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It's that time of the year again, the next BeGeistert is almost upon us and now is the time for you to register if you're planning to attend. As usual, BeGeistert 028 will take place in the beautiful (really is) Dusseldorf, and as been the case for the last few years, a coding sprint will follow. This edition's codename is Full Metal Package (AH!) and will take place on the weekend of October 25th/26th, with the coding spring going till the next Thursday, 30th.

There are a few talks already scheduled, like Ithamar's on the ARM port and Adrien's on his WebKit contract, and more may still be scheduled, which will no doubt make an already fun weekend even more interesting. In here you'll find some more information here and of course, if you want to be there, register over at the BeGeistert site (though atm it seems to be down site is back up).

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It's that time of the year again, another Haiku birthday, and this time our little-OS-that-could (and can) is well into the pre-teens, turning 13 today. Soon it'll start asking to go to parties and staying out late... aawwwwww. Lots has changed since Haiku's last birthday, Package Management (and with it now, even though unofficially, updating without reinstalling which I love!), Adrien's work on WebKit and WebPositive, which keeps improving the browsing experience and more. And this year's happy day coincides with the Google Summer of Code's "pencils down" date, so the blog updates from (some) of the students will start appearing. In fact, the first one already has, but I'll save that for another piece.

So join me in wishing Haiku a very happy birthday and thanks to all involved for another year.

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Google Summer of Code has reached its midterm and that means progress report from the students responsible for the projects. So far we've had two reports, from Arvind S Raj, who's working on Haiku's ARM port and also from Zhuowei Zhang, working on porting the Go's programming language compiler and runtime.

Both have been making progress, which is good news, though of course there have been ups and downs to their efforts, which is only natural. In fact, since writing his midterm progress report, Zhuowei has managed today to get the build script to complete without errors, meaning all runtime packages were built successfully. Progress continues to be made in these two projects, now let's wait and see if we also get update reports from the other two students. Fingers crossed.

On a related noted, Adrien yesterday posted his latest (number 37!) blog update regarding his development contract to work on the WebKit port and WebPositive browser. In it he mentions the just released WebKit 1.4.1 which is now available in the nightlies as well as starting to now work on WebKit2 and trying to get it to build. Good stuff as always from Adrien. And keep those donations coming in!

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As you're well aware, Adrien (aka Pulkomandy) has been working for Haiku for several months now, improving Haiku's WebKit port and the browser WebPositive. Just yesterday, he posted another weekly update, number 36, detailing his progress. And his work has been well worth it and the improvements are clear as crystal.

But for his contract and work to continue, Haiku needs the funds and for them to have the funds, you have to step in, by donating. So, now that pay day has arrived (or for some of us, about to arrive), why not go to Haiku's donation page and show to them you want Adrien to keep working on this project? You know you want to.

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As you know, this year Haiku was once again accepted as a mentoring organization for Google's Summer of Code. Since this was announced, students have started looking into the OS, some have even submitted patches and now four have been accepted into this year's GSoC. Here's the list of students along with the projects they'll be working on:

  • Louis Feuvrier - UEFI bootloader
  • Akshay Jaggi - LibUSB port
  • Arvind S Raj - ARM port
  • Zhuowei Zhang - The Go programming language's compiler and runtime port

Haiku's goal is to help students develop their skills and hopefully keep their interest in Haiku alive for the future, so they can continue to contribute to the project. Congratulations to the selected students and hopefully they'll (and in turn Haiku) have a terrific GSoC 2014.

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Very exciting news coming from today's blog post by Adrien, detailing his work on the WebKit for the past week, when he started working on HTML5 audio support. Well, only one week has past but not only did he get HTML5 audio but HTML5 video works as well, which of course means... YouTube!

These are awesome news indeed, bringing us closer to a web experience similar to mainstream OSes such as Windows, Linux and OSX. Still ways to go, but the gap is closing and it will continue to close for as long as Adrien is able to work on the port, and the second piece of good news is that the development contract has been extended for the month of April. Once again, this was possible thanks to everyone's donations and the results are clearly visible, so if you don't want this to stop and want the native browser to keep improving, keep on donating to Haiku.

Great stuff Adrien, now bring on the next test release :)

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As been the case on every Friday, yesterday Adrien (aka Pulkomandy) posted his latest blog update regarding his work on the WebKit development contract. If you've been following his updates, you'll know he recently started working on HTML5, which is great news. In this update he not only goes over the HTML5 bit but also the work he's done on some other pieces of the WebKit port.

Unfortunately Adrien at the moment is only working part-time for Haiku, having to take another part-time job with another company. Having bills to pay and having to eat sucks. But, this could change with your donations, so don't forget to contribute so his development contract can not only be extended but go back to full-time.

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Very good news out of the Haiku camp this morning, Adrien's contract, focusing on the WebKit port and WebPositive has been extended for another month. This was made possible thanks for your generous donations, which for the past 4 weeks reached $1200USD and €900. Not only that, but Haiku is now raising over $1000 USD in monthly recurring donations, which is amazing.

Adrien's work and progress over these past 6 months has been clearly visible to any of us who were using Web+ before and who try it now, and you can read his latest weekly update right here, But continuing for a seventh month won't be easy, according to the same post. A further $2150 USD will be needed to fund another month, so once again Haiku needs your help. Head over to the donation page and contribute to the project.

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Great news everyone. Just 3 minutes ago Google announced the mentoring organizations for this year's Google Summer of Code and we're happy to say Haiku's been accepted!

After not making the cut last year, Haiku's again part of GSoC. Hopefully it'll be a good one, with great students taking part and helping the project while improving their skills as well.

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On the coding side, Adrien (no accent) has continued his work on the WebKit port, posting his 19th blog update on Friday. In it he details his work for the past week, which include for example, working on css shadows support and, something that might have a very nice impact in browsing speed, gzip/deflate compression support.

Still coding related, this year's Google Summer of Code page is now up, including the ideas page. After several years as a mentoring organization, Haiku unfortunately wasn't picked last year, so here's hoping we're back in for 2014. Not long to go now till we find out, Google will announce the chosen projects on February 24th, just 9 more days!

On the financial side of things, there was a post detailing 2013's money situation. Haiku saw an increase in donations, which allowed several development contracts and more recently allowed Adrien to keep on working throughout this month of February. And we, all of us, can do even more. Be sure to keep on donating and we can help Adrien continue his excellent work on WebKit and Webpositive for another month(s).