[Spread-users] Spread 4.2.0 final release and updated web site

[Jonathan Stanton]

Hello,

We are happy to announce the final 4.2.0 release today. This has fixes for all reported bugs from the previous 4.2.0rc2 release and should be a good stable version to build on. 

We have also updated the http://www.spread.org/ website with a much more modern and usable design and added details about the new release. More details on the release can be found on the website and in the source code release. 

The major changes in the new release are: 

1) Added Keepalive support to client-server TCP connections. Requires correct
   operating system values set for keepalives in order to be useful. 
2) Switch internal code to use MONOTONIC clocks when available and appropriate
   to remove chance of system clock changes (from the clock being set) from affecting
   message processing
3) Break out events, memory, data_link and alarm code into separate 
   libspread-util package. This package also has a number of improvements in
   the functionality of those code files which are listed in the internal
   package release notes. 

It also includes a number of important bug fixes. The most significant include:

1) Fix bug with structure size on 64 bit platforms causing crash.
2) Fix several deadlock, crashes and race conditions in java Listener code.
3) Fix 100 ms timeout in java socket handling code so it does not corrupt 
   messages that take a long time to arrive. 
4) Fix java disconnect bug that prevented client from reconnecting until restarted.
5) Remove cause of slow message delivery when a client is receiving a lot of
   messages and gets into a badger state. 
6) Improve help output and error messages in utility programs. 
7) Fix token hurry bug that caused messages to have a 2 second latency in 
   specific circumstances.
8) Fix crash bug when new daemon configuration files are loaded while the
   system is running. 

This release does not include any API changes, so applications should
be able to be relinked or recompiled with the new Spread library without
changes. 

Cheers,

Jonathan
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Jonathan Stanton		jonathan at spreadconcepts.com
Spread Group Messaging	www.spread.org
Spread Concepts LLC 	www.spreadconcepts.com
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