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The fourth quarter of2010 concludes anamazing year for KDEand KDE e.V.A lot of great thingshappened.We had a wonderfulAkademy under theFinnish midnight sun,
one of the best Akademies ever,mixing old and new people in abeautiful and wonderfullyorganized environment. Smallergroups met for nineteen KDEe.V. supported developer sprintsthroughout the year to get codedone, to plan development, tobuild community.We had a hugely successfulsummer of code and, to me evenmore impressive, a busy season
of KDE, driven by passion, notmoney. We mentored almost ahundred highschool studentsduring Google's codein on theirway into the free softwarecommunity.Our fantastic sysadmin group didit, and migrated to git. Ourpromo team did wonders, with aconstant flux of people coming inand going out. The release teamcranked out no less than twentythree releases, including themajor 4.4 and 4.5 releases,which are accepted as stableand enjoyable even by some ofthe stronger KDE 4 critics.We also launched our "Join thegame" campaign which givesindividuals a way to contribute toKDE as supporting members. Sofar, more than a hundred people
have participated. Many thanksfor your continued support. Youhelp to make KDE happen. Youare KDE.2011 promises to be anotheramazing year. In the summerwe'll have the Berlin DesktopSummit together with our friendsfrom GNOME. We arecontinuing to run developersprints with full steam, pushingthe limits of KDE. KDE willorganize and participate in alarge number of events bringingtogether the community, andshowing the world what can bedone with free software.I'm thankful for a great year2010, and looking forward to afantastic year 2011.Cornelius Schumacher
CONTENTSWelcome Message 1
What's happened in KDE during the past quarter?The Supporting Members of KDE 2
Who are the people who make KDE possible?KDE Activities 3-8
Recaps from KDE Developer sprints, trade shows and other gatherings.Open Software, Open Design, Open Culture 8-9
Images from the community.New Members, Finances, and Board 10-1 1
WELCOME MESSAGE
KDE
COMMUNITY REPORT4TH QUARTER, 2010 | ISSUE 16
Any complicated ecosystem, whether natural or of software, is composed of many smaller components. KDE is no exception. In addition to being a desktop, KDE isalso a set of frameworks and foundation projects upon which other applications are built. Some of these include the Oxygen icons (top right), Akonadi search (bottomleft), Nepomuk (middle), and Decibel (right). Each of the technologies has its own group of developers and community that help to drive it forward.
KDE eV Community Report | Issue 16 | 4th Quarter, 2010 ev.kde.org/reports 2
MEET THE SUPPORTING MEMBERS OF KDEIn June 2010, KDE e.V. launched the individualsupporting membership program 'Join the Game',which is an opportunity for KDE enthusiasts tosupport the KDE community financially. The firstsupporting member, Georg Greve the founder ofthe Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) andthe holder of the German 'Bundesverdienstkreuz',Joined the Game on June 9th, 2010. "KDE hasawesome technology developed by an incrediblecommunity that has had my support for years, soit's an honor to 'Join the Game'!", explaining hismotivation to become a supporting member.There are many good reasons to support KDE witha regular contribution (25€ per quarter or 100€ peryear). It enables KDE e.V. to have a predictableand stable income, which can be used to supportcontributors and events that help speed updevelopment of KDE software, enhance promotionefforts and help grow the community.KDE e.V. contributors and users are scatteredthroughout the world and have many differentbackgrounds; their reasons for contributing arelikely to be just as diverse. We caught up with our125th supporting member, Paul Eggleton, to askhim why he Joined the Game.It is no wonder that Paul is involved in free / opensource software professionally (as an EmbeddedLinux Engineer with Intel's Open SourceTechnology Centre) as well as in his leisure time.Paul has been a keen user of KDE software since2002, and also a developer, though he currentlydoesn't contribute code to KDE. That's why hedecided to enable KDE development indirectly by'Joining the Game'. He learned about this program
mainly from blog posts via the Planet KDE website.From the wide range of KDE applications, the onesthat Paul uses most are Dolphin, Konsole,Konversation and Kate. He uses Kontact for emailevery day, both at work and at home, and isinterested in the new upcoming KDE PIM suite. Forfurther improvements, he would like to seeNepomuk, Akonadi and some of the other "pillars"of KDE Platform 4 more smoothly integrated withKDE applications, in a way that is not too intrusiveor unfriendly to users. Moreover, Paul is interestedto see what happens with Konqueror and theCalligra suite. Broadly, the thing that most interestsPaul about KDE is how the various componentsand applications integrate together. He believesthat, if the level of integration can increase withouttoo many hard dependencies being created, thedesktop experience can be enriched even further.Paul definitely agrees with the idea of 'softwarefreedom for everyone'. He points out howimportant Free Software is to enable people fromdifferent countries to collaborate over the Internetto produce such a wide range of Free and OpenSource software.Another benefit of being a supporting memberincludes an invitation to KDE e.V.'s Annual GeneralAssembly during the international KDE contributormeeting Akademy. Paul is planning to attendAkademy in the future to meet fellow supportersand the greater KDE community.If you too would like to financially support KDE,please visit the individual supporting membershipprogram website at http://jointhegame.kde.org
ALL GREAT ENDEAVORS ARECOMPOSED OF SMALLER EFFORTS
THANK YOU TO THE MANY WHO MAKE KDE POSSIBLE
TO SUPPORT KDE, PLEASE GO TOJOINTHEGAME.KDE.ORG
Leaf Structure JFest Germany (Look:KDE).
