K Desktop Environment
A screenshot of KDE 4, showing the default desktop with Dolphin, System Settings and the Kickoff menu. Dolphin is a File manager for KDE. It is the default file manager for the current version KDE 4 and can be optionally installed on KDE 3 A screenshot of KDE 3. 5, showing the default logout prompt.
Developed by	The KDE Team
Initial release	1996
Stable release	4.0.4  (May 6, 2008 (2008-05-06); 36 days ago) [+/−]
Preview release	4.1 Beta1  (May 27, 2008 (2008-05-27); 15 days ago) [+/−]
Written in	C++ and Qt
Platform	GNU/Linux and others
Available in	Multilingual (more than 80 different languages)
Development status	active
Genre	Desktop environment
License	GNU General Public License and others[1]
Website	www.kde.org

KDE (K Desktop Environment) (IPA: /ˌkeɪdiːˈiː/) is a free software project which aims to be a powerful system for an easy-to-use desktop environment. A software developer is a person or organization concerned with facets of the software development process wider than design and coding a somewhat broader scope of A software release is the distribution whether public or private of an initial or new and upgraded version of a Computer software product Events 1527 - Spanish and German troops sack Rome; some consider this the end of the Renaissance. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common A software release is the distribution whether public or private of an initial or new and upgraded version of a Computer software product Events 927 - Simeon the Great, Tsar of Bulgaria, dies 1120 - Richard III of Capua is anointed 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common A programming language is an Artificial language that can be used to write programs which control the behavior of a machine particularly a Computer. C++ (" C Plus Plus " ˌsiːˌplʌsˈplʌs is a general-purpose Programming language. Qt (pronounced "cute" by its creators is a Cross-platform application development framework widely used for the development of GUI programs (in which In Computing, a platform describes some sort of Hardware architecture or Software framework (including Application frameworks, that allows Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them Computer software can be organized into categories based on common function type or field of use In graphical computing a desktop environment ( DE) commonly refers to a style of Graphical user interface (GUI that is based on the Desktop metaphor which A software license (or software licence in commonwealth usage is a Legal instrument governing the usage or redistribution of copyright protected software A website (alternatively web site or Web site, a back-construction from the Proper noun World Wide Web) is a collection of Web pages Free software or software libre is Software that can be used studied and modified without restriction and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified In graphical computing a desktop environment ( DE) commonly refers to a style of Graphical user interface (GUI that is based on the Desktop metaphor which The goal of the project is to provide basic desktop functions and applications for daily needs as well as tools and documentation for developers to write stand-alone applications for the system. In this regard, the KDE project serves as an umbrella project for many standalone applications and smaller projects that are based on KDE technology. These include KOffice, KDevelop, Amarok, K3b and many others. KOffice is an Office suite for the K Desktop Environment ( KDE) KDevelop is a Free software Integrated development environment for the KDE desktop environment for Unix-like computer Operating systems Amarok (ˈæməɹɒk is a Free software music player for Linux or other varieties of Unix. K3b (from KDE Burn Baby Burn) is a CD and DVD authoring application for the KDE Desktop environment for Unix-like

History

Origins

KDE was founded in 1996 by Matthias Ettrich, who was then a student at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. Matthias Ettrich (born 14 June 1972 in Bietigheim-Bissingen, southern Germany) is a Computer scientist known for his contributions Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen ( German: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, sometimes called the "Eberhardina Carolina" is a public university At the time, he was troubled by certain aspects of the Unix desktop. Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer Among his qualms was that none of the applications looked, felt, or worked alike. Application software is a subclass of Computer software that employs the capabilities of a computer directly and thoroughly to a task that the user wishes to perform He proposed the formation of not only a set of applications, but rather a desktop environment, in which users could expect things to look, feel, and work consistently. In graphical computing a desktop environment ( DE) commonly refers to a style of Graphical user interface (GUI that is based on the Desktop metaphor which He also wanted to make this desktop easy to use; one of his complaints with desktop applications of the time was that his girlfriend could not use them. His initial Usenet post spurred a lot of interest, and the KDE project was born. Usenet, a Portmanteau of "user" and "network" is a world-wide distributed Internet discussion system ^[2]

