[Nexus] New NeXus-API Release 4.2, NeXus OS survey results

[Mark Koennecke]

 Hi,

 First of all I would like to inform you that the newest NeXus-API 
 release 4.2 is available for download from:

        http://download.nexusformat.org/kits

 The highlights of this release are:

 * A new python-API with numpy support. Thanks to David Kienzle. 
 * A beta version IDL-API, Thanks to Jussi Kauppila and Mark Koennecke 

 Besides the usual source distribution we have binary installation kits 
 for both Windows and Mac OS X, both PowerPC and Intel. 

 These are the results of the NeXus OS survey:

 OS                            Count
 ---------------------------------------
 openSuse                      5
 Redhat Linux & Variants       5
 Ubuntu Linux                  4
 Gentoo Linux                  1
 MS Windows XP, Vista          9
 Mac OS X                      6
 True64 Unix                   0
 i386 BSD                      0
 Solaris                       1

 In comments people asked for 64 bit versions for both Linux and Windows.
 
 The conclusion we draw from this:
 - Provide binary distributions both for Windows and Mac OS X
 - We make sure that we test the NeXus-API on 64 bit platforms
 It would be nice to provide binary kits for linux too but as of now we cannot handle this, 
 given the numerous distributions in different versions and with varying support for the 
 required libraries.  

 Best Regards,

    Mark Koennecke, on behalf of the NeXus Technical Subcommittee