KDE eV Community Report | Issue 16 | 4th Quarter, 2010 ev.kde.org/reports 3
Developer SprintsSOLID SPRINT,MADRID, SPAIN1 st to 3rd October 2010
Solid is the part of theKDE Platform that
handles interaction withhardware, making it easy forapplication developers to dealwith things like networkavailability by abstractingunderlying libraries within afamiliar KDEstyle API. Solid isbecoming a welldefined teamwithin KDE. Everybody isexcited about the idea ofattracting more developersinterested in hardware supporton the desktop, mobile devices,netbooks, media center and
beyond. There are now quite afew developers working onSolid, so it was a good time toget them all together for a sprintin Madrid, Spain.Sebastian Kügler, ReleaseManager and KDE e.V. BoardMember, combined his visit tothe Solid sprint with meetingswith local representatives fromMadrid City Council and thecentral government ITDepartment. Sebastian andRafael Fernandez (KDE SpainVice President) with members ofASOLIF (the federation of freesoftware small and mediumenterprise associations),introduced KDE and KDE Spain,discussing legal, economic andmanagement aspects of freesoftware communities. As a
result of these conversations,KDE Spain attended SIMONetworks, the largest IT event inMadrid.The Solid sprint was a greatsuccess. Some Solidcomponents have moved to amore flexible, scalable, usableand energyfriendly architecture,while others have received lovein usability, stability and featurecompleteness. Janitorlike taskslike deprecating HAL in KDEsoftware have been movedforward, and are expected to becompleted with the next featurerelease of the KDE Platform inJanuary 2011.
KDE ACTIVITIES
Left, Developers at Ovi Sprint (photo by Dan LeinirTurthra Jensen). Bottom left, KDE Developersworking at Solid Sprint. Bottom right, The SolidDeveloper Team. (Photo by Sebastian Kügler.)
SPRINTS PROVIDEKDE USERS,
DEVELOPERS, ANDDESIGNERS THEOPPORTUNITY TOMEET AND SOLVEPROBLEMS FACE
TO FACE.
KDE eV Community Report | Issue 16 | 4th Quarter, 2010 ev.kde.org/reports 4
OVI AND KDE SPRINT,MUNICH, GERMANY8th to 10th October 2010
Dinesh SaiFrom October 8th to 10th, Nokiaand KDE jointly hosted adeveloper sprint at Nokia's Officein Munich. Knut Yrvin, wellknown community manager ofNokia, helped set up the sprint.The sprint brought together 13members of the KDE communityto work on the topic: How Oviand KDE can mutually benefiteach other from theperspectives of both softwaredevelopment and a purelycollaborative effort.Ovi is an umbrella for Nokia'scloud services, and currentlyincludes a Messaging service,Music store, an App store forNokia Phones and a Mapservice. The sprint participantsdiscussed how some of Ovi’sservices can already beharnessed by KDE and how therest of them can be integratedinto the appropriate KDEApplications. They also talkedabout how KDE might be able tohelp replace Ovi Files (whichwas about to shut down), withthe ownCloud project, started byone of the sprinters, FrankKarlitschek. The sprint was alsohelpful to discuss the results andthe future of Google Summer ofCode student Dinesh’s projectwith his mentor Sascha Peilicke.As a token of appreciation, alongwith a few N900’s and N97minis,Nokia graciously gave thesprinters free passes to its QtDeveloper Days event inMunich. These were really useful
for the sprinters, both at apersonal level and for theirsprintrelated research work. Theresults of the brainstormingsessions will soon be sent toNokia and a fruitful collaborationexpected.
