The Featureless Linux Library stable version 0.7.0 is released.

This is a development release. The 0.7 development code has gone too long without a formal release tag. This development branch has seen development as far back as August 3, 2022 and much of the 0.6 includes a lot of back ported code from 0.7. This release represents a starting point for many planned changes and updates throughout the year.

This development code has some design changes that makes the project a little more versatile and extensible but at a cost of slightly larger code. Many of the programs now have a more consistent and modular design that allows for housing multiple related projects in the same code base. Several of the projects have been renamed and simplified into shorter names, such as f_string_range_t now being f_range_t. A new program called EKI, also known as Extended IKI, that handles the EKI specifications is now available.

Not everything is implemented or complete, but this is not strictly required for a development release. Most of the library, and the related programs, are tested and confirmed to be working. Projects like Controller and Control are not yet complete.

Many of the stand alone builds are not created yet, however, a few core programs have the stand alone build provided. The stand alone build settings will be created later on as they simply do not need to be ready just yet. It is much easier to configure the stand alone build settings once the API has stabilized more. The programs have improved support for the programs as libraries design.

This development release helps pave the way for focusing on external projects like TacocaT and Kevux Tools. There will be a huge focus on network related functionality, which is what is needed to help wrap up Controller and Control. The Featureless Make and the Controller programs will likely see updates to their specifications which will result in new features added to the 0.7 code. The IKI Read and IKI Write are seeing additional changes as the project and its websites will eventually be templated out into a structure based around the IKI and EKI specifications.

Ideally, by the end of the year or the start of the next year the may be a 0.8.0 release. When that happens, the 0.9 development will be on hold for a while because that development cycle will be focused on design improvements, performance iprovements, and stabilization of all of the standards, specifications, improved error handling, and APIs. Therefore, the 0.8 could be considered a 1.0 release candidate. The development of the 0.7 will therefore be focused on making a production ready product.

Check out the project on the FLL release page.

The project is built like a tool chest. Individuals who are unfamiliar with the project should have an easier time trying out the pre-packaged monolithic sources. These programs, by default, are designed to build against a library built using the monolithic source tree.

The stand alone sources for the several programs can be found pre-packaged at Sourceforge.

Kevin Day