I just finished implementing all features planned for the next fre:ac snapshot. The next two or three weeks will be used for stability testing and packaging so the release is expected to happen around mid November early December. Here's what you can expect from the next snapshot:

• Support for OS X Leopard and running without XQuartz on OS X.
• Support for opening virtual CD track AIFF files on OS X.
• A slider for seeking and to indicate position during playback.
• Support for querying the MusicBrainz database using their freedb gateway.
• Support for the VisualOn and Fraunhofer AAC encoders.
• Support for running on Linux on ARM processors.
• Fixed CD ripping issues on Linux.
• Improved stability and reliability on all platforms.
• Dozens of fixes and minor improvements.

Several problems have been identified and fixed thanks to Coverity Scan. That's an online service offering free static source code analysis for Open Source projects. Coverity Scan originally found 123 issues in fre:ac's code. About one third of them were false positives, but 84 potential bugs that are fixed in the upcoming snapshot. A handful of those defects had a high possibility of crashing fre:ac during normal use. I'd definitely recommend Coverity Scan to every Open Source project. It's free and a great help in improving a project's code quality.