KDE MARBLE SPRINT,NUREMBERG, GERMANY5th to 7th November 2010
The Marble Developer Weekendwas held in Nuremberg at thebasysKom Office, where almosta dozen developers from theMarble community (the"Marbleheads") met.Marble 1.0 will be released inJanuary 2011. In preparation, thesprint attendees analyzed thecurrent state of the Marble clientand its Qt map widget library(libMarble). The presentationscovered innovative features suchas the new worldwide Onlineand Offline Routing capabilitiesin Marble 1.0.
Bernhard Beschow presentedthe first results of the OpenGLrendering development.Inclusion of OpenGL into Marbleis currently scheduled for Marble1.2; the proper integration of thiscapability into the Marble librarywas an important topic as it canoffer power savings, useful formobile versions of the software.Other developer sessionscovered libmarble Qt QuickBindings, Marble's internal OGCKML based data structures, theMac port and improved supportfor Digital Elevation Models.The current Marble 0.10.0 wasthe first release that broughtofficial support for mobileplatforms. So the Marble MeeGoversion and the current state ofQt Mobility were at the center ofdiscussions. Several proposalsfor user interface changes weremade and lots of promisingsolutions were found.On 7th November, the groupcovered topics such ascommunity outreach, improvedmarketing and incubation withthe OSGeo foundation. TheMarble Team is looking for newvolunteers to help withmarketing, evangelism anddocumentation. The sprintended with a hacking sessionwhere bugfixes and newlydiscussed features weredeveloped.
OVI IS AN UMBRELLA FOR NOKIA'S CLOUDSERVICES. AT THE OVI SPRINT, THERE WASDISCUSSION OF HOW OWNCLOUD, A KDETECHNOLOGY, MIGHT BE USED ALONGSIDE
OTHER, EXISTING NOKIA SOFTWARE.
KDE eV Community Report | Issue 16 | 4th Quarter, 2010 ev.kde.org/reports 5
KDE MOBILE MEETING,BERLIN, GERMANY18th to 21 st November 2010
This sprint was kindly hosted inKDAB's Berlin office, where KDEpeople could discuss anddevelop with a mobile target inmind. The objective of the sprintwas to connect various KDEteams whose work in some wayinvolves mobile platforms, sothat they could shareexperiences and work onimprovements for all mobileprojects.The KDE project has a subproject working on an advancedmobile user interface, using Qtand QML. After receiving theirLenovo IdeaPad's at the MeeGoConference, a group of KDEhackers set about getting KDEsoftware running on the multitouch capable tablet/netbookhybrid. Discussions were abouthow to make it easier forapplications that will use QML tohave the KDE convenienceclasses.After these discussions, twothings were clear to the KDEMobile team: first, we will needto provide some KDEconveniences to all applicationsthat want to use QML, andsecond, we want to provide QMLcomponents to ease thedevelopment of theseapplications.
Trade Shows andCommunity EventsINTERGEOCOLOGNE, GERMANY5th to 7th October 2010
INTERGEO is the world's largestevent for geodesy,geoinformation and landmanagement with a largenumber of exhibitors and a lot ofvisitors. The KDE Marble teamwas invited to present itssoftware at the booth of OSGeoand its German representativeFOSSGIS e.V. They presentedthe KDEEdu Marble applicationand its library on October 6thand 7th with two talks and livedemonstrations at the booth forindividuals.Many people came to the boothand were interested in what ispossible with KDE Marble. Manyof these people saw KDEsoftware for the first time; othersalready knew about KDE andwere interested in what haschanged in our software duringthe past few years.All in all it was an interestingexperience to present KDEsoftware to a professionalaudience with a completelydifferent focus.