The name KDE was intended as a word play on the existing Common Desktop Environment, available for Unix systems. The Common Desktop Environment ( CDE) a Graphical Desktop environment for Unix, leverages the Motif Widget toolkit CDE was an X11-based user environment jointly developed by HP, IBM, and Sun, through the X/Open Company, with an interface and productivity tools based on the Motif graphical widget toolkit. X/Open Company Ltd was a Consortium founded by several European UNIX systems manufacturers in 1984 to identify and promote Open standards in the field In computing Motif refers to both a Graphical user interface (GUI specification and the Widget toolkit for building applications that follow that specification It was supposed to be an intuitively easy-to-use desktop computer environment. ^[3] The K was originally suggested to stand for "Kool", but it was quickly decided that the K should stand for nothing in particular. Additionally, one of the tips in certain versions of KDE 3 incorrectly states that the K currently is just meant to be the letter before L in the Latin alphabet, the first letter in the word Linux (which is where KDE is usually run). ^[4]

Matthias Ettrich chose to use the Qt toolkit for the KDE project. Qt (pronounced "cute" by its creators is a Cross-platform application development framework widely used for the development of GUI programs (in which Other programmers quickly started developing KDE/Qt applications, and by early 1997, a few applications were being released. At the time, Qt did not use a free software license and members of the GNU project became concerned about the use of such a toolkit for building a free software desktop and applications. A free software licence is a Software licence which grants recipients rights to modify and redistribute the Software which would otherwise be prohibited by Copyright The GNU Project is a Free software, Mass collaboration project announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman. Notably, KDE was removed from Debian because the project interpreted the GPL as not allowing KDE to be linked to Qt. Debian ( pronounced) is a computer Operating system composed entirely of Free and open source software. Two projects were started: "Harmony", to create a Free replacement for the Qt libraries, and the GNOME project to create a new desktop without Qt and built entirely on top of free software. The Harmony toolkit is a never-completed Free software Widget toolkit that aimed to be API compatible with the then- proprietary Qt A gnome is a Mythical creature characterized by its extremely small size and subterranean lifestyle

First series

KDE 1. 0

On 12 July 1998 KDE 1. Events 1191 - Saladin 's garrison surrenders ending the two-year Siege of Acre. Year 1998 ( MCMXCVIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar) KDE 1 was the inaugural series of releases of the K Desktop Environment. 0 was released. In the release announcement the KDE team outlined the project and its reasons for creation:

In November 1998, the Qt toolkit was dual-licensed under the free/open source Q Public License (QPL) & commercial-licence (proprietary software is required to pay a licence fee to Trolltech) The same year, the KDE Free Qt foundation^[6] was created which guarantees that Qt would fall under a variant of the very liberal BSD license should Trolltech cease to exist or no free/open source version of Qt be released during 12 months. An open source license is a copyright License for Computer software that makes the source code available under terms that allow for modification and redistribution The Q Public License ( QPL) is a non- Copyleft Free software license created by Trolltech for its free edition of the Qt toolkit BSD licenses represent a family of Permissive free software licences. Open source software (OSS began as a marketing campaign for Free software. Debate continued about compatibility with the GNU General Public License (GPL), so in September 2000, Trolltech made the Unix version of the Qt libraries available under the GPL, in addition to the QPL, which eliminated the concerns of the Free Software Foundation. The Free Software Foundation ( FSF) is a Non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the Free software movement

