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AbiWord-2.3.6 "Maths is Hard!" AKA Beta 3 Released.

Submitted by msevior on Sun, 2005-09-11 22:02. AbiWord
AbiWord

AbiWord v2.3.6 "Math is hard!" Released

The AbiWord team is happy to announce AbiWord v2.3.6 for your stress-testing pleasure. This release is virtually identical to what will become AbiWord 2.4, but still contains some bugs that we'd like to see squashed over the next few days.

Since the previous release, equation support has become available to Mac OSX >= 10.3 and Windows NT based systems as well. At the moment of writing these release notes support for Windows 9x/ME systems has been included, but this was not ready in time to go in v2.3.6.

Note: While standard symbol fonts can be used to render equations, the best results are achieved when the Computer Modern fonts are installed. Also note that equation input and rendering are still considered to be experimental. We welcome your feedback on this new feature.

AbiWord v2.3.x is parallel installable with AbiWord v2.2 so users can try it out without disturbing their stable AbiWord 2.2 version. Binaries for the various supported platforms will be provided as soon as possble. For Linux based systems we have again created an easy to use installer ("Autopackage") that should work on virtually every x86 linux distribution. The only requirement is that basic GNOME libraries are installed. This makes it possible for people who are interested in testing this release to instantly install it on their computer, there's no need to compile stuff or wait until it's shipped by the distribution.

The installer includes the following extra functionality ("plugins"):

  • Grammar checking (only English supported at the moment)
  • Support for entering formulas and equations
  • Wordperfect file import
  • OpenDocument file import (the OpenOffice.org 2 format)
  • Gnumeric charts support (experimental, only works with recent GNOME)

The installer is available from the download page. For more information about Autopackage please visit http://www.autopackage.org.

We are very much interested in any bug you may find. Please report these to http://bugzilla.abisource.com/.

While we encourage people to try out this new snapshot, please be aware that is a development snapshot and is not expected to be stable in any sort of way.

Availability: http://www.abisource.com/download/development.phtml.

More information: http://www.abisource.com/.
Enjoy!
   The AbiWord Development Team

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Fonts by Anonymous George

Is this site reachable?

Submitted by JB_Nicholson-Owens on Fri, 2005-09-16 16:43.

I have tried to reach this website and it never responds to my request for a copy of the homepage. When I tried http://www.panl10n.net.nyud.net:8090/ I got a page that requires a plugin I don't have.

Is there a copy of the website somewhere that describes the font, its license, and details about its implementation without the need for plugins?

A flash based movie intro +

Submitted by und0 on Mon, 2005-09-19 03:31.

A flash based movie intro + language selection, but the original site gives timeout. Try

http://www.panl10n.net.nyud.net:8090/english/index.htm

seems they used flash only on the first page...

problem with autopackage by Anonymous George

try this

Submitted by robsta on Thu, 2005-09-15 03:46.

Any chance that you were not connected to the internet when installing the package? The installer looks what is available on your system and downloads missing libraries if needed (like link-grammar).

If you are online and it still fails please do the following in a shell:

export DEBUGLEVEL=3
sh http://www.abisource.com/~rob/repo/abi/abiword-2.3.6.x86.package

Then send the whole output to the abiword-dev mailing list (needs subscription).

argh

Submitted by robsta on Thu, 2005-09-15 06:52.

this should of course be

sh abiword-2.3.6.x86.package

The Autopackage tells you

Submitted by uwog on Thu, 2005-09-15 03:38.

The Autopackage tells you that it can not find the grammar checking library (link-grammar). You will have to install that yourself; with some luck ubuntu already provides it. If not, then people should ask for inclusion of it.

The 'official' link-grammar we use can be found here: http://www.abisource.com/downloads/link-grammar/4.1.3/link-grammar-4.1.3.tar.gz

Computer Modern fonts are non-free and a plea to make STIX free.

Submitted by JB_Nicholson-Owens on Wed, 2005-09-14 13:49.

I appreciate the recommendation for fonts that work well, and I can appreciate the position free software users are in -- trying to preserve their software freedom while also giving up as few features as they can.

But I have to wonder if there is a free software font one could use instead of the Computer Modern fonts linked to in the story above. Those fonts are non-free. The BaKoMa Fonts Collection Level B Version 1.1/12-Nov-94 license (the license under which the Computer Modern fonts are distributed) prohibit:

  • distribution for a fee; this is important for users on slow connections to the Internet so they can pay someone to distribute a copy of the fonts to them on electronic media,
  • commercial organizations from making copies; the free software and open source movements are not anti-business, we should seek to work with them as equals neither excluding them from our activity nor giving them privilege,
  • anyone from making derived works (the grant to do this is implied in the second paragraph, but one needs explicit permission to do this to be sure).

I await the outcome of the license feedback from the STIX project, but so far it seems that those fonts will be non-free as well. This is sadly ironic, considering that they believe their fonts are meant to "serve the scientific and engineering community" most notably "publishers, software developers, scientists, [and] students"—in other words, the very people who would most benefit from having the freedoms of free software.

