Jekyll2020-03-17T23:45:08+01:00http://localhost:4000/feed.xmlQuassel IRCAn amazing website.Quassel TeamDoing Some Maintenance - Quassel 0.13.12019-02-18T00:00:00+01:002019-02-18T00:00:00+01:00http://localhost:4000/2019/02/doing-some-maintenance-quassel-0-13-1<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>we’re back in 2019 with a maintenance release for the 0.13 cycle, Quassel 0.13.1. Besides a handful of fixes and improvements over the previous release, 0.13.1 fixes a particularly annoying issue with 0.13.0 on Qt4-based systems where backlog messages would not all be fetched. I’d like to thank <a href="https://github.com/justjanne">Janne “justJanne” Koschinski</a> and <a href="https://github.com/digitalcircuit">Shane “digitalcircuit” Synan</a> in particular for finding the cause for this problem, as well as implementing and testing the fix!</p>
<p>So if you happen to run Quassel 0.13.0 on a system or distro still using Qt4, be sure to upgrade (or ask your friendly distro maintainers to do so), otherwise your chat history may be spotty… Official 0.13.0 builds for Windows and OSX already use Qt5, so they’re not affected. Also any recent distro release should have done the migration already, as Qt5 has been out for quite some time.</p>
<p>Quassel 0.13.1 also makes database schema upgrades more robust by making them resumable, and allows to configure the listen addresses for the built-in identd. Please see the <a href="https://github.com/quassel/quassel/blob/0.13.1/ChangeLog#L16">ChangeLog</a> for a full list of changes.</p>
<p>As always, you can find the <a href="/pub/quassel-0.13.1.tar.bz2">sources</a>, as well as precompiled binaries for Windows and OSX on the <a href="/downloads">downloads page</a>.</p>
<p>Cheers,
~ Sputnick
<!--break--></p>Manuel 'Sputnick' NickschasHi all, we’re back in 2019 with a maintenance release for the 0.13 cycle, Quassel 0.13.1. Besides a handful of fixes and improvements over the previous release, 0.13.1 fixes a particularly annoying issue with 0.13.0 on Qt4-based systems where backlog messages would not all be fetched. I’d like to thank Janne “justJanne” Koschinski and Shane “digitalcircuit” Synan in particular for finding the cause for this problem, as well as implementing and testing the fix! So if you happen to run Quassel 0.13.0 on a system or distro still using Qt4, be sure to upgrade (or ask your friendly distro maintainers to do so), otherwise your chat history may be spotty… Official 0.13.0 builds for Windows and OSX already use Qt5, so they’re not affected. Also any recent distro release should have done the migration already, as Qt5 has been out for quite some time. Quassel 0.13.1 also makes database schema upgrades more robust by making them resumable, and allows to configure the listen addresses for the built-in identd. Please see the ChangeLog for a full list of changes. As always, you can find the sources, as well as precompiled binaries for Windows and OSX on the downloads page. Cheers, ~ SputnickIt’s happening! - Quassel 0.13.02018-11-17T00:00:00+01:002018-11-17T00:00:00+01:00http://localhost:4000/2018/11/its-happening-quassel-0-13-0<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>1312 days have gone by since the last feature release of Quassel IRC. At times, the project went almost dormant; then it was buzzing with activity again due to some very active contributors (digitalcircuit, justJanne, romibi, mamarley, just to name a few). And in the end, even I could not help myself and had to start coding again! As a result, we can finally unleash a new feature release on you. And what a release it is!</p>
<p>We have a new branding and application icon, support the modern Breeze iconset, and improved icon theme support as a whole. We added a whole bunch of UI improvements, from the ability to show user modes in chat to spell checking on all platforms. Many IRCv3 features are now supported, including the rendering of almost all of modern formatting options. New authentication and configuration options allow for containerization, or for using an LDAP backend for the core. The database now uses 64 bit message IDs and timestamps, making it future-proof for giant backlogs and the year 2038.</p>
<p>Much work went into supporting mobile clients better and improve performance. For example, chat activity tracking and highlight rules moved into the core, so clients don’t need to pull all the backlog at once. The first mobile client to benefit from this is <a href="https://quasseldroid.info/">Quasseldroid</a>, which itself has seen a full rewrite that will soon be released to Android phones near you. Of course, these improvements also lay the groundwork for future improvements for the desktop client’s performance.</p>
<p>Please see the <a href="https://github.com/quassel/quassel/blob/0.13.0/ChangeLog">full ChangeLog</a> for a more detailed list of changes.</p>
<p>Before you upgrade, please be aware that both the database schema and the config file formats have been updated since 0.12. Quassel will automatically upgrade both once the new version is started for the first time, however <strong>no rollback is possible</strong>, so do make a backup before starting the new version! The upgrade may take a long time (up to several hours) if your database is (un)reasonably large, during which the core or mono client cannot be used. The upgrade may also temporarily require up to double the disk space. Do not interrupt the upgrade process, otherwise your database may become corrupted!</p>
<p>With that out of the way, please head on over to the <a href="/downloads">downloads page</a> to get yourself a fresh Quassel tarball, Windows installer or OSX package. Or wait until the new version hits a distro near you! As always, feel free to join us in #quassel on the <a href="https://freenode.net/">Freenode IRC network</a> if you have questions, or just want to talk to our friendly community.</p>