Second and third series

KDE 2. 0

The second series of releases, KDE 2, introduced significant technological improvements. KDE 2 was the second series of releases of the K Desktop Environment. ^[7] These included DCOP (Desktop COmmunication Protocol), KIO, an application I/O library. DCOP, which stands for D esktop CO mmunication P rotocol, is a light-weight interprocess and Software componentry KIO ( KDE Input/Output) is part of the KDE architecture It provides access to files web sites and other resources through a single consistent API KParts, a component object model, allowing an application to embed another within itself, and KHTML, a HTML rendering and drawing engine. In Computer programming, KParts is the name of the component framework for the KDE Desktop environment. Component Object Model ( COM) is an interface standard for Software componentry introduced by Microsoft in 1993 KHTML is the HTML Layout engine developed by the KDE project It is the engine used by the Konqueror web browser HTML, an initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant Markup language for Web pages It provides a means to describe the structure ^[7]

KDE 3. 2 with Konqueror and the About screen.

The third series was much larger than the previous series, consisting of six major releases. KDE 3 was the third series of releases of the K Desktop Environment. The API changes between KDE 2 and KDE 3 were comparatively minor, meaning that the KDE 3 can be seen as largely a continuation of the KDE 2 series. All releases of KDE 3 are built upon Qt 3, which was only released under the GPL for Linux and Unix-like operating systems, including Mac OS X. For that reason, KDE 3 is only available on Windows through ports involving an X server.

Fourth series

KDE 4 is based on Qt 4 which is also released under the GPL for Windows and Mac OS X. KDE 4 is the current series of releases of the K Desktop Environment. Therefore KDE 4 applications can run natively on these operating systems as well.

KDE 4 includes many new technologies and technical changes. The centerpiece is a redesigned desktop and panels collectively called Plasma which integrates Kicker, KDesktop, and SuperKaramba and is intended to update the decades-old desktop metaphor. Plasma, part of KDE 4, is a fundamental rewrite of several desktop interaction technologies included in the KDE desktop environment for Linux and other Kicker is the main panel used in KDE. It can be customized by the user KDesktop is the component of the K Desktop Environment that provides a virtual background window to draw icons or other graphics on prior to KDE 4. SuperKaramba is a tool that allows one to easily create functionality enhancement modules on a KDE Desktop. The desktop metaphor is an Interface metaphor which is a set of unifying concepts used by Graphical user interfaces to help users more easily interact with the There are a number of new frameworks, including Phonon, a new multimedia interface making KDE independent of any one specific media backend, Solid, an API for network and portable devices, and Decibel, a new communication framework to integrate all communication protocols into the desktop. Phonon is the multimedia API for KDE 4. Phonon was created to allow KDE 4 to be independent of any single multimedia framework such as GStreamer or Solid is a new device integration framework for KDE 4, the current release of the K Desktop Environment. Decibel is a new communication framework for KDE4, the next major release of the K Desktop Environment. Also featured is a metadata and search framework, incorporating Strigi as a full-text file indexing service, and NEPOMUK with KDE integration. Strigi is an advanced desktop-independent search daemon initiated by Jos van den Oever NEPOMUK, or Networked Environment for Personalized Ontology-based Management of Unified Knowledge, is an open-source software specification that is concerned with the development ^[8]

Organization

Like many free/open source software projects, KDE is primarily a volunteer effort, although various companies, such as Novell (in the form of SuSE), Trolltech, and Mandriva employ developers to work on the project. Novell Inc ( is a global Software Corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE SUSE Linux (ˈsuːsə is a major Operating system. The developer rights are owned by Novell Inc Mandriva SA is a publicly traded (symbolMDKFF Linux and Open source Software company with its headquarters in Paris, France and Since a large number of individuals contribute to KDE in various ways (e. g. code, translation, artwork), organization of such a project is complex. Most problems are discussed on a number of different mailing lists. A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients Important decisions, such as release dates and inclusion of new applications, are made on the kde-core-devel list by the so-called core developers. Application software is a subclass of Computer software that employs the capabilities of a computer directly and thoroughly to a task that the user wishes to perform These are developers who have made significant contributions to KDE over a long period of time. Decisions are not made by a formal voting process, but by discussion on the mailing lists. In most cases this seems to work well, and major debates (such as the question of whether the KDE 2 API should be broken in favour of KDE 3) are rare.

