July GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali: Nineteen new GNU releases!

Nineteen new GNU releases in the last month (as of July 28, 2024):

• automake-1.17: Automake the part of the GNU build system for producing standards-compliant Makefiles. Build requirements are entered in an intuitive format and then Automake works with Autoconf to produce a robust Makefile, simplifying the entire process for the developer.
• direvent-5.4: A daemon that monitors directories for events, such as creating, deleting or modifying files. It can monitor different sets of directories for different events. When an event is detected, direvent calls a specified external program with information about the event, such as the location within the file system where it occurred. Thus, direvent provides an easy way to react immediately if given files undergo changes, for example, to track changes in important system configuration files.
• findutils-4.10.0: Findutils supplies the basic file directory searching utilities of the GNU system. It consists of two primary searching utilities: find recursively searches for files in a directory according to given criteria and locate lists files in a database that match a query. Two auxiliary tools are included: updatedb updates the file name database and xargs may be used to apply commands with arbitrarily long arguments.
• gcc-11.5.0: 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.
• gdb-15.1: GDB is the GNU debugger. With it, you can monitor what a program is doing while it runs or what it was doing just before a crash. It allows you to specify the runtime conditions, to define breakpoints, and to change how the program is running to try to fix bugs. It can be used to debug programs written in C, C++, Ada, Objective-C, Pascal, and more.
• gdbm-1.24: GDBM is a library for manipulating hashed databases. It is used tojj store key/value pairs in a file in a manner similar to the Unix dbm library and provides interfaces to the traditional file format.
• g-golf-0.8.0-rc.5: G-Golf (Gnome: (Guile Object Library for)) is a library for developing modern applications in Guile Scheme. It comprises a direct binding to the GObject Introspection API and higher-level functionality for importing Gnome libraries and making GObject classes (and methods) available in Guile's object-oriented programming system, GOOPS.
• glibc-2.40: 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.
• global-6.6.13: GNU GLOBAL is a source code tagging system that functions in the same way across a wide array of environments, such as different text editors, shells and web browsers. The resulting tags are useful for quickly moving around in a large, deeply nested project.
• gnuastro-0.23: The GNU Astronomy Utilities (Gnuastro) is an official GNU package consisting of various programs and library functions for the manipulation and analysis of astronomical data.
• gnupg-2.5.0: The GNU Privacy Guard is a complete implementation of the OpenPGP standard. It is used to encrypt and sign data and communication. It features powerful key management and the ability to access public key servers. It includes several libraries: libassuan (IPC between GnuPG components), libgpg-error (centralized GnuPG error values), and libskba (working with X.509 certificates and CMS data).
• less-661: GNU less is a pager, a program that allows you to view large amounts of text in page-sized chunks. Unlike traditional pagers, it allows both backwards and forwards movement through the document. It also does not have to read the entire input file before starting, so it starts faster than most text editors.
• libcdio-10.2+2.0.2: The GNU Compact Disc Input and Control Library (libcdio) is a library for CD-ROM and CD image file access. It allows the developer to add CD access to an application without having to worry about the OS- and device-dependent properties of CD-ROM or the specific details of CD image formats. It includes pycdio, a Python interface to libcdio, and libcdio-paranoia, a library providing jitter-free and error-free audio extraction from CDs.
• lilypond-2.24.4: GNU LilyPond is a music typesetter, which produces high-quality sheet music. Music is input in a text file containing control sequences which are interpreted by LilyPond to produce the final document. It is extendable with Guile.
• linux-libre-6.10-gnua: GNU Linux-Libre is a free (as in freedom) variant of the kernel Linux. It has been modified to remove all non-free binary blobs.
• mes-0.27: GNU Mes aims to help create full source bootstrapping for GNU/Linux systems such as Guix System. It features a mutual self-hosting Scheme interpreter written in a simple C, and a Nyacc-based C compiler written in GNU Guile-compatible Scheme. The Mes C library supports bootstrapping gcc.
• mygnuhealth-2.2.1: MyGNUHealth is the GNU Health Personal Health Record (PHR) application for desktop and mobile devices and integrates with the GNU Health Federation. MyGNUHealth is a privacy-oriented PHR that puts citizens and patients in control of their health and medical information, and enhances and improves the interaction between citizens and healthcare professionals with up-to-date information on demographics and medical information.
• nano-8.1: 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.
• parallel-20240722: 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.

For announcements of most new GNU releases, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list: https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu.

To download: nearly all GNU software is available most reliably from https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/. Optionally, you may find faster download speeds at a mirror located geographically closer to you by choosing from the list of mirrors published at https://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html, or you may use https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/ to be automatically redirected to a (hopefully) nearby and up-to-date mirror.

This month, we welcome TODO new maintainers.

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.