<p>One final remark: As we have announced a few times now, the 0.13 release cycle is the last one still supporting the all-but-dead-for-years Qt4 and KDE4 libraries. But this it not the only change; behind the scenes, we have already been very busy modernizing the codebase, and we will merge a giant pile of changes into the master branch soon after branching out 0.13. Going forward, Quassel will require a more recent toolchain, as well as system libraries; the baseline we have chosen for the time being is Ubuntu 16.04 “Xenial”, with no intention to support older versions than what’s available there. We hope that this won’t affect too many users; we think supporting a more than three year old setup is reasonable, and it gives us the opportunity to do some sorely needed cleanup and use modern C++ features and libraries going forward.</p>
<p>With all that said, I’m wishing you a nice weekend, and hope you like the new Quassel 0.13.0!</p>
<p>Cheers,
~ Sput
<!--break--></p>Manuel 'Sputnick' NickschasHi all, 1312 days have gone by since the last feature release of Quassel IRC. At times, the project went almost dormant; then it was buzzing with activity again due to some very active contributors (digitalcircuit, justJanne, romibi, mamarley, just to name a few). And in the end, even I could not help myself and had to start coding again! As a result, we can finally unleash a new feature release on you. And what a release it is! We have a new branding and application icon, support the modern Breeze iconset, and improved icon theme support as a whole. We added a whole bunch of UI improvements, from the ability to show user modes in chat to spell checking on all platforms. Many IRCv3 features are now supported, including the rendering of almost all of modern formatting options. New authentication and configuration options allow for containerization, or for using an LDAP backend for the core. The database now uses 64 bit message IDs and timestamps, making it future-proof for giant backlogs and the year 2038. Much work went into supporting mobile clients better and improve performance. For example, chat activity tracking and highlight rules moved into the core, so clients don’t need to pull all the backlog at once. The first mobile client to benefit from this is Quasseldroid, which itself has seen a full rewrite that will soon be released to Android phones near you. Of course, these improvements also lay the groundwork for future improvements for the desktop client’s performance. Please see the full ChangeLog for a more detailed list of changes. Before you upgrade, please be aware that both the database schema and the config file formats have been updated since 0.12. Quassel will automatically upgrade both once the new version is started for the first time, however no rollback is possible, so do make a backup before starting the new version! The upgrade may take a long time (up to several hours) if your database is (un)reasonably large, during which the core or mono client cannot be used. The upgrade may also temporarily require up to double the disk space. Do not interrupt the upgrade process, otherwise your database may become corrupted! With that out of the way, please head on over to the downloads page to get yourself a fresh Quassel tarball, Windows installer or OSX package. Or wait until the new version hits a distro near you! As always, feel free to join us in #quassel on the Freenode IRC network if you have questions, or just want to talk to our friendly community. One final remark: As we have announced a few times now, the 0.13 release cycle is the last one still supporting the all-but-dead-for-years Qt4 and KDE4 libraries. But this it not the only change; behind the scenes, we have already been very busy modernizing the codebase, and we will merge a giant pile of changes into the master branch soon after branching out 0.13. Going forward, Quassel will require a more recent toolchain, as well as system libraries; the baseline we have chosen for the time being is Ubuntu 16.04 “Xenial”, with no intention to support older versions than what’s available there. We hope that this won’t affect too many users; we think supporting a more than three year old setup is reasonable, and it gives us the opportunity to do some sorely needed cleanup and use modern C++ features and libraries going forward. With all that said, I’m wishing you a nice weekend, and hope you like the new Quassel 0.13.0! Cheers, ~ SputThe Final Stretch - Quassel 0.13-rc22018-10-29T00:00:00+01:002018-10-29T00:00:00+01:00http://localhost:4000/2018/10/the-final-stretch-quassel-0-13-rc2<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>the first release candidate for the impending 0.13 release uncovered some issues, the fixing of which required some more complex changes than we would have liked. Thus, we decided to roll a second release candidate.</p>
<p>Most significant changes compared to rc1:</p>
<ul>
<li>Rework the init and shutdown sequence as well as signal handling to properly clean up everything on shutdown</li>
<li>Rework the handling of regular expressions e.g. for ignore and highlight rules for more flexibility and better performance. This may break legacy ignore rules; see the <a href="https://bugs.quassel-irc.org/projects/quassel-irc/wiki/Pattern_matching#Migrating-to-Quassel-013">migration guide</a> for more information</li>
</ul>
<p>Please see the <a href="https://github.com/quassel/quassel/blob/0.13-rc2/ChangeLog">updated ChangeLog</a> for more. Of course, the information and caveats mentioned in the <a href="/node/132">release announcement for 0.13-rc1</a> still apply.</p>
<p>Please head on over to the <a href="/downloads">downloads page</a> to grab the packages, or just click here:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="/pub/quassel-0.13-rc2.tar.bz2">Source tarball</a></li>
<li>OSX <a href="/pub/QuasselCore_MacOSX-x86_64_0.13-rc2.dmg">core</a>, <a href="/pub/QuasselClient_MacOSX-x86_64_0.13-rc2.dmg">standalone client</a>, <a href="/pub/QuasselCore_MacOSX-x86_64_0.13-rc2.dmg">monolithic client</a></li>
<li>Windows installer (<a href="/pub/quassel-x86-setup-0.13-rc2.exe">32 bit</a>, <a href="/pub/quassel-x64-setup-0.13-rc2.exe">64 bit</a>) containing core, client and the standalone client
</ul>
We expect to do a final 0.13.0 release in just a few days, pending discovery of serious issues that would warrant another delay.