The KDE project and related events are frequently sponsored by individuals, universities, and businesses. ^[9] On 15 October 2006, it was announced that Mark Shuttleworth became the first patron of KDE, the highest level of sponsorship available. Events 533 - Byzantine General Belisarius makes his formal entry into Carthage, having conquered it from the Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Mark Richard Shuttleworth (born 18 September 1973) is a South African Entrepreneur who was the second self-funded Space tourist and Patronage is the support encouragement privilege and often financial aid given by a person or an organization ^[10] On 2007-07-07, it was announced that Intel Corporation and Novell became patrons of KDE. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 1456 - A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death Novell Inc ( is a global Software Corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE ^[11]

While developers and users are now located all over the world, the project retains a strong base in Germany. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. The web servers are located at the universities of Tübingen and Kaiserslautern, a German non-profit organization (KDE e. Tübingen, a traditional University town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, is situated 30 km (19 miles southwest of Stuttgart, on a ridge between (kaɪzɐsˈlaʊtɐn is a City in southwest Germany, located in the Bundesland State of Rhineland-Palatinate ( Rheinland-Pfalz) at V. ) owns the trademark on "KDE" and KDE conferences often take place in Germany. A trademark or trade mark, represented by the symbols ™ and ®, or mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual

Identity

Konqi, mascot of the KDE project

Many KDE applications have a "K" in the name, mostly as an initial letter and capitalized. However, there are notable exceptions like kynaptic, whose K is not capitalized, and Amarok. Synaptic is a Computer program which is a GTK+ Graphical user interface front-end to the Advanced Packaging Tool for the Debian package Amarok (ˈæməɹɒk is a Free software music player for Linux or other varieties of Unix. The K in many KDE applications is obtained by spelling a word which originally begins with C or Q differently, for example Konsole (which, incidentally, is correct spelling in German) and Kuickshow. Konsole is also the German spelling of Console. Konsole is a free Terminal emulator which is part of KDE. Also, some just prefix a commonly used word with a K, for instance KOffice. KOffice is an Office suite for the K Desktop Environment ( KDE) Some applications do not have a K in the name at all, such as Gwenview. Gwenview is an Image viewer for the KDE Desktop environment. The current maintainer is Aurélien Gâteau This seems to be an increasing trend among KDE 4 applications and technologies.

The KDE project's mascot is a green dragon named Konqi. The term mascot – defined as a term for any person animal or object thought to bring Luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common

Development

KDE is built with Trolltech's Qt toolkit which runs on most Unix and Unix-like systems, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. Qt (pronounced "cute" by its creators is a Cross-platform application development framework widely used for the development of GUI programs (in which Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer A Unix-like (sometimes shortened to *nix) Operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system while not necessarily conforming Mac OS X (mæk oʊ ɛs tɛn is a line of computer Operating systems developed marketed and sold by Apple Inc, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Both KDE and GNOME now participate in freedesktop.org, an effort to standardize Unix desktop interoperability, although there is still some competition between them. ^[12]

Release cycle

The KDE team releases new versions on a regular basis.

Platform releases

Platform releases are major releases that begin a series (version number X. 0). These releases are allowed to break both binary and source-compatibility with the predecessor, or to put it differently, all following releases (X. 1, X. 2, . . . ) will guarantee source compatibility (API). This means, for instance, that software that was developed for KDE 3. 0 will work on all (future) KDE 3 releases, in contrast to an application that was developed for KDE 2, which is not guaranteed to be able to make use of the KDE 3 libraries. KDE major version numbers follow the Qt release cycle meaning that KDE 4 is based on Qt 4, while KDE 3 was based on Qt 3.

Standard releases

There are two main types of releases, major releases and maintenance releases.

