Dear Gap-Forum,

We have released a second beta version of GAP4, GAP 4 Beta 2.
You can find more information about GAP 4 and differences to GAP 3 in the
announcement for Beta 1, which can be found at
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~gap/Forum/Neubuese.1/Joachim.1/Announci.1/1.html

In comparison to Beta 1, Beta 2:

- fixes all known errors.
- resolves some efficiency problems due to some methods being ranked too
high or too low.
- introduces 'weak pointers' in the kernel. These are pointers to objects
which do not need to survive a garbage collection. such objects are used
for caching known data (to speed up calculations). Without them some code
(for example code that uses homomorphisms repetitively) could get GAP
enormously big.
- Adds a variety of new methods, especially methods for finitely presented
groups.

GAP 4.B.2 is available via ftp, please see the accompanied README for
details about the status and copyright of GAP.

You can get GAP 4.B.2 from:

ftp://ftp-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/pub/gap/gap4b2/
ftp://ftp.math.rwth-aachen.de/pub/gap4beta/
(Note that the mirror may take over night to update)

These directories contain the following files:

INSTALL Installation information
gap4b2.tar.gz the source code as gzipped tar archive
doc4b2.tar.gz the documentation as gzipped tar archive

You need all the above files. The file INSTALL explains how to install
GAP 4 Beta 2. Please report bugs and problems to

gap-trouble@dcs.st-and.ac.uk

There is a gap4 related mailing list, information on which can be found in
the forum archive under:
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~gap/Forum/Hulpke.1/Alexande.1/GAP_4_ma.1/1.html

We are planning to release the next beta version some time around the end of
this year and to release the first non-beta release 4.1 some time in
spring/summer next year.

The GAP Team in Aachen and St. Andrews