Cheers,
~ Sput
<!--break-->
</li></ul>Manuel 'Sputnick' NickschasHi all, the first release candidate for the impending 0.13 release uncovered some issues, the fixing of which required some more complex changes than we would have liked. Thus, we decided to roll a second release candidate. Most significant changes compared to rc1: Rework the init and shutdown sequence as well as signal handling to properly clean up everything on shutdown Rework the handling of regular expressions e.g. for ignore and highlight rules for more flexibility and better performance. This may break legacy ignore rules; see the migration guide for more information Please see the updated ChangeLog for more. Of course, the information and caveats mentioned in the release announcement for 0.13-rc1 still apply. Please head on over to the downloads page to grab the packages, or just click here: Source tarball OSX core, standalone client, monolithic client Windows installer (32 bit, 64 bit) containing core, client and the standalone client </ul> We expect to do a final 0.13.0 release in just a few days, pending discovery of serious issues that would warrant another delay. Cheers, ~ SputA Candidate Long in the Making - Quassel 0.13-rc12018-07-25T00:00:00+02:002018-07-25T00:00:00+02:00http://localhost:4000/2018/07/a-candidate-long-in-the-making-quassel-0-13-rc1<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>more than three years since 0.12.0 was released, and over 500 commits on top of what went into the current stable branch, we’re finally in the last stretch of the next major feature release!</p>
<p>Since so much work and <a href="https://github.com/quassel/quassel/blob/0.13-rc1/ChangeLog#L16">changes</a> went into this, this time we’ve decided to not only roll a release candidate, but also announce it publicly, so daring people can test things before final release.</p>
<p>Some caveats upfront: Both the database schema and the config file formats have been updated since 0.12. Quassel will automatically upgrade both once the new version is started for the first time, however <strong>no rollback is possible</strong>, so do make a backup! Also the upgrade may take a <em>long</em> time (several hours) if your database is (un)reasonably large, during which the core or mono client cannot be used. The upgrade may also temporarily require up to double the disk space. Do not interrupt the upgrade process, otherwise your database may become corrupted!</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the Quassel protocol between remote cores and clients still is backwards-compatible all the way down to 0.5.0, which was released in 2009. While you may not be able to use all the newer features when connecting to older versions, things still work, and there is no need to upgrade both ends at the same time.</p>
<p>This is also a <strong>call for translators</strong>. If you’d like to improve the localization of Quassel in your language, please head over to <a href="https://www.transifex.com/quassel/quassel/">Transifex</a> and contribute. We’ll merge back the updated translations shortly before final release of 0.13.0.</p>
<p>Too many changes went into this release to be able to list them all (have a look at the <a href="https://github.com/quassel/quassel/blob/0.13-rc1/ChangeLog#L16">ChangeLog</a> for a reasonable overview), but here are some highlights:</p>
<ul>
<li>New branding, more modern icons (from the Breeze icon theme)</li>
<li>Better support for icon themes</li>
<li>Many UI improvements</li>
<li>Support for many IRCv3 features, including the display of modern formatting codes</li>
<li>Functionality such as highlights and chat activity tracking move into the core to help <a href="https://quasseldroid.info/">mobile clients</a> to be more efficient</li>
<li>Support for containerization, i.e. config-less core</li>
<li>Optional authentication via LDAP</li>
<li>Database improvements, including support for 64 bit IDs and timestamps, and performance tweaks</li>
<li>... and much more!</li>
</ul>
<p>The usual packages are available for download now:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="/pub/quassel-0.13-rc1.tar.bz2">Source tarball</a></li>
<li>OSX <a href="/pub/QuasselCore_MacOSX-x86_64_0.13-rc1.dmg">core</a>, <a href="/pub/QuasselClient_MacOSX-x86_64_0.13-rc1.dmg">standalone client</a>, <a href="/pub/QuasselCore_MacOSX-x86_64_0.13-rc1.dmg">monolithic client</a></li>
<li>Windows installer (<a href="/pub/quassel-x86-setup-0.13-rc1.exe">32 bit</a>, <a href="/pub/quassel-x64-setup-0.13-rc1.exe">64 bit</a>) containing core, client and the standalone client
</ul>
We're discontinuing the pseudo-static core, because creating static binaries that run on most platforms becomes increasingly fragile; bundling things like OpenSSL also introduces security risks, since the bundled version will not be updated with the system. Additionally, our binary packages for OSX and Windows do not support the PostgreSQL database backend for the core due to limitations in our build environments, as well as lack of demand.
Do let us know if you run into issues or regressions. Otherwise, we're expecting a final release in the coming weeks!