SOLISC,FLORIANÓPOLIS,BRAZIL22nd 23rdOctober 2010
KDE was represented again inthe Software Livre SantaCatarina (SoliSC), which is thebiggest Open Source and FreeSoftware event in Florianopolis,Brazil. The aim of the FreeSoftware Association of SantaCatarina (organizer of this event)is to create a permanent forumfor the discussion of freesoftware in the state of SantaCatarina. Therefore, the maingoals of this group are toeducate people, to encouragethe use of Free and OpenSource Software (FOSS), topromote economic and socialdevelopment through FOSS,and to create opportunities forpeople who otherwise would nothave access to technology.Tomaz Canabrava, a well knownKDE contributor, gave a talkduring SoLiSC about 'KDEScientific Appplications' includingKile, Cantor and Rocs, and gotgood feedback from SoLiSCattendees. It was great to see somany people interested in theKDE software and the KDEcommunity.
ATTENDING TRADESHOWS ALLOWSFOR KDE MEMBERSTO INTERACT WITHTHE LARGER FREE
SOFTWARECOMMUNITY.
Right, KDE developers and users attending theBrazilian Northeast Free Software meeting
(photos by KDEBr).
In addition to the talks, there wasa user group space whereattendees were able to meeteach other and mingle. Therewas also a businessfocusedmeeting that took place duringthe event. It was supported bythe local enterprise supportorganization (SEBRAESC), andserved as a bridge between localbusiness and FOSS experts towork towards the implementationof free alternatives in smallbusiness.ROME LINUX DAYROME, ITALY23 October 2010
The Rome Linux Day wasorganized by La Sapienza LinuxUsers Group and sponsored byNovell. KDE was represented byItalian KDE blogger GiovanniVenturi.
IV BRAZILIAN NORTHEASTMEETING OF FREESOFTWARE (ENSL)NATAL, BRAZIL5th and 6th November 2010
The main goal of ENSL ispromoting the use anddevelopment of Free Softwareas a path to the freedom ofspeech, economy andtechnology. This year, as part ofIV ENSL, there were twonational subevents: 7º ForumGNOME and 3º KDE Forum.During the second edition of the3º KDE Brazil Forum (the firstone was in International FreeSoftware Forum), KDE Brazilmembers presented lectures andminicourses about Qt/KDEcommunity and technologies.Almost 600 participants filled outthe meeting and Forum KDEBrazil talks. All 50 places in theQt and Plasmoid Development
shortcourses were taken. It wasreally nice to see how peopleare increasingly gettinginterested in KDE, Qt/QML, andmobile development.LATINOWARE, FOZ DOIGUAÇU, BRAZIL10th 12th November 2010
Sandro AndradeFrom 10th to 12th of November2010, the 7th LatinAmericanConference on Free Software(Latinoware 2010) took place atParque Tecnológico de ItaipuFoz do Iguaçu (PR Brazil). It isthe second largest conferenceon free software in Brazil andbrought together 3125participants from 20 countries.There were 160 talks and 20shortcourses. For three years ina row, KDE Brazil has beenattending Latinoware. We havegiven talks and shortcourses.
Left, An impromptu working group at the Latinoware conference. Right, When attending trade shows and other KDE meetings, users shared theirexperiences with the KDE software compilation. (Photos by KDEBr.)
