GNU Spotlight August 2022

Twelve new GNU releases in the last month (as of August 27, 2022):

• binutils-2.39: GNU Binutils is a collection of tools for working with binary files. Perhaps the most notable are `ld`, a linker, and `as`, an assembler. Other tools include programs to display binary profiling information, list the strings in a binary file, and utilities for working with archives. The `bfd` library for working with executable and object formats is also included.
• gcc-12.2.0: GCC is the GNU Compiler Collection. It provides compiler front-ends for several languages, including C, C++, Objective-C, Fortran, Java, Ada, and Go. It also includes runtime support libraries for these languages.
• glibc-2.36: The GNU C Library is the standard C library of the GNU system. It defines the system calls and other basic functionality necessary to write programs in the C language. It handles low-level functionality that communicates with the kernel, such as process and file management, as well as higher-level functionality such as string manipulation or command-line argument handling.
• gnunet-0.17.4: GNUnet is a framework for secure peer-to-peer networking. The high-level goal is to provide a strong foundation of free software for a global, distributed network that provides security and privacy. GNUnet in that sense aims to replace the current internet protocol stack. Along with an application for secure publication of files, it has grown to include all kinds of basic applications for the foundation of a GNU internet.
• gss-1.0.4: The GNU Generic Security Service provides a free implementation of the GSS-API specification. It provides a generic application programming interface for programs to access security services. Security services present a generic, GSS interface, with which the calling application interacts via this library, freeing the application developer from needing to know about the underlying security implementation.
• libtasn1-4.19.0: GNU libtasn1 is a library implementing the ASN.1 notation. It is used for transmitting machine-neutral encodings of data objects in computer networking, allowing for formal validation of data according to some specifications.
• linux-libre-5.19-gnu: GNU Linux-Libre is a free (as in freedom) variant of the Linux kernel. It has been modified to remove all non-free binary blobs.
• nano-6.4: GNU nano is a small and simple text editor for use in a terminal. Besides basic editing, it supports: undo/redo, syntax highlighting, spell checking, justifying, auto-indentation, bracket matching, interactive search-and-replace (with regular expressions), and the editing of multiple files.
• octave-7.2.0: GNU Octave is a high-level interpreted language that is specialized for numerical computations. It can be used for both linear and non-linear applications and it provides great support for visualizing results. Work may be performed both at the interactive command-line as well as via script files.
• parallel-20220822: GNU Parallel is a tool for executing shell jobs in parallel using one or more computers. Jobs can consist of single commands or of scripts and they are executed on lists of files, hosts, users or other items.
• pies-1.8: GNU pies is a program that supervises the invocation and execution of other programs. It reads the list of programs to be started from its configuration file, executes them, and then monitors their status, re-executing them as necessary.
• shishi-1.0.3: GNU Shishi is a free implementation of the Kerberos 5 network security system. It is used to allow non-secure network nodes to communicate in a secure manner through client-server mutual authentication via tickets.

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A number of GNU packages, as well as the GNU operating system as a whole, are looking for maintainers and other assistance: please see https://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint if you'd like to help. The general page on how to help GNU is at https://www.gnu.org/help/help.html.

If you have a working or partly working program that you'd like to offer to the GNU project as a GNU package, see https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.

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