<strong>NOTE:</strong> As announced several times already, 0.13.0 will be the last feature release still supporting Qt4 and KDE4. We'll significantly bump the build and runtime requirements for future releases in order to be able to modernize the code base. Planned baseline for 0.14 onwards is Ubuntu 16.04 "Xenial", as well as reasonable recent toolchains for OSX and Windows.
That's it for now!
Always yours,
~ Sput
<!--break-->
</li></ul>Manuel 'Sputnick' NickschasHi all, more than three years since 0.12.0 was released, and over 500 commits on top of what went into the current stable branch, we’re finally in the last stretch of the next major feature release! Since so much work and changes went into this, this time we’ve decided to not only roll a release candidate, but also announce it publicly, so daring people can test things before final release. Some caveats upfront: Both the database schema and the config file formats have been updated since 0.12. Quassel will automatically upgrade both once the new version is started for the first time, however no rollback is possible, so do make a backup! Also the upgrade may take a long time (several hours) if your database is (un)reasonably large, during which the core or mono client cannot be used. The upgrade may also temporarily require up to double the disk space. Do not interrupt the upgrade process, otherwise your database may become corrupted! Nevertheless, the Quassel protocol between remote cores and clients still is backwards-compatible all the way down to 0.5.0, which was released in 2009. While you may not be able to use all the newer features when connecting to older versions, things still work, and there is no need to upgrade both ends at the same time. This is also a call for translators. If you’d like to improve the localization of Quassel in your language, please head over to Transifex and contribute. We’ll merge back the updated translations shortly before final release of 0.13.0. Too many changes went into this release to be able to list them all (have a look at the ChangeLog for a reasonable overview), but here are some highlights: New branding, more modern icons (from the Breeze icon theme) Better support for icon themes Many UI improvements Support for many IRCv3 features, including the display of modern formatting codes Functionality such as highlights and chat activity tracking move into the core to help mobile clients to be more efficient Support for containerization, i.e. config-less core Optional authentication via LDAP Database improvements, including support for 64 bit IDs and timestamps, and performance tweaks ... and much more! The usual packages are available for download now: Source tarball OSX core, standalone client, monolithic client Windows installer (32 bit, 64 bit) containing core, client and the standalone client </ul> We're discontinuing the pseudo-static core, because creating static binaries that run on most platforms becomes increasingly fragile; bundling things like OpenSSL also introduces security risks, since the bundled version will not be updated with the system. Additionally, our binary packages for OSX and Windows do not support the PostgreSQL database backend for the core due to limitations in our build environments, as well as lack of demand. Do let us know if you run into issues or regressions. Otherwise, we're expecting a final release in the coming weeks! NOTE: As announced several times already, 0.13.0 will be the last feature release still supporting Qt4 and KDE4. We'll significantly bump the build and runtime requirements for future releases in order to be able to modernize the code base. Planned baseline for 0.14 onwards is Ubuntu 16.04 "Xenial", as well as reasonable recent toolchains for OSX and Windows. That's it for now! Always yours, ~ SputTwo Years!? - Quassel 0.12.52018-04-24T00:00:00+02:002018-04-24T00:00:00+02:00http://localhost:4000/2018/04/two-years-quassel-0-12-5<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>yes, it’s been exactly two years today since 0.12.4 was tagged… Even though development speed has picked up again recently (mostly thanks to some very active new and old contributors, and only to a small degree thanks to myself), and several hundred commits have gone into the main development branch since 0.12 was forked away, we’re still some weeks away from a new feature release.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://twitter.com/chaign_c/">chaign_c</a> has recently discovered two vulnerabilites in the 0.12.4 core, so <a href="/pub/quassel-0.12.5.tar.bz2">a new maintenance release</a> is warranted (and an immediate upgrade of 0.12.4 cores is highly recommended!). Since it has been so long since the last release, we’ve decided to backport over a hundred commits worth of bugfixes and quality-of-life improvements to make upgrading worth your while. Go grab Quassel 0.12.5 from the <a href="/downloads">downloads page<a>!</a></a></p>
<p>Following our usual policy, we did not change the config file format nor the database schema compared to previous 0.12.x releases, and we avoided string and UI changes. Thus, upgrading should be safe, and going back to a previous 0.12.x release is possible in case anything goes wrong anyway. Please have a look at the <a href="https://github.com/quassel/quassel/blob/0.12.5/ChangeLog#L16">ChangeLog</a> for a list of major things that went into this release, or check out the <a href="https://github.com/quassel/quassel/compare/0.12.4...0.12.5">full list of commits</a> since the last release.</p>
<p>I’d like to use this opportunity to thank all contributors who keep Quassel alive and kicking despite my own lack of time, be it by providing pull requests, community support, translations, testing, or just being active in our IRC channels. For this release, I want to particularly express my thanks to <a href="https://github.com/justjanne">Janne “justJanne” Koschinski</a>, <a href="https://github.com/mamarley">Michael “mamarley” Marley</a> and <a href="https://github.com/digitalcircuit">Shane “digitalcircuit” Synan</a> for their timely support in handling the afforementioned vulnerabilities so professionally, both providing fixes and very thorough testing! You rock!</p>
<p>Next stop (hopefully): Quassel 0.13. As announced, well, two years ago, this will be our last release still supporting Qt 4 and KDE 4. Afterwards, we’ll also bump our build requirements significantly.</p>
<p>Until then, all the best,
~ Sput
