[DotGNU]This week in DotGNU - no 5

[Norbert Bollow]

This week in DotGNU - no 5 (November 17, 2001)
=============================================
See http://www.dotgnu.org for general information about DotGNU.

1. New auth project: IDsec
2. List of 20 development projects in DotGNU
3. Meet the DotGNU Crew in January 2002 at LinuxWorld NYC
4. Release of Portable.NET 0.2.4 and pnetlib 0.0.8


New auth project: IDsec
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IDsec is a mechanism that provides an identity for users on the internet.
Identity in this system means that a user is known by a certain profile which
contains precisely those attributes that the user wants to reveal to
the requester of his profile.

Access to profile attributes is managed by the user himself. Certificates and
public/private key mechanisms ensure that information is exchanged in a
secure way between parties that trust each other.

A preliminary implementation that implements the core of the different
parts of the system exists, and Hans Zandbelt of Telematica Instituut
in Enschede, Netherlands (where this system is being developed) has
stated: "Now our intention is to distribute and develop it further
as a proposal in the DotGNU portfolio."  DotGNU Steering Committee
chairman David Sugar, who will be in Enschede anyway from the 27th of
Nov thru Dec 1st for the Linux Kongress, will meet with Hans Zandbelt
to discuss the next steps.


List of 20 development projects in DotGNU
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DotGNU is a meta-project which could in principle be an umbrella for
any number of development projects, but it is important to focus on
the most important components at first.  Therefore, until the release
DotGNU 1.0, the number of official DotGNU development projects will
be limited to at most twenty.  The time has come to work towards
finalizing this list of high priority development projects; a first
draft has been posted at
http://archive.dotgnu.org/pipermail/developers/2001-November/001399.html

One major way in which this proposal differs from previous plans is
the inclusion of support for PHP3.  Not only is PHP a very convenient
language for creating XML files, PHP support is also necessary for
close cooperation with the phpGroupWare project which now appears
highly desirable.  In related news, Bradley Kuhn is organizing a phone
conference call about integration between GNU Enterprise, DotGNU and
GNU Groupware Standards.


Meet the DotGNU Crew in January 2002 at LinuxWorld NYC
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The LinuxWorld conference in New York City (USA) will be a good
opportunity to meet many of the key people behind organizing the
DotGNU effort.  A special DotGNU panel will be held on January 30th at
2:30pm.  The full announcement is available at 
http://archive.dotgnu.org/pipermail/announce/2001-November/000002.html


Release of Portable.NET 0.2.4 and pnetlib 0.0.8
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The major changes in this release are to the runtime engine.  The
engine can now run more complicated example programs, as long
as they don't use exceptions, delegates, or tail calls.  Rhys
Weatherley has also integrated the Hans-Boehm garbage collector, which
is used by gcc and other projects.  This is a very stable system that
has been ported to many platforms, and solves many of the nasty
problems of garbage collection in a C environment.

Web Page: http://www.southern-storm.com.au/portable_net.html
Download: http://www.southern-storm.com.au/download/pnet-0.2.4.tar.gz
Library:  http://www.southern-storm.com.au/download/pnetlib-0.0.8.tar.gz


Greetings, Norbert.


P.S. Translations of "This week in DotGNU" into other languages are
very welcome; please let me know about them.


"This week in DotGNU" is Copyright (C) 2001 by Norbert Bollow.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire issue is
permitted in any medium or format, provided this notice is
preserved.
==================================================================END.

-- 
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