1.3.7 will be released in the coming weeks. The release is mostly complete; depending on available time a few more of the open bugs may be fixed. One more thing will be added in the coming days – support for 64 bit builds on Windows (Visual Studio 2008) in the form of updated project files.

Here is the CHANGELOG.

Please test this release, I am looking forward to your feedback.

Update: fixed a few more issues and added some nice new features today. Given that we have significant new features in this release, I will change the version number to 1.4.0 before the official release. For now, development will continue in the 1.3.7 branch. Current trunk will some day become either 1.5 or 2.0.

Good news for everyone looking for Windows CE support in POCO. We have created a port of the POCO C++ Libraries to Windows CE 6 based on the current 1.3.7 branch. The port should work on Windows CE 5.x as well, however, testing has only been done on a Windows CE 6 device. There are a few minor restrictions to some POCO features, due to restrictions in the Windows CE operating system (e.g., no support for environment variables, no pipes), but apart from that, almost all libraries can be used.

Starting today, the Windows CE port is available to our support subscription customers upon request. If you’re not yet a support customer, you can become one here.

More information about the Windows CE port is available here.

For those of you needing full support for OpenSSL session caching: NetSSL in the 1.3.7 trunk has been extended with full client- and server side session caching support. See the Context, SecureStreamSocket and HTTPSClientSession classes, as well as the testsuite for how to use it.

I’ll be attending Embedded World in Nürnberg, Germany next week on Tuesday and Wednesday. If you’re there and want to meet, you are welcome. Just send me a message (guenter at pocoproject.org) to set the details.

Hope to see you there,

Günter

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the first public release of the POCO C++ Libraries. On February 21, 2005, release 0.91.1 was uploaded to Sourceforge, as documented in the CHANGELOG. We’ve come a long way since then. Happy 5th Birthday, POCO! And a big Thank You to everyone who has contributed in all these years.

I am happy to introduce the first official sponsor of the POCO C++ Libraries project: Schneider Electric Buildings (formerly TAC). They have been using POCO since 2006 in a large project in the building automation industry. Since they started using POCO as early as 2006, they have also been one of the first companies (if not the first) to use POCO in a major project. They have been a huge supporter of the project through the years and now have become a Silver Sponsor. Thank You!

Since a few people have suggested moving the project to GitHub, I am willing to give it a try. Before doing so however, I’d like to collect some input and feedback. First, how should we set up the project on GitHub? The simplest way would be to move the entire SVN tree (with trunk, sandbox and all branches) to GitHub. I don’t really like the idea, as there’s no need to move the old release branches over to GitHub. Also, some parts of the SVN repository (sandbox) could need some cleanup. The other issue is that I plan to integrate the changes from the 1.3.x branches into the trunk. How can we set up the Git repository, so that this integration can be easily done? And finally, are there any specific things to take care of? Best practices?

As stated in a blog post some months ago, I am now looking for sponsors to help funding POCO C++ Libraries development. After considering a few alternatives, including setting up a non-profit organization overseeing project direction and funding, I came to the conclusion that, at least at the beginning, sponsorship agreements will be handled by my company, Applied Informatics, via a contract (PDF). Everything else would just require additional resources (both in work and monetary), which cannot be justified at the moment. The Sponsorship Agreement will ensure that all funds received from sponsors will be spent on POCO C++ Libraries development (and related things, such as the project website). Based on feedback from a potential sponsor, the Sponsorship Agreement also includes professional support, provided to a sponsor’s software developers by Applied Informatics. More information can be found at the new Sponsorship/Funding page. Feedback, especially on the Sponsorship Agreement, is welcome!

The lack of funding is really hurting the project in the long run. While Alex and I do our best do keep the project humming along by at least providing bug fixes and a some new features on a more or less regular basis, larger work items like finishing the 1.4 release and preparing the path for a future 2.0 release are basically on hold (for reasons stated here). Only a few sponsors would be needed to improve the situation. Just having one developer funded for half a year (which amounts to about EUR 30.000) would make a big difference to the project.

So, if you’re using POCO in a commercial product earning you piles of money, consider giving something back to the people that have worked countless hours for free to give you great C++ libraries.

Thank you,

Günter

Release 1.3.6p2 is a another patch release for 1.3.6 containing various bugfixes. Upgrading is recommended for everyone using the Crypto, NetSSL, Net and XML libraries. As always, for a complete list of changes, please see the CHANGELOG.

The Wikipedia article on POCO could need some help, as it has recently been marked as not meeting the notability guidelines and is in danger of being deleted. Could someone (who’s not a POCO maintainer) please take some time and add some more content to the article (maybe a History, License and Implementation section), as well as some references? Your help is appreciated. Thank you.