FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 2005-06-22

    The OpenPKG project releases version 2.4 of the
    unique cross-platform software packaging facility.

  http://www.openpkg.org/ -- Munich, DE -- 2005-06-22 -- The
  OpenPKG project is proud to announce version 2.4 of its software,
  another evolutionary step after eight releases in four years.

  Much valued by IT decision makers and beloved by Unix system
  administrators, OpenPKG is the world leading instrument for deployment
  and maintenance of Open Source Unix software when administration
  crosses platform boundaries. The unique OpenPKG architecture leverages
  proven technologies like Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) and OSSP
  and GNU components to establish a unified software administration
  environment, independent of the underlying Unix operating system.

  NEW IN VERSION 2.4

  This is the first release created by the newly established OpenPKG
  Foundation e.V., which contributed a substantial amount of manpower
  and all the technical resources making up the "buildfarm" and the
  development environment for the release engineers.

  Since the previous release four months ago, the OpenPKG package
  repository has grown again by 15%. A subset of 562 packages were
  carefully selected for inclusion into the OpenPKG 2.4 release,
  including the latest versions of popular Open Source Unix software
  like Apache, Bash, BIND, GCC, INN, Mozilla Firefox, MySQL, OpenSSH,
  Perl, Postfix, PostgreSQL, Samba, Squid, teTeX and Vim.

  Major technical efforts for this release were spent on migrating the
  whole development and release engineering environment to the new
  OpenPKG Foundation infrastructure, porting OpenPKG to IBM AIX 5.1 and
  enhancing the Solaris 10 and Debian 3.1 support.

  OpenPKG 2.4 is available for 16 different Unix platforms. Most
  notably, it is supported on FreeBSD 5.4, NetBSD 2.0.2, Debian
  GNU/Linux 3.1, Fedora Core 3, SUSE Linux 9.3, and Sun Solaris 9
  and 10. Additionally, all CORE and the vast majority of BASE class
  packages are already available for the tentative platforms FreeBSD
  6.0, Gentoo Linux 1.6.12 and Mandriva Linux 10.2. It is also still
  available for the obsolete platforms Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, Sun
  Solaris 8 and FreeBSD 4.11. Finally, OpenPKG is also known to work
  under IBM AIX 5.1, HP HP-UX 11.11 and MacOS X 10.3.

  The OpenPKG 2.4 release was a joint effort of many individuals,
  most notably the Release Engineering team, this time consisting of
  the OpenPKG Foundation members Thomas Lotterer, Ralf S. Engelschall,
  Steve Weinreich and Matthias Kurz.

  HIGHLIGHTS OF OPENPKG

  * Portable across major Unix flavors.
  * Supporting many commonly used platforms:
    FreeBSD 5.4, NetBSD 2.0.2, Debian GNU/Linux 3.11,
    Fedora Core 3, SUSE Linux 9.3, and Solaris 9 and 10.
  * Additionally already available for the tentative platforms:
    FreeBSD 6.0, Gentoo Linux 1.6.9 and Mandriva Linux 10.2.
  * Additionally still available for the obsolete platforms:
    FreeBSD 4.11, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and Sun Solaris 8.
  * Additionally known to work for the forthcoming platforms:
    HP HP-UX 11.11, MacOS X 10.3 and IBM AIX 5.1
  * Entirely based on Open Source technology.
  * Minimum operating system intrusion and dependency.
  * Minimum overhead in software packaging.
  * All packages up to date with vendor versions as of 2005-06-18.
  * Sources of 562 CORE+BASE+PLUS packages released.
  * Binaries of CORE+BASE class packages provided for supported platforms.
  * Binaries of CORE class packages provided for all platforms.
  * Easy installation, updating and deinstallation of packages.
  * Bundled with useful and secure package preconfigurations.
  * Includes an abstracted and powerful run-command facility.
  * Virtual hosting through multiple instances on a single system.
  * Proxy package mechanism for sharing packages across instances.
  * Build-time package variations for maximum flexibility.
  * Foundation to build encapsulated and self contained environments.

  HISTORY OF THE OPENPKG PROJECT

  The Open Source software project OpenPKG was founded in 2000 by
  Ralf S. Engelschall and first released to the public in January 2002.
  Today OpenPKG is a mature technology in production use. It is
  maintained and improved by its original developers, organized in
  the OpenPKG Foundation e.V., and volunteer contributors.

  HISTORY OF THE OPENPKG FOUNDATION

  The OpenPKG Foundation e.V. is a nonprofit organization with the
  dedicated goal of supporting the OpenPKG project. The idea to organize
  the social network of OpenPKG was born by Ralf S. Engelschall and
  Thomas Lotterer in January 2005. A month later, on 2005-02-09, nine
  founders kicked off the Foundation. Official registration under German
  law was completed on 2005-03-18. The OpenPKG Foundation finally went
  public on 2005-06-21.

  MORE INFORMATION

  The OpenPKG Project            OpenPKG Foundation e.V.
  http://www.openpkg.org/        http://www.openpkg.net/
  press@openpkg.org              press@openpkg.net
  +49-172-8986801 (CET)