<!--break--></p>Manuel 'Sputnick' NickschasHi all, yes, it’s been exactly two years today since 0.12.4 was tagged… Even though development speed has picked up again recently (mostly thanks to some very active new and old contributors, and only to a small degree thanks to myself), and several hundred commits have gone into the main development branch since 0.12 was forked away, we’re still some weeks away from a new feature release. However, chaign_c has recently discovered two vulnerabilites in the 0.12.4 core, so a new maintenance release is warranted (and an immediate upgrade of 0.12.4 cores is highly recommended!). Since it has been so long since the last release, we’ve decided to backport over a hundred commits worth of bugfixes and quality-of-life improvements to make upgrading worth your while. Go grab Quassel 0.12.5 from the downloads page! Following our usual policy, we did not change the config file format nor the database schema compared to previous 0.12.x releases, and we avoided string and UI changes. Thus, upgrading should be safe, and going back to a previous 0.12.x release is possible in case anything goes wrong anyway. Please have a look at the ChangeLog for a list of major things that went into this release, or check out the full list of commits since the last release. I’d like to use this opportunity to thank all contributors who keep Quassel alive and kicking despite my own lack of time, be it by providing pull requests, community support, translations, testing, or just being active in our IRC channels. For this release, I want to particularly express my thanks to Janne “justJanne” Koschinski, Michael “mamarley” Marley and Shane “digitalcircuit” Synan for their timely support in handling the afforementioned vulnerabilities so professionally, both providing fixes and very thorough testing! You rock! Next stop (hopefully): Quassel 0.13. As announced, well, two years ago, this will be our last release still supporting Qt 4 and KDE 4. Afterwards, we’ll also bump our build requirements significantly. Until then, all the best, ~ SputFixing Bugs - Quassel 0.12.42016-05-17T00:00:00+02:002016-05-17T00:00:00+02:00http://localhost:4000/2016/05/fixing-bugs-quassel-0-12-4<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>while feature development is still slow – too slow for my own taste, really, but what can you do – some rather annoying bugs have been fixed that warrant another maintenance release. Most notably, Tucos (thanks a lot!) has figured out that invalid handshake data may cause the core to crash. Another annoying issue was the lack of support for the STATUSMSG feature available in some IRC networks. This one was recently abused by idio^Wpeople to pop up tons of spam queries for some of our users.</p>
<p>Both issues are fixed in <a href="/pub/quassel-0.12.4.tar.bz2">version 0.12.4</a>. We highly recommend people to upgrade their cores, and distros to backport the related patches to older versions they still maintain. As a bonus, translations have been updated for this release, and support for non-compliant IRC networks has been improved. You can find the usual artifacts on our <a href="/downloads">downloads page</a>.</p>
<p>Here’s hoping that my next blog finally talks about new features instead of new bugs!</p>
<p>All the best,
~ Sput on behalf of the Quassel Team</p>Manuel 'Sputnick' NickschasHi all, while feature development is still slow – too slow for my own taste, really, but what can you do – some rather annoying bugs have been fixed that warrant another maintenance release. Most notably, Tucos (thanks a lot!) has figured out that invalid handshake data may cause the core to crash. Another annoying issue was the lack of support for the STATUSMSG feature available in some IRC networks. This one was recently abused by idio^Wpeople to pop up tons of spam queries for some of our users. Both issues are fixed in version 0.12.4. We highly recommend people to upgrade their cores, and distros to backport the related patches to older versions they still maintain. As a bonus, translations have been updated for this release, and support for non-compliant IRC networks has been improved. You can find the usual artifacts on our downloads page. Here’s hoping that my next blog finally talks about new features instead of new bugs! All the best, ~ Sput on behalf of the Quassel TeamLong Time No See - Quassel 0.12.32016-02-10T00:00:00+01:002016-02-10T00:00:00+01:00http://localhost:4000/2016/02/long-time-no-see-quassel-0-12-3<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>it’s been a while that we did <a href="/pub/quassel-0.12.3.tar.bz2">a new release</a>, and it’s still “just” a bugfix release this time. Turns out that real life is still keeping us busy… but it’s the good kind of busy, so there’s that. Thankfully, we have a bunch of cool people in the community who contribute patches, fixes and features while the core development team is on semi-hiatus – many thanks to all of you!</p>
<p>Anyway, say hello to <a href=”/pub/quassel-0.12.3.tar.bz2>Quassel 0.12.3</a>. Many fixes went into that one, and we encourage you to upgrade! One particularly nasty bug was fixed: if you have multiple users on a single Quassel Core, and use PostgresQL as a database backend, messages could be lost in earlier 0.12.x versions. So if you happen to run 0.12.{0..2}, and run a core for multiple users, you definitely should upgrade. A more extensive list of fixes can be found in the <a href="https://github.com/quassel/quassel/blob/0.12.3/ChangeLog">ChangeLog</a>.</p>
<p>A short heads-up: The next feature release (0.13.x) will be the last one still supporting Qt 4 and, consequently, KDE 4. Supporting two diverging frameworks (Qt 4 and Qt 5), and two rather different desktop environments (KDE 4 and Plasma 5), proves to be increasingly challenging. Additionally, Qt 4 has officially reached end-of-life by now. So once 0.13 is release, we’ll take the opportunity to clean up the codebase and remove a few hundred #ifdefs, wrappers and workarounds! This is still a few months away, and we plan to add a long-desired feature or two to the next release – but now you know and can prepare for life after Qt 4!</p>
<p>That’s it for today. Please head to the <a href="/downloads">downloads page</a> to grab the new source tarball. Binary packages for the various platforms will show up there over the next few days, and if you run Linux, I’m sure your friendly package maintainer is already working on getting an updated package near you soon!</p>
<p>Have a nice one!
