Gnome Board

So I'm running again after a one year break. Seems to me the next step is to grow the GNOME project awareness, build local representations in countries outside the US, try to federate them in a loose way, and ramp up the propaganda machine. I'm not sure I'm really the best person for this but apparently most candidates share the same goal, and I can still take minutes, and work on the web site.

Hardening libxml2

I have spent last week focusing on a single task: hardening libxml2 code by the mean of autogenerated regression tests. Though the principle is extremely simple: for every type in the public API then build generators and destructors for those types, then for every entry in the public API generate a set of calls for all the autogenerated values, then run the resulting program tracking illegal memory accesses and leaks. It has proved extremely efficient raising tons of issues in not frequently used libxml2 API. This kept me really busy for the last 10 days, extending the set of API and types covered, running gdb, valgrind, and testing on 64bits. I don't know if I should be happy by nearly finishing this very boring but needed task or ashamed by the number of issues found.

The current version of the tests covers approximately 1100 libxml2 entry points and generates more than 250,000 test calls to the API. Once I think I'm done with it I will release a 2.6.16 version.