Dear Gobby users,
so we are back with a new release candidate for you. The new series
is not backwards-compatible as always, but well, at least we have
a better excuse now: the introduction of encryption on the protocol
layer. Well, there is not yet a possibility to authenticate the
host you are connecting to (although this would be possible to add,
being a common feature of TLS-based protocols), but the content
flowing over the network is encrypted and secured by anonymous
authentication, thus not sniffable.
Upgrading to this development series costs you interoperability,
but we would like to see this release tested thoroughly. Thus a
Windows build is provided and we are happy about bug reports,
but only iff they are reproducable or accompanied by a backtrace.
The release codename? It's ``Faust''[1], a well-known epic work of
Germany's most famous author: Goethe. In order to get a
general-education we were supposed to read and to analyse it
in the last weeks.
This release also marks the point of a string freeze (hopefully),
so you could help out by translating the product through Rosetta[2]
into your favourite language. Thanks in advance for your efforts.
You could find more information about this in the ``How to help''
section of this mail.
1. What's New
1.1. Gobby
Version 0.4.0rc1:
* Session encryption through GNUTLS
* Reduced CPU usage and memory footprint through the removal of one
supplemental document copy
* Usability enhancements:
- New button to close the chat window
- Font types and sizes could now be set for the text editor from within
Gobby
- Documents could now be switched using Ctrl-Alt-Page-Down and
Ctrl-Alt-Page-Up
- Subscribe button is deactivated after it has been hit once for a
document
- Documents with the same name are suffixed with a number
- Dialogs to host and join sessions are respawned if the attempt failed
- URLs are now clickable on Windows, OS X and when compiled with Gnome
support
- Emotes through /me
- Documents could be opened via file associations and the command line
interface into the currently running session
URL: http://gobby.0x539.de
1.2. Sobby
Most people did not notice the presence of a dedicated server and wanted
this feature to be integrated into Gobby. Well, try it out and report us
if it works. You might also adapt Sobby to your personal needs (e.g.
preservation of more chat log lines), feel free to do so. If it's worth
to include into the main branch, please send us a patch and we'll realise
it as a command line option.
Version 0.4.0rc1:
* XML-based configuration files are now supported (at arbitarary locations)
* Configuration files could be written by Sobby with all options
passed on the command line to ease their initial creation
* Command subsystem added:
- Commands could be issues from Gobby's chat console via /command
- Removal of documents is implemented through /remove <documentname>
1.3. obby
Version 0.4.0rc1:
* This version is neither protocol, nor ABI-compatible nor API-compatible
to the 0.3.x series!
* Improved text handling through chunks
* Guarantee encrypted connections through the new net6 TLS facitity
* Document storage in memory reduced to one central copy which the
application could provide through a template parameter
* Documents with the same name are suffixed with a number
* Removal of SHA1 and RSA routines, thus losing the GMP dependency
* New command subsystem
1.4. net6
Version 1.3.0rc1:
* Encryption support through GNUTLS
* Interface changes in the selector
* Allow the use of the net6 protocol with Unix domain sockets
* Send keep-alives to detect dropped clients
2. How to get it
2.1. Microsoft Windows
An installer containing a binary build of Gobby is available as usual.
The containing application requires Microsoft Windows 2000 or newer.
Please follow the platform guide[3] this time, it *is* important
to install Gtk+ and Gtkmm first.
URL: http://releases.0x539.de/gobby/gobby-0.4.0rc1.exe
2.2. Linux
Due to this being a development version you will have to go the
way over the source tarballs. As the packages' build system is
based on the famous Autotools suite you could install it as
every other tarball from source, given installed development
versions of the dependencies.
Honourable mention: Edubuntu, the schoolar branch of Ubuntu, included
Gobby 0.3.0 in the default installation of the upcoming Dapper Drake
release. Thank you very much, Oliver Grawert!
2.3. Mac OS X
A DarwinPorts overlay will not be provided for this development version.
The easiest way is to install `gobby' from DarwinPorts, to install `gnutls'
and to deactivate (through `port deactivate') `net6', `obby' and `gobby'.
All dependencies should then be available to compile all packages from
source.
An updated port will be committed as soon as the final version of the
0.4.x series is released.
2.4. Source
net6: http://releases.0x539.de/net6/net6-1.3.0rc1.tar.gz
obby: http://releases.0x539.de/obby/obby-0.4.0rc1.tar.gz
Gobby: http://releases.0x539.de/gobby/gobby-0.4.0rc1.tar.gz
Sobby: http://releases.0x539.de/sobby/sobby-0.4.0rc1.tar.gz
To compile either Gobby or Sobby you need the newest versions of both
net6 and obby installed. Detached GPG signatures for those tarballs
are available in the same directory as the file. They are made with
my GPG key B2CFCDD8 which is in the strong set.
The MD5 checksums:
45511815c3be246cda11a2234cc4fa7b net6-1.3.0rc1.tar.gz
cd7d8755a7854ad8d29c6d2b0457fa8f obby-0.4.0rc1.tar.gz
f2839d46a2dcb1efff4fe79c23b78ef1 gobby-0.4.0rc1.tar.gz
43bb4cbb9949179b3ecb1cbc0b447e24 sobby-0.4.0rc1.tar.gz
3. Problems
When you encounter problems with the installation please refer to the
relevant platform installation guide[3]. You could visit our IRC
channel #0x539 on irc.blitzed.org if you need help or ask in the
WikiForum[4]. Generally we try to weed out bugs with this development
release.
When you find reproduceable bugs you could report them into our ticketing
system[5]. Please try to provide a testcase how to reproduce the crash and
include a backtrace.
You could also contact the `obby-users' mailinglist for help. You could
find information how to subscribe on [6].
4. How to help
Are you skilled in writing English documentation? Do you know C++ very well?
If you could answer any of those two questions with `yes' and want to help
us, just contact us at `gobby [(at)] 0x539.de'.
Please help in translating our applications. A tool to ease this task called
Rosetta[2] is provided by Canonical Ltd. You could translate this branch
of net6[7], obby[8] and gobby[9] quite easily into your own language of
choice.
There is also the possiblity to make a donation to us. The money will be
used to develop these projects and to keep the morale up. Those who work
well need to eat well.
5. Disclaimer
We release our software to the public WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY. We cannot be
held liable for any data loss occuring at your side, like e.g. open
documents lost due to a crash. So better be save than sorry and save
your files more often when working within Gobby. Please note that this
software is published under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
6. About us
We, the 0x539 dev group, are a small group of prospective freelance hackers
dedicated to pursuing the philosophy of free software and open standards,
while having fun. We will put our efforts into making it possible for others
to reuse our code, by making it compatible with standard interfaces and
libraries that are used on a wide variety of platforms.
Kind regards,
Philipp Kern
0x539 dev group
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust
[2] https://launchpad.net/rosetta
[3] http://gobby.0x539.de/installationguide.html
[4] http://darcs.0x539.de/trac/obby/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/wiki/WikiForum
[5] http://darcs.0x539.de/trac/obby/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/newticket
[6] http://list.0x539.de/mailman/listinfo/obby-users
[7] https://launchpad.net/products/net6/+series/1.2/+pots/net6/
[8] https://launchpad.net/products/obby/+series/0.3/+pots/obby/
[9] https://launchpad.net/products/gobby/+series/0.3/+pots/gobby/