~ Sput
<!--break--></p>Manuel 'Sputnick' NickschasHi all, it’s been a while that we did a new release, and it’s still “just” a bugfix release this time. Turns out that real life is still keeping us busy… but it’s the good kind of busy, so there’s that. Thankfully, we have a bunch of cool people in the community who contribute patches, fixes and features while the core development team is on semi-hiatus – many thanks to all of you! Anyway, say hello to <a href=”/pub/quassel-0.12.3.tar.bz2>Quassel 0.12.3</a>. Many fixes went into that one, and we encourage you to upgrade! One particularly nasty bug was fixed: if you have multiple users on a single Quassel Core, and use PostgresQL as a database backend, messages could be lost in earlier 0.12.x versions. So if you happen to run 0.12.{0..2}, and run a core for multiple users, you definitely should upgrade. A more extensive list of fixes can be found in the ChangeLog. A short heads-up: The next feature release (0.13.x) will be the last one still supporting Qt 4 and, consequently, KDE 4. Supporting two diverging frameworks (Qt 4 and Qt 5), and two rather different desktop environments (KDE 4 and Plasma 5), proves to be increasingly challenging. Additionally, Qt 4 has officially reached end-of-life by now. So once 0.13 is release, we’ll take the opportunity to clean up the codebase and remove a few hundred #ifdefs, wrappers and workarounds! This is still a few months away, and we plan to add a long-desired feature or two to the next release – but now you know and can prepare for life after Qt 4! That’s it for today. Please head to the downloads page to grab the new source tarball. Binary packages for the various platforms will show up there over the next few days, and if you run Linux, I’m sure your friendly package maintainer is already working on getting an updated package near you soon! Have a nice one! ~ SputA Bumpy Road - Quassel 0.12.2!2015-05-01T00:00:00+02:002015-05-01T00:00:00+02:00http://localhost:4000/2015/05/a-bumpy-road-quassel-0-12-2<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>I’m happy to announce the release of Quassel IRC version 0.12.2! This version now fully supports KDE Frameworks, so Quassel behaves properly in a Plasma 5 environment. Other new features include an improved password hashing algorithm, proper unicode-aware message splitting for both normal and CTCP messages, improved handling of PostgreSQL database connections, a bunch of bugfixes and updated translations. If you connect to a 0.12.x core, you can also now change your core password from the client. Please see the <a href="http://git.quassel-irc.org/?p=quassel.git;a=blob;f=ChangeLog;h=244824f03e443c1b73c8add0aee446ddd6ca9780;hb=9c5e6c666d5faa976eec2e0ac8bf8e1dd6c0332c">ChangeLog</a> for a more complete list.</p>
<p>Now you might ask: What happened to 0.12.0 and 0.12.1? This is the reason I titled this post “A Bumpy Road”. Very shortly after tagging the 0.12.0 release, we’ve discovered a behavior change in Qt5 in regards to timezone handling in PostgreSQL databases. This resulted in backlog messages being stored with the wrong timezone information for some server setups. The fix for this went into the 0.12.1 release. Unfortunately, this fix also uncovered a more serious issue that has been around for a long time: restarting a PostgreSQL database while Quassel Core is running would not properly re-initialize the database session inside Quassel, bringing back an old <a href="http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2013-4422">security issue</a> that we had deemed fixed. This forced us to create yet another release, so that’s why we are now at version 0.12.2. The new issue is being tracked as <a href="https://marc.info/?l=oss-security&m=143014582328491&w=2">CVE-2015-3427</a>. Thanks to Pierre Schweitzer for registering this!</p>
<p>To be clear: <em>We strongly recommend upgrading Quassel to 0.12.2 due to vulnerabilities in older versions, or backporting the patches referenced in the relevant CVE entries!</em> We have also prepared a <a href="http://quassel-irc.org/pub/quassel-0.11.1.tar.bz2">0.11.1 release</a> that contains the security fixes, but no new features. Older versions are no longer supported.</p>
<p>With that out of the way, we hope that you’ll enjoy the new version of Quassel! Head on over to our <a href="/downloads">downloads page</a> to grab it, or wait for your favorite distro to provide packages!</p>
<p>Cheers,
~ Sputnick on behalf of the Quassel Team
<!--break--></p>Manuel 'Sputnick' NickschasHi all, I’m happy to announce the release of Quassel IRC version 0.12.2! This version now fully supports KDE Frameworks, so Quassel behaves properly in a Plasma 5 environment. Other new features include an improved password hashing algorithm, proper unicode-aware message splitting for both normal and CTCP messages, improved handling of PostgreSQL database connections, a bunch of bugfixes and updated translations. If you connect to a 0.12.x core, you can also now change your core password from the client. Please see the ChangeLog for a more complete list. Now you might ask: What happened to 0.12.0 and 0.12.1? This is the reason I titled this post “A Bumpy Road”. Very shortly after tagging the 0.12.0 release, we’ve discovered a behavior change in Qt5 in regards to timezone handling in PostgreSQL databases. This resulted in backlog messages being stored with the wrong timezone information for some server setups. The fix for this went into the 0.12.1 release. Unfortunately, this fix also uncovered a more serious issue that has been