[mapserver-dev] 5.6.0 release announcement

[Daniel Morissette]

Hi everyone,

Here is my draft announcement for the 5.6.0 release. Please review and 
send your changes/suggestions:


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The MapServer Team is pleased to announce the release of version 5.6.0. 
This new release contains a few new features and performance 
enhancements. Here is a quick summary:

New features in 5.6:

   * MS RFC 51: XML Mapfile schema and XSLT (see 
http://trac.osgeo.org/mapserver/wiki/XMLMapfiles)
   * MS RFC 52: One-pass query processing, making WFS queries on 
database backends much much faster
   * MS RFC 55: Improve control of output resolution, allows printing 
maps at printer resolution using a mapfile defined for screen resolution
   * MS RFC 57: Labeling enhancements: ability to repeat labels along a 
line/multiline

(RFCs are available online at http://mapserver.org/development/rfc/)

Preview features that will be fully functional only in 6.0:

   * MS RFC 50: OpenGL Rendering Support
   * MS RFC 54: Rendering Interface API

Other notable enhancements include:

   * Security fixes (also backported to 5.4):
     * Improved security relative to untrusted directories and mapfiles 
(RFC 56)
     * Fixed several security issues found in an audit of the CGI 
application (#2939, #2941, #2942, #2943, #2944)
   * Performance optimizations:
     * Load all GDAL image bands in one pass for faster processing (r9260)
     * Optimized access to very large shapefiles (#2930)
   * Several enhancements/fixes to OGC Web Services specs support
   * Several enhancements/fixes to all flavors of MapScript

As usual there an a large number of additional small enhancements and 
bug fixes. For a complete list see the HISTORY.TXT file at:

 
http://trac.osgeo.org/mapserver/browser/tags/rel-5-6-0/mapserver/HISTORY.TXT

A 5.4 -> 5.6 migration guide is also available. It should become part of 
the official documentation soon, but in the meantime you can view the 
latest version online at:


http://trac.osgeo.org/mapserver/browser/branches/branch-5-6/mapserver/MIGRATION_GUIDE.TXT

The release source code can be downloaded at:

   http://mapserver.org/download.html OR
   http://download.osgeo.org/mapserver/mapserver-5.6.0.tar.gz

Existing MS4W 3.0 users can upgrade to this MapServer 5.6.0 release by
following instructions at
http://www.maptools.org/ms4w/index.phtml?page=RELEASE_mapserver_ms4w3.x_dev-5.6.0.html 


Ubuntu Binaries for hardy, jaunty and karmic are also built and 
available in the unstable PPA of UbuntuGIS:
https://launchpad.net/~ubuntugis/+archive/ubuntugis-unstable/

Enjoy! - The MapServer Team