News Archive for September 2000

 Mon 02/10
  - CVS tag KDE_2_0_RELEASE
  - cvs is effectively read-only now
  - the tag will be moved for _real_ show stoppers only
  - at least two core developers have to approve a show stopper fix
  - RC1 tarballs will be released
 
 Mon 09/10
  - prepare KDE 2.0 final tarballs
  - release tarballs to the packagers
 
 Fri  13/10
  - spread source and binary packages to the mirror sites
 
 Mon 16/10
  - announce KDE2
  - PARTY on irc.kde.org
 
 February/March 2001 - KDE 2.1 release.
 
 March 2001 - HEAD will be moved to Qt3.0 which is scheduled for
 February/March 2001. This means that we will break kdelibs binary
 compatibility for KDE 2.2, but this will happen anyway due to the new
 compiler ABIs.
 
 Summer 2001 - KDE 2.2 based on Qt3.0
 

"Max, who designed KDE Studio, didn't know Linux or C++ two years ago. He wanted an IDE on Linux. He had a graphic design company, which is why he's so good on the visuals. He can't even really speak English, but I've gotten to where I can understand him. I have him doing the design for three projects, and he keeps wanting to know when he can start on more."

( talkback )

Today Tink asks Coolo her fast and precise series of questions and so we are granted the concentrated Coolo portrait that we all so much wanted for our nice collection.

Thanks Coolo, for your excellent work on KDE. Thank you, Tink, for helping us learn more about our sleepless history creators.

( talkback )

We hope you will like what you find there, including KDE development and user news, discussions, feature articles and more. The only catch is that we ask that you help us out by actually submitting articles. Click here for a few more details.

The announcement

This release represents a major upgrade to PyQt...

• Full support for relevant Qt v2.2.0 classes (206 classes in all)
• pyuic converts Qt Designer .ui files to PyQt code
• Python and Qt Unicode support integrated
• Support for Python v1.6 and v2.0
• Support for Windows (binaries available, no Qt license required)

There are some small differences between this and earlier versions (related to installation, the implementation of enums and str/repr applied to QStrings) that will affect scripts. Please read the documentation.

From Debian Weekly News:
" KDE packages are pouring into Debian. All of the core of KDE is already present in unstable, and more packages are sure to follow. This unexpected turn of events is due to a change in the license of Qt 2.2 -- Troll Tech released it dual-licensed under the GPL -- the KDE licensing issue is finally resolved. For an excellent summary of the Debian/KDE issue and recent events, look no farther than this article in LinuxPlanet "

Debian Weekly News - 2000-9-12

Christine Bastian, volunteer investigator in chief of our hypothetic promotional department, decided to bring to the community of KDE users and fans a weekly feature that will portray, one by one, people that make KDE happen, evolve, and surpass itself.

This week's feature, the inaugural one, is dedicated to Matthias Ettrich the legendary founder of KDE and one of the most active developers of this project's times.

Stay tuned, the page of KDE people will bring to us a new interview in each of the following weeks. We're hoping to prove that KDE's developers are interesting not only by their work but also by their earthly presence.

Let's thank Christine for her generous effort and to the interviewed for their disponibility. Have a nice read, all.

"We will to wait until the Qt 2.2 release and [until] someone makes packages of a KDE2 snapshot that is based on that before we can include it," wrote Ackerman. "Considering how many people have been asking for KDE packages in Debian I expect that we will have packages within 2 weeks of the Qt/UNIX 2.2 release."

The article

" Oslo, Norway - September 6, 2000 - Trolltech announced today the release of Qt version 2.2. Qt is a cross-platform C++ graphical user interface application framework that provides users a software development environment to produce commercial-grade, multi-platform software. Qt currently supports Windows, Linux, Unix and Embedded Linux. Also released today was Qt Designer, a Rapid Application Development (RAD) tool that provides a graphical interface to the Qt Application Programming Interface (API).

The announcement

Many of us woke up this morning and read Richard Stallman's editorial on Linux Today with a growing sense of incredulity. At first, some of us thought it was a joke -- it didn't make any logical sense, after all. But after it sunk in that Stallman was doing yet another snowjob on KDE, a lot of our incredulity turned to anger.

This does not pretend to be any kind of consensus or official statement, just an interesting look on how some individual developers feel about the matter.

Read it here

"Indeed. We don't need to define losers or even winners. These are the battle cries of the Unix warriors, come to play out the same tired skirmishes on Linux turf, marshalled by commercially-bred mind sets which hold that competition must result in victory and defeat. That mind set isn't just unhelpful, it's harmful. The open source community needs to see beyond the puffed-up wars and the public spectacle of it all. We need not heed the call to arms. "

The article

"In a recent editorial on Linux Today, Richard Stallman claimed that KDE is still in violation of the GPL even though Qt is now covered under the GPL and all KDE code is compatible with the GPL. His rather absurd reasoning is that since KDE once violated the GPL, it will always be in violation unless the individual copyright holders "grant forgiveness."

KDE Responds

" One happy beneficiary of Qt's new GPL license is KDE, the most popular Linux desktop environment, which is currently vying with GNOME to be the preferred environment for mainstream Linux developments. KDE, an open source project itself, has occasionally been shunned by open source advocates due to its dependence on the non-GPL Qt. "

The article

There are nummerous reasons to consider this Qt release as a major cornerstone, that - in collaboration with KDE's 2.0 version (soon to be released) - will change the face of Unix desktops for ever:

• the licensing scheme (QPL or GPL or Professional) is bound to please everybody;
• the awesome Qt Designer, a graphics interface editor, is included (under GPL) in the release
• the number of tools having the purpose of simplifying even further the GUI development with Qt, like actions, properties, multithreading, are included in this latest stable release
• many advanced widgets become available: canvas, table/spreadsheet etc.

We'd like to congratulate our friends at Trolltech for the most important Qt release ever.

For details, look at the official announcement. There is also a great heartfelt comment (also available here from Eirik Eng and Matthias Ettrich of Trolltech. You can also read the initial comments by LinuxPlanet's Kevin Reichard.

Many thanks to our friends, the Trolltech developers.