I encourage anyone to consider the STIX font project draft license and write to them requesting a font distributed under a free software license. As we're seeing with the Bitstream Vera fonts, copying, modification, and distribution are necessary for fonts. Many people (including me) have made custom personal and distributed derivatives of the Bitstream Vera fonts. The Bitstream Vera fonts were initially distributed under a proprietary license, but eventually released under a free software license. It would be a shame if a font project aimed at helping the aforementioned users cannot fully help them because these users and the general public cannot leverage their freedom.

Just wondering, what is

Submitted by uwog on Wed, 2005-09-14 14:36.

Just wondering, what is non-free about the STIX license proposal? At first glance it seems fairly good to me. Certainly a LOT better than the Computer Modern font family license.

The STIX fonts license.

Submitted by JB_Nicholson-Owens on Wed, 2005-09-14 15:54.

The STIX fonts draft license is somewhat self-contradictory and, therefore, hard to read. Section 1 seems to make it free. Anyone getting a copy of the fonts may: (emphasis mine)

"reproduce and distribute the Font Software, including, without limitation, the rights to use, copy, merge, publish, distribute, and/or sell copies of the Font Software, and to permit persons to whom the Font Software is furnished to do so same, subject to the terms and conditions set forth herein."

The natural question is what these additional terms and conditions are. Those terms and conditions take away what the previous part of the section grants. One of the restrictions is in section 3 which prohibits modification of the fonts except in certain predetermined ways: (emphasis mine)

"The Font Software may not be modified or altered in any way, except that: (a) the Fonts may be converted from one format to another (e.g., from TrueType to Postscript), in which case the normal and reasonable distortion that occurs during such conversion shall be permitted; and (b) additional glyphs or characters may be added to the Fonts, so long as the base set of glyphs is not modified or removed."

This means that one is prohibited from font subsetting—redistributing a copy of the font with less than the full set of "base" glyphs. Font subsetting is a common activity when one generates PDF files or files intended for printing. If any of the base glyphs are incorrect for any reason, one cannot remove or improve those incorrect glyphs. Preparing a derivative of the font for personal use might involve removing or changing a base glyph, yet users are prohibited from doing this.

From my reading of the license, other sections of the license are not problematic with one possible exception. Section 5 of the license comes close to being a problem but so long as a "larger software package" is interpreted liberally (perhaps as liberally as Bitstream interprets the similar clause in the Vera font license), this should not pose a practical problem. It would be good if STIX would provide more detail about what a "larger software package" is.

[I edited my post to clarify that I am talking about the draft license, and my commentary focuses on the "base" glyphs.]

Problems with Debian/Sid by Anonymous George
Annoying, isn't it? by Anonymous George

Huh?

Submitted by doml on Wed, 2005-09-14 11:52.

Undermaintained? I think that I'm doing a just fine job.

Bug-ridden? Hardly. I can't think of an outstanding bug other than the win32 relocatable binary request for enhancement.

Not needed? Well, there's still ispell, myspell, hspell, aspell, and uspell out there. None of them died. None of the others magically got the ability to spell-check hebrew (hspell) or yiddish (uspell) convincingly. Their APIs haven't converged, and their feature-sets are still at least somewhat distinct. So enchant's reason for existence seems as valid as ever.

What would you have us use instead?

I courtlyest ask you to

Submitted by robsta on Wed, 2005-09-14 07:54.

I courtlyest ask you to provide some evidence to support your claim.
AbiWord's bugzilla at the moment holds a single open bug for enchant (related to win32).

For most of your users it seems to work quite well, this is in fact the first time i hear a statement like yours. Please get in touch via our mailing list or irc channel so we can work out what's wrong.

- Rob

What is wrong with it

Submitted by uwog on Wed, 2005-09-14 07:31.

What is wrong with it exactly? The plan is to move solely to enchant, instead of dropping it.

Solved! by Anonymous George
equations in win32 or not? by Anonymous George

For Windows 2000/XP math

Submitted by uwog on Wed, 2005-09-14 02:25.

For Windows 2000/XP math support is in 2.3.6. For win9x/ME systems it is not.

With "has been included" I meant "is in CVS". Sorry for the confusion.

autopackage

Submitted by Twigman on Tue, 2005-09-13 18:34.

Autopackage Rocks! Thanks for the installer..

Right! It just works and

Submitted by Anonymous George on Wed, 2005-09-14 04:55.

Right! It just works and rocks.

Thanks

Submitted by robsta on Wed, 2005-09-14 03:45.

Thanks for your feedback!
We never hear about how well the autopackage works so it seems either no one is using it or it works quite well.

- Rob

It works well

Submitted by Anonymous George on Wed, 2005-09-14 21:28.

In my experience it just works well, so by all means please continue providing autopackage packages of Abiword, it is greatly appreciated!