:

  • If you’re using HTTP(S) as your checkout protocol, upgrading your client to 1.7, in conjunction with the 1.7 server, will result in a substantial speedup of checkins and updates.
  • There are reports of problems using Jenkins Continuous Integration server with 1.7, using svn:// checkout addresses. You should read this if you are using Jenkins and experience problems. The solution to this is to use the https:// address for your repository, or to upgrade to the latest version of the SVN plugin, which can be done from the admin interface of your Jenkins installation.

Thanks to Björn of the jEdit project for pointing me to useful resources.

Dec 18, 2012 

Platform updates: side-by-side diffs

A frequently requested feature is the ability to view your diffs side-by-side in the source code viewer. We’re delighted to announce that this feature is now available. You can see this in action in any code browser by selecting the “switch to side-by-side view” link at the top right. For example, take a look at the revision where this feature was added.

As always, you can see what’s up ahead by looking at the milestones in the ticket tracker. Be sure to vote for tickets that you’d like to see worked on soon.

Dec 18, 2012 

PROSE Survey on Forge Platform Requirements

Among the initiatives I am proud to have been working on in my first year at SourceForge, submitting few proposals for EU funded research projects and see two of them approved has been really rewarding. Let me tell you more about one of those initiatives, codenamed PROSE – PRomoting Open Source in European Projects – and how you can help us to do better our job.

PROSE will contribute to the adoption of open source software on ICT projects, by increasing the lifetime of the software developed inside European projects and thus maximizing impacts. This will be achieved through the creation of a coordination platform for hosting software projects, as well as promoting dissemination and training events on Open Source topics.

Our role in the PROSE project is to provide a platform for hosting and supporting ICT projects developed as open source software. Our first step to better understand where are has been to gather open source forges’ expert at the OWF.

We shared our own experiences and learned from others’ approaches, and we jointly crafted at the PROSE website an online survey for Forge Platform Requirements, so that you can help us to better understand what’s really important to you.

While PROSE aim is to better serve EU ICT projects, we’ll welcome all responses, and they will be treated as confidential. We plan to share a summary of results and findings in future presentations to the community.

We look forward to hearing back from you.

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