around for a long time: restarting a PostgreSQL database while Quassel Core is running would not properly re-initialize the database session inside Quassel, bringing back an old security issue that we had deemed fixed. This forced us to create yet another release, so that’s why we are now at version 0.12.2. The new issue is being tracked as CVE-2015-3427. Thanks to Pierre Schweitzer for registering this! To be clear: We strongly recommend upgrading Quassel to 0.12.2 due to vulnerabilities in older versions, or backporting the patches referenced in the relevant CVE entries! We have also prepared a 0.11.1 release that contains the security fixes, but no new features. Older versions are no longer supported. With that out of the way, we hope that you’ll enjoy the new version of Quassel! Head on over to our downloads page to grab it, or wait for your favorite distro to provide packages! Cheers, ~ Sputnick on behalf of the Quassel TeamNew Cuties - Quassel 0.11.02014-10-06T00:00:00+02:002014-10-06T00:00:00+02:00http://localhost:4000/2014/10/new-cuties-quassel-0-11-0<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>It’s that time of the year again for <a href="/downloads">another Quassel release</a>! For 0.11.0, we’ve focused mainly on full support for Qt 5.2+ (in addition to Qt 4.6+, which will be supported alongside for the time being). Since Qt 4.x has not seen much development for quite some time, and subsequently we’ve missed out on much work that has been done by the Qt developers, this marks a major improvement in particular for our users on Windows and Mac OSX. Support for both platforms has seen many improvements in Qt 5, and thus our <a href="/downloads">official packages</a> for those platforms are now built against Qt 5. In particular Mac users should be much happier now!</p>
<p>For KDE users it is recommended to still use Quassel built against Qt 4, because KDE integration support has not been ported to the new KDE Frameworks yet. This is something we plan for Quassel 0.12, so stay tuned!</p>
<p>In order to make dual-Qt support easier, we fully revamped the build system, something that was long overdue. The existing build system still came from the dark CMake 2.6 ages, and it was increasingly hard to maintain. So now everything has been rewritten, taking newer CMake features into account. Some build options have changed as a result; in particular, we use package properties now for finding optional dependencies rather than CMake defines. After configuring the build, CMake will output a summary of required and optional packages that could or could not be found, alongside with information on what a particular dependency does and where to find it. The <a href="http://git.quassel-irc.org/?p=quassel.git;a=blob;f=INSTALL;h=a9dc9e2b3762f09c08761550cc03812099ac1768;hb=HEAD">INSTALL</a> file has been updated accordingly.</p>
<p>Starting with 0.11, we also increased the build requirements. A C++11 capable compiler, such as gcc 4.7+, Clang 3.1+, or Visual Studio 2013 (at least the November CTP), is now needed in order to build Quassel from source. In addition, at least CMake 2.8.9 is required. We feel that these are reasonable requirements that should be supported by most current distributions (and there were no objections when we asked around).</p>
<p>Besides these major changes, this release also contains a bunch of bugfixes, most generously provided by our awesome community. Among other things, the handling of database errors has been improved, we now split CTCP lines that are too long (important for role players using /me a lot, I’m told), and some issues with QuasselDroid have been fixed. For those of you who you only want to get those fixes, but not the build system changes, Qt 5 support and the increased build requirements, we tagged <a href="/pub/quassel-0.10.1.tar.bz2">Quassel 0.10.1</a>. This bugfix release marks the last of the 0.10.x releases; we will not provide further support for this branch (as usual).</p>
<p>And now, get downloading unless your friendly package maintainer has already done this job for you!</p>
<p>Cheers,
~ Sput
<!--break--></p>Manuel 'Sputnick' NickschasHi all, It’s that time of the year again for another Quassel release! For 0.11.0, we’ve focused mainly on full support for Qt 5.2+ (in addition to Qt 4.6+, which will be supported alongside for the time being). Since Qt 4.x has not seen much development for quite some time, and subsequently we’ve missed out on much work that has been done by the Qt developers, this marks a major improvement in particular for our users on Windows and Mac OSX. Support for both platforms has seen many improvements in Qt 5, and thus our official packages for those platforms are now built against Qt 5. In particular Mac users should be much happier now! For KDE users it is recommended to still use Quassel built against Qt 4, because KDE integration support has not been ported to the new KDE Frameworks yet. This is something we plan for Quassel 0.12, so stay tuned! In order to make dual-Qt support easier, we fully revamped the build system, something that was long overdue. The existing build system still came from the dark CMake 2.6 ages, and it was increasingly hard to maintain. So now everything has been rewritten, taking newer CMake features into account. Some build options have changed as a result; in particular, we use package properties now for finding optional dependencies rather than CMake defines. After configuring the build, CMake will output a summary of required and optional packages that could or could not be