eWeek - September 8, 2008

KDE marches on
The group overseeing the free desktop software rolls out its latest

By Darryl K. Taft KDE 3. 5. 10 ships with ment) by the KDE project. and FSFE’s Freedom Task Thekdecommunity a basic desktop and 15 The FLA is a copyright Force over the last 18 is continuing the other packages, including assignment that allows months. aggressive release a PIM (personal informa- free software projects to “The FLA is a versa-schedule for its free desk- tion manager) package assign their copyrights tile document designed top offering. and packages for admin- to a single organization to work across different

The group on Aug. istration, network, utili- or person. countries with different 26 announced the avail- ties, multimedia, games, Adriaan de Groot, vice perceptions of copyright ability of KDE 3. 5. 10, a artwork and Web develop- president of KDE e.V., and authorship,” said maintenance release of ment. said the organization is Shane Coughlan, FSFE’s the free desktop for GNU Freedom Task Force coor-Linux and other Unix fla- The ABCs of KDE dinator. ^vors. The KDE Community is aggressively ^Meanwhile, ^at ^the ^KDEThe KDE desktop is used rolling out releases of its free desktop Akadem y free soft ware by a broad array of Linux offering. Key facts about KDE include: desktop summit, which users, and although the _KDE _stands _for _K _Desktop _Environmentran Aug. 9 to 15 in Bel-KDE Community released _and _was _founded _in ₁₉₉₆gium, Fabrizio Montesi, KDE 4.1 at the end of July, _KDE _1.0 _was _released _in ₁₉₉₈founder of ItalianaSoft-KDE e. V.—the nonprofit _Community _members _want _to _offer _aw a r e , d e m o n s t r a t e d organization that repre- _powerful _and _free _desktop _environmentJOLIE, an open-source sents the KDE Project— _The _KDE _Project _includes _several _stand-language for service-maintains the KDE 3. 5 alone applications based on KDE, including oriented programming. series for its user base of KOffice, KDevelop, Kate, Kopete and K3b Montesi created JOLIE— large organizations that which stands for Java Source: e WEEK reporting do not migrate to the next Orchestration Language major release as quickly as Interpreter Engine—as a others do. KDE officials said endorsing the use of a research project on ser-

The release of KDE users should expect to see particular FLA as the pre- vice-oriented computing. 3. 5. 10 follows the release the KDE 3. 5. 10 enhance- ferred way to assign copy- At Akademy, Mon-of KDE 3. 5. 9 in Febru- ments in the next release right to the association. tesi showed how JOLIE ary. KDE 3. 5. 10 includes of their Linux products. “We recognize that brings new ways of improvements in the KDE Most of the Linux distri- assignment is an option interaction through the Kicker, which is the KDE butions and Unix oper- that individuals may wish network to KDE. One application starter panel, ating systems do not to exercise; it is in no way example showed the sys-and KPDF, the desktop’s immediately incorporate pushed upon KDE con- tem’s media controller PDF viewer. The panel new KDE releases, but tributors,” de Groot said. organizing control of the improvements include will integrate KDE 3. 5. 10 “There are also other ave- KDE multimedia appli-better visibility on trans- packages in their next nues of copyright assign- cation—known as Ama-parent backgrounds, releases. mentavailablebesidesthe rok—through Web inter-themed arrow buttons in KDE officials also FLA, but we believe this faces, handheld devices applets that were missing announced that the FSFE is the easiest way to get it and other applications. them, and layout and anti- (Free Software Foundation done, with little fuss.” JOLIE handles the syn-aliasing fixes in various Europe) has welcomed KDE’s adoption of the chronizing of all those applets. the adoption of the FLA FLA is the result of coop- different interfaces.