FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Free Software Foundation Bradley M. Kuhn pr@gnu.org Phone: +1-617-542-5942
Free Software Foundation Announces Milestone 6 of GNU Bayonne
Boston, Massachusetts, USA - May 2, 2001 - The Free Software Foundation announced today the sixth milestone release of Bayonne, a key part of the effort to provide and promote free software solutions for the telecommunications industry. Bayonne is a telephony application server, and is released under the GNU General Public License. Bayonne provides the ability to perform enterprise telephony functions such as unified messaging, and is capable of scaling to support enhanced carrier services. Bayonne can be integrated with scripting languages and tools commonly found on free software systems such as GNU/Linux. Bayonne is the first major package of GNUCOMM, the GNU Telephony project, and integrates GNUCOMM with the GNU Enterprise project.
David Sugar, the maintainer of GNU Bayonne, said: "In distributing the sixth milestone release of Bayonne, we have chosen to focus on extending Bayonne to provide a free software platform for creating and deploying next generation XML integrated voice applications. Traditionally such systems have primarily been available only as limited proprietary software."
This initial release of Milestone 6 includes the first functional snapshot of Bayonne XML services, including a plugin which introduces an XML dialect, BayonneXML. BayonneXML will extend the existing CallXML dialect and will provide support for additional features and functionality specific to Bayonne. Through plugins, Bayonne will support a wide body of XML languages, including those that fully conform to existing XML language specifications. Additional plugins will provide voice browsing of other XML-based data via Bayonne.
Milestone 6 represents the last major release before the development of RTP trunking features for GNU Bayonne, and the subsequent final release of Bayonne 1.0. Volunteer developers who are interested in helping develop GNU Bayonne are encouraged to contact the Free Software Foundation. The website for Bayonne is located at http://www.gnu.org/software/bayonne/.
About the Free Software Foundation:
The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software---particularly the GNU operating system (used widely today in its GNU/Linux variant)--- and free documentation. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software. Their web site, located at http://www.gnu.org, is an important source of information about GNU/Linux. They are headquartered in Boston, MA, USA.
About GNUCOMM, the GNU Telephony Project:
GNUCOMM, a subsystem of GNU, provides free software solutions to common telecommunications problems. GNUCOMM will free users of voicemail, PBX, and call-center applications from reliance on the proprietary software that currently dominates such telephony equipment. The system aims to be scalable and configurable enough to allow end-users to develop their own telecommunications systems with little or no special knowledge of GNUCOMM's internals. GNUCOMM will support both VoIP and PSTN interfaces, as well as interfaces to existing phone systems. GNUCOMM will scale from individual user installations to carrier-class sites. The website of GNUCOMM is located at http://www.gnu.org/software/gnucomm/gnucomm.html.
About GNU Enterprise:
GNUe aims to provide a suite of tools and applications for solving the specific needs of the enterprise. GNUe will handle the needs of any size business, including applications for human resources, accounting, customer relationship management, project management, supply chain and e-commerce. GNUe is a free software project developed by volunteer software developers worldwide. The website of GNU Enterprise is http://www.gnu.org/projects/gnue/.
About GNU/Linux:
GNU/Linux is the combination of the GNU system and the kernel named Linux, modified to work together smoothly. Although there is no way of actually counting them, this combination has millions of users, probably over twenty million.
The GNU/Linux combination is often confusingly called "Linux", which leads people to an inaccurate picture of the history and nature of the system. Distinguishing between GNU/Linux, the complete system, and Linux, the kernel, helps correct the confusion.
More on this issue is available at http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html.