## Ongoing DragonFly News
### 2.4.1 Released, 01-Oct-2009!
The [[DragonFly 2.4.1 release|release24]] is now available! With tons of new features and improvements.
### 2.5.x Development news, 08-Feb-2010!
Our new swapcache is now fully operational in the development branch. Swapcache is a general system
feature which expands the use of swap to cover clean filesystem data and meta-data (not just dirty
anonymous memory). When used with a SSD (Solid State Drive) swapcache has an enormously profound positive
effect on system performance, almost acting like extended memory. Even a small 40G SSD can cache
upwards of 80 million inodes for fast directory operations, or make your working dataset completely
free of slow HD seeks virtually without having to lift a finger. The implications are staggering.
### Summer of Code participation
DragonFly participated in Google's [Summer of Code](http://socghop.appspot.com/org/home/google/gsoc2009/dragonflybsd) program for 2008 and 2009. DragonFly plans to apply for participation in 2010 - consult and add to the [Summer of Code 2010](/docs/developer/gsoc2010/) page with your ideas.
More news from the
DragonFly Digest
[[!inline pages="internal(digest/*)" feeds="no" template="digestitem"]]
## What is DragonFly BSD?
DragonFly belongs to the same class of operating system as BSD and Linux
and is based on the same UNIX ideals and APIs. DragonFly gives the BSD
base an opportunity to grow in an entirely different direction from the one
taken in the FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD series.
The DragonFly project's
ultimate goal is to provide native clustering support in the kernel.
This involves the creation of a sophisticated cache management
framework for filesystem namespaces, file spaces, and VM spaces, which
allows heavily interactive programs to run across multiple machines with
cache coherency fully guaranteed in all respects. This also involves being
able to chop up resources, including the cpu by way of a controlled VM
context, for safe assignment to unsecured third-party clusters over the
internet (though the security of such clusters itself might be in doubt,
the first and most important thing is for systems donating resources to not
be made vulnerable through their donation).
For more information, visit the [[History|History]] page.