Major releases (with two version numbers, for example 3. 5) contain new features. As soon as a major release is ready and announced, work on the next major release starts. A major release needs several months to be finished and many bugs that are fixed during this time are backported to the stable branch, meaning that these fixes are incorporated into the last stable release by maintenance releases. Backporting is the action of taking a certain Software modification ( patch) and applying it to an older version of the software than it was initially created for

Maintenance releases have three version numbers, e. A maintenance release (also minor release) is a release of a product that does not add new features or content g. KDE 1. 1. 1, and focus on fixing bugs, minor glitches and making small usability improvements. Maintenance releases in general do not allow new features although some releases include small enhancements. A shortened release schedule is used.

Applications

The Kontact personal information manager and Konqueror file manager/web browser running on KDE 3. 5.

Major applications for KDE include:

• Amarok - Audio player
• K3b - Optical disc authoring software
• Kate - Text editor
• KDevelop - Integrated development environment
• Konsole - Terminal emulator
• Kontact - Personal information manager featuring an e-mail client, a news client, a feed aggregator, To-do lists and more. Amarok (ˈæməɹɒk is a Free software music player for Linux or other varieties of Unix. K3b (from KDE Burn Baby Burn) is a CD and DVD authoring application for the KDE Desktop environment for Unix-like Optical disc authoring software is Computer software for authoring optical discs including CD-ROMs and DVDs They are also known by synonyms In Computing, Kate is a Text editor for KDE. The Acronym "Kate" stands for " K DE a dvanced t ext A text editor is a type of program used for editing plain Text files Text editors are often provided with Operating systems or software development KDevelop is a Free software Integrated development environment for the KDE desktop environment for Unix-like computer Operating systems In Computing, an integrated development environment ( IDE) is a Software application that provides comprehensive facilities to Computer programmers Konsole is also the German spelling of Console. Konsole is a free Terminal emulator which is part of KDE. A terminal emulator, terminal application, term, or tty for short is a program that emulates a "dumb" video terminal within some other Kontact is a Personal information manager and Groupware software suite for KDE. An e-mail client, aka Mail User Agent (MUA aka e-mail reader is a frontend Computer program used to manage E-mail. In computing a feed aggregator, also known as a feed reader, news reader or simply aggregator, is client software or a Web application
• Kopete - Instant messaging client
• Konqueror - File manager and web browser
• KOffice - Office suite

For more applications, see list of KDE applications. Kopete is a multi-protocol Free software Instant messaging client. An instant messaging client is a software application that enables the user to engage in Instant messaging. Konqueror is a Web browser, File manager and File viewer designed as a core part of the K Desktop Environment. A file manager or file browser is a Computer program that provides a User interface to work with File systems The most common operations used A web browser is a software application which enables a user to display and interact with text images videos music games and other information typically located on a KOffice is an Office suite for the K Desktop Environment ( KDE) In Computing, an office suite, sometimes called an office software suite or productivity suite is a Software suite intended to be used by typical This is a list of applications written for KDE and sorted by categories

Base technologies

• KDELibs
• KHTML - HTML engine
• KIO - extensible network-transparent file access
• Kiosk - allows disabling features within KDE to create a more controlled environment
• KParts - lightweight in-process graphical component framework
• KWin - window manager
• XMLGUI - allows defining UI elements such as menus and toolbars via XML files

Technologies added in KDE 4

• Plasma - desktop and panel widget engine
• Phonon - multimedia framework
• Solid - device integration framework
• Sonnet - spell checker
• ThreadWeaver - library to more effectively use multiprocessor systems

Technologies superseded in KDE 4

• aRts - sound server (replaced with Phonon)
• DCOP - inter-process communication system (replaced with D-Bus)

