
----------------
Release Notes
----------------

Thank you for your interest in this release of AbiWord!

---- About AbiWord

AbiWord is an "Open Source" word processor.  (To learn more about the
concept of Open Source, you should look at http://opensource.org.)

Because AbiWord is Open Source, it is freely distributable and
available for use by anyone, without restrictions.  With AbiWord,
there is no need to worry about piracy.  We encourage you to make as
many copies as you like and to give them to your friends and
colleagues.

Note that AbiWord is not "shareware".  You are under no moral or legal
obligation to pay anyone for this right to use this program.

If you are not familiar with this kind of software, please rest
assured that there is no catch.  AbiWord is free, and it will always
be free.  It is developed in a public fashion, by members of the
software community from all over the world, communicating and
collaborating together via the Internet.

---- Getting Help

There is some documentation at <http://www.abisource.com/support/>.
However, due to the lack of time and people to contribute to the
documentation effort, it is far from complete, and does not cover all
features, including many of the new features available in the 2.x
release series.

Another, sometimes more useful place to get help is the AbiWord user
mailing list <http://www.abisource.com/support/help/maillist.phtml>.
Users are strongly encouraged to join the mailing list in order to
ask and answer questions freely.  Please keep discussion limited to
AbiWord related subjects.

Also, IRC provides a more real time medium of communication, and can
elicit more immediate response, depending on who's online and
responsive.  See <http://www.abisource.com/support/help/irc.phtml>
for details.

---- Helping

If you would like to join the community of people who are developing
AbiWord, there are lots of ways you can help, even if you are not a
computer programmer.

If you are in fact a programmer, and would like to work on the
project, see the developer information on our web site, join the
abiword-dev mailing list, and ask what needs to be done.  There are
always features or ports which need attention.
Be aware that because the site does not receive too much attention,
http://www.abisource.com/developers/ is obsolete in some areas and
you will probably find the developers on list and IRC more helpful.

If you are not a programmer, you can still join the AbiWord Developer
mailing list and contribute in other ways.  The easiest way to help is
to simply use the program and report any bugs you find.  A tool called
Bugzilla is available on our web site for exactly this purpose.
Contributions can be easily made in the areas of documentation,
site maintenance, quality assurance (bug-checking, a little harder),
and product promotion.  Whatever you're good at, the friendly folks
on the AbiWord Developer mailing list are perfectly willing to find 
something for you to help with and there is always plenty to be done.  
We appreciate any help we can get.

---- Supported Platforms

AbiWord is a multi-platform application, meaning that it was designed
to work well on multiple types of computers and operating systems.

At the present time, AbiWord is supported on Windows (including
Windows 95 through Windows XP), Mac OS (see note below), Linux, a
variety of other UNIX-like systems (including everything from Solaris
to *BSD to RTEMS), and QNX (though beware that there is currently only
one active QNX-port developer).  The BeOS port is no longer actively
maintained in AbiWord 2.x, but there are external parties that submit
patches from time to time, so it may still be usable on BeOS.  If you
can help us with any of these ports or provide and maintain a new one,
you are more than welcome to.

Other operating systems will likely be supported in the future.

The AbiWord port to Mac OS prior to OS X (Carbon) has been removed due 
to the extensive and unmet developer resource requirements.  However, 
the Mac OS X (Cocoa) port is still under development and according to its
maintainer, has reached a quite usable state, though it is not quite
on par with the Unix port yet.

---- Legalese

Copyright 1998-2005 AbiSource, Inc.
All Rights Reserved

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA  
02111-1307, USA.

AbiSource, AbiWord, and AbiSuite are trademarks of AbiSource, Inc., in
the United States and other countries.  The AbiSource logos and
AbiSource product and service names are also trademarks of AbiSource,
Inc., which may be registered in other countries.