found, alongside with information on what a particular dependency does and where to find it. The INSTALL file has been updated accordingly. Starting with 0.11, we also increased the build requirements. A C++11 capable compiler, such as gcc 4.7+, Clang 3.1+, or Visual Studio 2013 (at least the November CTP), is now needed in order to build Quassel from source. In addition, at least CMake 2.8.9 is required. We feel that these are reasonable requirements that should be supported by most current distributions (and there were no objections when we asked around). Besides these major changes, this release also contains a bunch of bugfixes, most generously provided by our awesome community. Among other things, the handling of database errors has been improved, we now split CTCP lines that are too long (important for role players using /me a lot, I’m told), and some issues with QuasselDroid have been fixed. For those of you who you only want to get those fixes, but not the build system changes, Qt 5 support and the increased build requirements, we tagged Quassel 0.10.1. This bugfix release marks the last of the 0.10.x releases; we will not provide further support for this branch (as usual). And now, get downloading unless your friendly package maintainer has already done this job for you! Cheers, ~ SputA Bleeding Heart2014-04-09T00:00:00+02:002014-04-09T00:00:00+02:00http://localhost:4000/2014/04/a-bleeding-heart<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>as you should have heard by now, a <a href="http://heartbleed.com/">major security vulnerability</a> was discovered in OpenSSL. This does affect Quassel as well, as by default the connection between a Quassel client and core is encrypted using SSL (or, rather, TLS); in particular, it affects you if you run a core that supports SSL and is exposed to the public internet (clients, both monolithic and stand-alone, are not affected because they don’t offer an SSL-encrypted service).</p>
<ul>
<li>If you host a Quassel core, make sure to upgrade your OpenSSL to at least version 1.0.1g (or whatever your distro deems to be a fixed one), then restart the core. Create a new private key and certificate and replace the quasselCert.pem file in your config directory <a href="http://bugs.quassel-irc.org/projects/quassel-irc/wiki/Client-Core_SSL_support">as described here</a> and restart your core again. Since the vulnerability is in the OpenSSL library and not in Quassel itself, there is no need to update Quassel <b>unless one of the following bullet points applies:</b></li>
<li>If you run one of the static cores offered on our site, make sure to <a href="/downloads">download</a> the newest version; we uploaded a 0.10.0 core built against a fixed OpenSSL version on April 8th 2014, 19:14 UTC. Any older version is vulnerable, as an insecure OpenSSL version was bundled. After replacing the core, follow the previous step to regenerate your key and certificate.</li>
<li>If you use our install package for Windows™, and run the core from this package, make sure to <a href="/downloads">download</a> the newest version. We uploaded a fixed package on April 9th 2014, 20:47 UTC. Any older version is vulnerable. First bullet point applies as well.</li>
<li>Our MacOSX packages don't bundle OpenSSL; they use the system-supplied version instead. No need to install a newer Quassel core, but first bullet point applies.</li>
</ul>
<p>After replacing the certificate and restarting your core, you should also change the passwords, as they may have leaked due to the vulnerability.</p>
<p>That’s it. Have fun securing your systems; I know I had… NOT.</p>
<p>~ Sput</p>Manuel 'Sputnick' NickschasHi all, as you should have heard by now, a major security vulnerability was discovered in OpenSSL. This does affect Quassel as well, as by default the connection between a Quassel client and core is encrypted using SSL (or, rather, TLS); in particular, it affects you if you run a core that supports SSL and is exposed to the public internet (clients, both monolithic and stand-alone, are not affected because they don’t offer an SSL-encrypted service). If you host a Quassel core, make sure to upgrade your OpenSSL to at least version 1.0.1g (or whatever your distro deems to be a fixed one), then restart the core. Create a new private key and certificate and replace the quasselCert.pem file in your config directory as described here and restart your core again. Since the vulnerability is in the OpenSSL library and not in Quassel itself, there is no need to update Quassel unless one of the following bullet points applies: If you run one of the static cores offered on our site, make sure to download the newest version; we uploaded a 0.10.0 core built against a fixed OpenSSL version on April 8th 2014, 19:14 UTC. Any older version is vulnerable, as an insecure OpenSSL version was bundled. After replacing the core, follow the previous step to regenerate your key and certificate. If you use our install package for Windows™, and run the core from this package, make sure to download the newest version. We uploaded a fixed package on April 9th 2014, 20:47 UTC. Any older version is vulnerable. First bullet point applies as well. Our MacOSX packages don't bundle OpenSSL; they use the system-supplied version instead. No need to install a newer Quassel core, but first bullet point applies. After replacing the certificate and restarting your core, you should also change the passwords, as they may have leaked due to the vulnerability. That’s it. Have fun securing your systems; I know I had… NOT. ~ Sput