GNU Spotlight April 2009

Here are the recent GNU software releases:

• bash-3.2.48
• coreutils-7.2
• dico-2.0
• freeipmi-0.7.7
• global-5.7.5
• glpk-4.37
• gnuspool-1.5
• gsasl-1.1
• gv-3.6.7
• libgsasl-1.1
• libiconv-1.13
• libidn-1.14
• libmicrohttpd-0.4.1
• m4-1.4.13
• octave-3.0.5
• sipwitch-0.5.3
• solfege-3.14.1
• zile-2.3.6

See the packages' announcements, web pages (http://www.gnu.org/software/PKGNAME) or the distributions themselves for details. Nearly all are available from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/, or preferably one of its mirrors (http://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html).

To get announcements of most new GNU packages, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list (http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu), which is publicly archived (http://lists.gnu.org/pipermail/info-gnu).

I'd like to give a warm welcome to Chris Bryant, redubbed maintainer of vmslib, and Troy Will, the new maintainer of stow.

For this issue of the FSS, I'd like to especially point out GNU gv, a PS/PDF previewer that works as a front end to Ghostscript. It has a long history, starting with Tim Theisen's Ghostview (almost contemporaneous with Ghostscript itself), and continuing under the name gv with much additional work by Johannes Plass. It has been rejuvenated by its new (as of last year) maintainer Markus Steinborn, who has released several updates and continues active work. See http://www.gnu.org/software/gv/ for downloads, documentation, and the usual information.

Several GNU packages are looking for maintainers and other assistance. Please see http://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint if you'd like to help. The general page on how to help GNU is at http://www.gnu.org/help/help.html. To submit new packages to GNU, see http://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.

As always, please feel free to write to me, karl@gnu.org, with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.