Welcome to the new COIN-OR!

The COIN-OR Foundation is pleased to announce the release of a collection of enhancements for both users and developers. The new features include:

• A new wiki-based, open source project management site for each project based on Trac, including
  • A project wiki for the community-based development of documentation and project information.
  • A full-featured source code browser providing a Web interface to the project's repository.
  • A new Wiki-based issue tracking system for users to submit and track trouble tickets for all COIN-OR projects.
• A new, simplified cross-platform build system based on the GNU autotools.
• A new, more flexible source code control system, based on Subversion.
• A new binary distribution system, supporting Linux, Windows and Mac.

These new features represent a vast leap forward in our ability to serve the quickly growing community of COIN-OR users, but they will take some getting used to in some cases. The two changes most users will notice first are

• the switch from the CVS source code control system to the newer and more capable subversion, and
• the adoption of a new automated, cross-platform build system. These two upgrades will require some changes to the way users employ the COIN-OR tools (see below), but we hope you will ultimately agree they are a big leap forward for COIN-OR.

More details on the new features and how they may affect you are provided below. Also, take a look at the newly revised FAQs for a brief overview of the new features and answers to some of the most common questions about how to use them. As you take a look around, feel free to let us know if you are having trouble, either through a post to the appropriate mailing list or by submitting a trouble ticket to one of the COIN-OR projects. In the meantime, we take this opportunity to thank you for your feedback and remind you about the COIN-OR logo context and the upcomming DIMACS Workshop on COIN-OR. Again, welcome to the new COIN-OR!

Source Code Control System

COIN-OR's new source code control system is based on subversion. The old system, based on CVS, will continue to work for the time being, but the CVS repository is now frozen, so no new updates will be available. Future development and bug fixes will be done with the code base in subversion. This means that all CVS users will need to check out a new copy of the source code from the subversion repository in order to continue getting updates. For most users, subversion will function almost identically to CVS, but has many enhancements that are useful for developers. The biggest change users will notice is that each project now has its own, separate repository, so each project will be checked out into its own directory, along with copies of any other COIN-OR projects on which it depends. For a brief overview of the use of subversion and the new build system, please go here. For instructions on getting and building all (or most) COIN-OR projects simultaneously, please see https://projects.coin-or.org/BuildTools/wiki/user-coinall. For more detailed help with Subversion, see the Subversion Book.

Wiki-based Project Management System

Each project now has its own wiki-based project management Web site based on the open source Trac project management software. A list of all the project Web sites is available here. Using the wiki, any user can add documentation or other information to their favorite project's Web site, browse the source code, submit a trouble ticket and more. For instructions on using Trac, please go here. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of a Wiki, Wikipedia is perhaps the most famous example.

Build System

Many projects now use a new build system based on the GNU autotools, which can make cross-platform compilation much simpler. For users, the most noticeable change will be that projects can now be built in Unix-like environments, including Linux, Windows (with CYGWIN or Msys), and MacOS, using the simple sequence of commands:

configure 
make
make install

This is the same build system used by many major open soure packages you may have come in contact with. The build system automatically determines what compilers are available on your system, what external libraries are available, and what default options are appropriate. These options can, of course, be overriden by the user on the command line. See Build Tools Web site for further details.

Binary Distributions

The new binary distribution system enables users satisfied with the major releases of the main COIN-OR packages to download pre-compiled packages for their platforms, including all required libraries. This feature is currently available for Windows, Linux, and MacOS X. Download instructions can be found on the Coin Binary Distribution Project page.