Toolkit licensing

Qt, to which native graphical KDE applications link for their graphical widgets, is free software, dual-licensed under the GNU GPL versions 2 and 3, and QPL licenses. KDELibs is a collection of libraries built on top of Qt that provides Frameworks and functionality for developers of KDE -compatible KHTML is the HTML Layout engine developed by the KDE project It is the engine used by the Konqueror web browser KIO ( KDE Input/Output) is part of the KDE architecture It provides access to files web sites and other resources through a single consistent API Kiosk is a framework that allows a user to restrict the capabilities of the KDE environment In Computer programming, KParts is the name of the component framework for the KDE Desktop environment. KWIN is a commercial Radio station located in Lodi California, broadcasting to the Stockton California area on 97 XMLGUI is a KDE framework for designing the user interface of an application using XML, using the idea of actions Don't change "Extensible" Plasma, part of KDE 4, is a fundamental rewrite of several desktop interaction technologies included in the KDE desktop environment for Linux and other Phonon is the multimedia API for KDE 4. Phonon was created to allow KDE 4 to be independent of any single multimedia framework such as GStreamer or Solid is a new device integration framework for KDE 4, the current release of the K Desktop Environment. Sonnet is a multilingual spell check program to be included in KDE 4 ThreadWeaver is a programming library developed for KDE 4 by Mirko Boehm that allows developers to easily take advantage of multicore processors aRts, which stands for a nalog R eal t ime s ynthesizer is an audio framework that is no longer under development A sound server is Software that manages the use of and access to audio devices most notably the Soundcard. Phonon is the multimedia API for KDE 4. Phonon was created to allow KDE 4 to be independent of any single multimedia framework such as GStreamer or DCOP, which stands for D esktop CO mmunication P rotocol, is a light-weight interprocess and Software componentry Inter-Process Communication ( IPC) is a set of techniques for the exchange of data among two or more threads in one or more processes. D-Bus is a Free software project which offers a simple way for applications to communicate with one another Qt (pronounced "cute" by its creators is a Cross-platform application development framework widely used for the development of GUI programs (in which A widget toolkit, widget library, or GUI toolkit is a set of widgets for use in designing applications with Graphical user interfaces (GUIs Dual-licensing is the practice of distributing Software under two different sets of terms and conditions The Q Public License ( QPL) is a non- Copyleft Free software license created by Trolltech for its free edition of the Qt toolkit Trolltech also sell licenses for developing proprietary software. Proprietary software is Computer software on which the producer has set restrictions on use private modification copying, or republishing. When using the free versions, programs which link to Qt must be released as free software (under the GPL or another license permitted by the QPL, such as the BSD or LGPL for example). Free software or software libre is Software that can be used studied and modified without restriction and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified

It is not necessary to use Qt or the KDE libraries to write software which integrates well with the KDE desktop. Software using any other toolkit, following the freedesktop.org standards or using KDE facilities such as KPrinter and KDialog can integrate nicely with the KDE desktop (both KPrinter and KDialog link to Qt, and are under the GPL), however the widgets will not have the exact behavior of Qt widgets. Additional integration efforts are being discussed in the Portland Free Desktop initiative,^[24] and are planned for KDE 4. The Portland Project is an initiative taken to establish a greater Linux foothold in the desktop market

Some other free/open source desktop platforms (such as GNOME, Xfce and EDE) use toolkits licensed under the LGPL. A gnome is a Mythical creature characterized by its extremely small size and subterranean lifestyle Xfce ( ɛf siː iː is a Free software Desktop environment for Unix and other Unix-like platforms such as Linux, Solaris EDE or Equinox Desktop Environment is a small Desktop environment that is meant to be simple and fast A widget toolkit, widget library, or GUI toolkit is a set of widgets for use in designing applications with Graphical user interfaces (GUIs The GNU Lesser General Public License (formerly the GNU Library General Public License) or LGPL is a Free software license published by the Free Software The LGPL permits proprietary/closed source applications to link to libraries licensed under the LGPL, with some restrictions: the Section 6 of the LGPL v2. 1 prohibits linking to software with a license that restricts reverse-engineering and modification of the work for the customer's own use. ^[25] The proprietary Qt license which Trolltech sells does not carry these restrictions. Proprietary software is Computer software on which the producer has set restrictions on use private modification copying, or republishing.

See also

• Comparison of X Window System desktop environments

Notes and references

External links

• The KDE website