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A Calculator and Show Desktop Plasmoid, units conversion and contacts "runners", enhanced composite-based effects, a "dashboard" view and applet hover handles in Plasma. Updated artwork for "about" pages (like the one present in Konqueror upon application startup). Support for quick user switching in Kickoff. Continued development progress in KDevelop 4. Work begins on resurrecting KEduca for the KDE 4.1 timeframe. New imagery for KTuberling and KMahjongg. Foundations laid for "undo close tab" in Konqueror. OSS device hotplugging in KMix. A bandwidth scheduler plugin in KTorrent. Interface work, including per-protocol UI specification in Kopete. Hardware database for an enhanced audio device experience in Phonon. Continued KDE 4 porting in K3b, with the integration of Solid and Phonon for device and media management. KDE 3.96 tagged, comprising Release Candidate 2 of the development platform (hopefully final), and Beta 5 (or Release Candidate 1) of the Desktop.
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In the final piece of the media puzzle of the past week, Aaron Seigo talks about the recent developments in Plasma in a Digest-exclusive screencast:
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(ensure sound is on to hear the voiceover)
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We can really see the separate elements of Plasma come together now - in the final stages leading to the KDE 4.0 release - to make the greater whole that is KDE 4. I'm getting quite excited!
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Matt Williams introduces his current work resurrecting KEduca:
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In most modules, there are many applications which have no maintainer since the days of KDE 3 and so have not made it to be ported to KDE 4 in time for KDE 4.0. It's an unavoidable fact of limited manpower. With luck, some will be finished by KDE 4.1 but there are some which have no one to care for them. KEduca - an application for writing and taking tests - is one of these.
Just the other day on IRC, Mauricio Piacentini talked about a guy he met who worked in government and had been using KEduca to administer tests to up to 45,000 students in poor communities (and that using KEduca had saved up to $10,000 in printing costs). When he heard that KEduca would not be in KDE 4 he was enormously disappointed. This inspired me to revive it and so I have been working to at least bring it up to the standard of the KDE 3 version. Now, of course, it won't make it for KDE 4.0 but by 4.1 it should be in great shape.
So far, I've got it compiling and running simple tests:
Since some of the code is very old and a partial rewrite would be necessary anyway, I decided to take this opportunity to increase the scope of the program. The KDE 3 version only had support for simple linear tests with multiple-choice questions stored in a home-grown (but nice and simple) file format. However, I felt that KDE deserved a more featureful piece of software and so I have started to implement the IMS QTI specification. While I will initially only be supporting a small section of the specification, it will allow interoperability with other test software, such as Moodle. Eventually, I plan to implement most of the test types available.
The code is currently in playground/edu if anyone wants to have a look.
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Dirk Mueller discusses the relicensing initiative, and provides a sysadmin's perspective on the recent KDE 4 Release Candidate 1 release:
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The KDE Relicensing initiative is trying to clarify and improve licensing of KDE source files. In particular we're concerned about GPL version 2-only licensed files. In most cases, this is an oversight, in other cases it is because some copyright holders do not want to say "or any later version" without actually knowing the specifics of how later version will function. For those we would like to offer a "GPL v2 + v3 + (any later version that was approved by the KDE e.V.)" licensing solution. The groundwork for that to happen is shaping up slowly. Jonathan Riddell has started a new Licensing Policy draft and we're trying to make it ready for becoming an official policy ASAP.
In addition we're trying to simplify our licensing and make it possible for KDE to link to or derive from projects that have switched or will switch to GPL v3. Still, we have not reached agreement from a critical mass of copyright holders (i.e. developers) to relicense their files. Developers: please check out this Techbase page.
In other news, the KDE 4 Release Candidate 1 Live CD was unexpectedly popular. Within a few hours, we had to mirror the CD to several high-bandwidth servers, install a load balancing mechanism and set up a BitTorrent alternative for it, and we still weren't able to do anything else than just watch the server crawl under the load. I would have preferred to see those problems coming with one of the previous beta released, but they did not get too much attention. Now being prepared, I'm waiting for new download highscores with RC2 :-)
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In an affirmation of the strong community spirit of KDE, Pradeepto Bhattacharya of KDE-India presents these posters celebrating different sections of the community:
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Anne-Marie Mahfouf, Celeste Lyn Paul, Ellen Reitmayr, Sharan Rao, David Faure, Aaron Seigo, Allen Winter, Philip Rodrigues, Sebastian Kuegler, Jos Poortvliet, and Piyush Verma are our models :).
These people are only a random sample of KDE contributors from our "large KDE family". The theme for the posters showcases the "human face" behind KDE Project - the wonderful community that keeps attracting people from all corners of the world and from all aspects of life/backgrounds.
All of us join together to form a beautiful family.
These were created by Kamaleshwar Morjal for the upcoming FOSS.in/2007 event.
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This past week saw a marked increase in bug fixing activity (more than double the previous week), with 4 contributors closing more than 30 bugs each, and all in the Top 10 table of excellence in extermination killing at least 10 bugs. I expect a continued acceleration of bug fixing up until the KDE 4.0 release, especially with efforts such as the KDE 4 Krush Saturdays.
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