March GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali

• ddrescue-1.29.1: GNU ddrescue is a fully automated data recovery tool. It copies data from one file to another, working to rescue data in case of read errors. The program also includes a tool for manipulating its log files, which are used to recover data more efficiently by only reading the necessary blocks.
• ed-1.21.1: Ed is a line-oriented text editor: rather than offering an overview of a document, ed performs editing one line at a time. It can be executed both interactively and via shell scripts. Its method of command input allows complex tasks to be performed in an automated way. GNU ed offers several extensions over the standard utility.
• g-golf-0.8.1: G-Golf (Gnome: (Guile Object Library for)) is a library for developing modern applications in Guile Scheme. It comprises a direct binding to the GObject Introspection API and higher-level functionality for importing Gnome libraries and making GObject classes (and methods) available in Guile's object-oriented programming system, GOOPS.
• gdbm-1.25: GDBM is a library for manipulating hashed databases. It is used tojj store key/value pairs in a file in a manner similar to the Unix dbm library and provides interfaces to the traditional file format.
• gnuboot-0.1-rc6: GNU Boot is a free boot firmware distribution for initializing your hardware and booting your operating system.
• gnunet-0.24.0: GNUnet is a framework for secure peer-to-peer networking. The high-level goal is to provide a strong foundation of free software for a global, distributed network that provides security and privacy. GNUnet in that sense aims to replace the current internet protocol stack. Along with an application for secure publication of files, it has grown to include all kinds of basic applications for the foundation of a GNU internet.
• gsasl-2.2.2: GNU SASL is an implementation of the Simple Authentication and Security Layer framework. On network servers such as IMAP or SMTP servers, SASL is used to handle client/server authentication. This package contains both a library and a command-line tool to access the library.
• libidn-1.43: libidn is a library implementing of the Stringprep, Punycode and IDNA specifications. These are used to encode and decode internationalized domain names. It includes native C, C# and Java libraries.
• libidn2-2.3.8: Libidn2 is a free software implementation of IDNA2008, Punycode and Unicode TR46. Its purpose is to encode and decode internationalized domain names.
• linux-libre-6.14-gnu: GNU Linux-Libre is a free (as in freedom) variant of the kernel Linux. It has been modified to remove all non-free binary blobs.
• mailutils-3.19: GNU Mailutils is a collection of programs for managing, viewing and processing electronic mail. It contains both utilities and server daemons and all operate in a protocol-agnostic way. The underlying libraries are also available, simplifying the addition of mail capabilities to new software.
• mpfr-4.2.2: GNU MPFR is a C library for performing multiple-precision, floating-point computations with correct rounding.
• octave-10.1.0: GNU Octave is a high-level interpreted language that is specialized for numerical computations. It can be used for both linear and non-linear applications and it provides great support for visualizing results. Work may be performed both at the interactive command-line as well as via script files.
• parallel-20250322: GNU Parallel is a tool for executing shell jobs in parallel using one or more computers. Jobs can consist of single commands or of scripts and they are executed on lists of files, hosts, users or other items.
• patch-2.8: Patch is a program that applies changes to files based on differences laid out as by the program diff. The changes may be applied to one or more files depending on the contents of the diff file. It accepts several different diff formats. It may also be used to revert previously applied differences.
• poke-4.3: GNU poke is an interactive, extensible editor for binary data. Not limited to editing basic entities such as bits and bytes, it provides a full-fledged procedural, interactive programming language designed to describe data structures and to operate on them.
• shepherd-1.0.3: The GNU Shepherd is a daemon-managing daemon, meaning that it supervises the execution of system services, replacing similar functionality found in typical init systems. It provides dependency-handling through a convenient interface and is based on GNU Guile.
• zile-2.6.4: GNU Zile is a lightweight Emacs clone. Its usage is similar to the default Emacs configuration, but it carries a much lighter feature set.

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A number of GNU packages, as well as the GNU operating system as a whole, are looking for maintainers and other assistance. Please see http://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint if you'd like to help. The general page on how to help GNU is at http://www.gnu.org/help/help.html.

If you have a working or partly working program that you'd like to offer to the GNU project as a GNU package, see http://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.

As always, please feel free to write to me, bandali@gnu.org, with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.