KDE eV Community Report | Issue 16 | 4th Quarter, 2010 ev.kde.org/reports 7
This year, in a first initiative for abetter KDE integration LatinAmerica, we had with us RonnyAizcorbe from KDE Peru,presenting a talk about "3DDevelopment with Qt and KDE".Additionally, six other talks andtwo shortcourses put Qt/KDEbased mobile and gamesdevelopment, KDE community,Plasma, and DBus in focus aspart of the "3rd Forum KDEBrazil LatinAmerican Edition".Just one week after the "3rdForum KDE Brazil NortheastEdition" (at ENSL 2010), KDEparticipation in Latinoware 2010stood out with the presentationof "Two games in 40 minutes"talk, by Tomaz Canabrava, and acrowded booth helping peoplediscover the newest features ofKDE. It was nice to meet againopenSUSE fellows and ourboothneighbors gnomies :)
MEEGO CONFERENCE,DUBLIN, IRELAND1 5th 17th November 2010
MeeGo is an open source, Linuxproject which brings together theMoblin project, headed up byIntel, and Maemo, by Nokia, intoa single open source activity.MeeGo integrates theexperience and skills of twosignificant developmentecosystems, versed incommunications and computingtechnologies. MeeGo currentlytargets platforms such asnetbooks/entrylevel desktops,handheld computing andcommunications devices, invehicle infotainment devices,connected TVs, and mediaphones.During the MeeGo Conference,KDE people had an opportunity
to learn more about whatMeeGo is, how it works, andwhat their parts are. Many in theMeeGo community found outabout what KDE is. Twocommunities encounteringwithout colliding this is justgreat!LINUXDAY 2010,DORNBIRN, AUSTRIA27 November 2010
The local KDE team attendedthe 12. LinuxDay in Dornbirn.They demonstrated KDEsoftware to potential new users,and talked about upcomingfeatures with more experiencedusers. Students were especiallyinterested in KDE Eduapplications. Furthermore, it wasan excellent possibility tointensify the cooperation withother projects.
Left, KDE users catching a moment of downtime at the Brazilian Northeast Meeting of Free Software (photo by KDEBr). Right, KDE developers catchingup with membes of the LibreOffice project (photo by Thomas Pyn).
KDETECHNOLOGIESARE USED
EVERYWHERE. INTHE SERVER ROOM,ON THE DESKTOP,AND IN MOBILE
PHONES.
Left, Users showcase KDE to interested attendeesat LinuxDay 2010.
KDE AT GOOGLE CODEINLydia PintscherGoogle Codein is a contest toinvolve highschool students inFree Software projects. Thisyear, Google selected 20 FreeSoftware projects, among themKDE, to be mentoringorganizations. They provideeasy, medium and hard tasks forthe students to work on indifferent areas like translation,coding, outreach, documentationand quality assurance.The contest started on 22ndNovember 2010 and lasted for1.5 months. During this time,nearly 100 students worked with
us successfully on over 330tasks in all areas of KDE. Theyhave done impressive workincluding creating a video ad forthe community, coding small andmuch needed features for theirfavorite program, and translatingsoftware and documentation totheir mother tongues. The resultof their work was much morethan we could have dreamed ofand their enthusiasm wascaptivating. We hope many ofthem have enjoyed theexperience enough to grow up tobe fantastic Free Softwarecontributors (not that they aren'talready after this contest).
As prizes for their great work,Google awards each student$100 for every 3 successfullycompleted tasks, up to amaximum of $500. We'reespecially proud to see some ofKDE's students among the 14grand prize winners who get atrip to Google's headquarters inCalifornia.We hope Google will run thiscontest again next year. Let'stake part again in showingamazing kids how they canmake a difference in this worldby contributing to Free Softwareprojects.
OPEN SOFTWARE, OPEN DESIGN, OPEN CULTUREOPEN SOURCE IS MORE THAN JUST SOFTWARE. KDE IS ALSO HOME TO AVIBRANT COMMUNITY OF ARTISTS, DESIGNERS, HOBBYISTS, AND IDEALISTS.HERE ARE A FEW OF THE IMAGES THEY'VE SHARED WITH THE COMMUNITY.
Talbot Johan B. Belgium (Look:KDE). Winter Coast Pera (Look:KDE).
Rain on the Windshield Maciek Komorowski Poland (Look:KDE). Teardrop Darya Naz (Gaia10).
Spring Thaw GollyGForce (Look:KDE, Flickr). Golden Shine Thierry (Gaia 10)
Gaia Victor van Gaasbeek (Gaia10). Odenwald Forest JFest Manheim, Germany (Look:KDE).
NEW MEMBERSKDE e.V. is happy to welcomethe fol lowing new members:
Alex Fiestas
Giovanni Venturi
Marta Rybczynska
Ryan Rix
Sjors Gielen
Thomas Thym
Thorsten Zachmann
FINANCESINCOME (€):
Supporting membership: 2,575Akademy 2010 sponsorship: 17,500Google Summer of Code: 19,300ALERT Research Project*: 7,975Donations: 5,840Total: 53,190
EXPENSES (€):Developer sprints: 6,175Trade shows and marketing: 690Office and personel costs: 15,600Total: 22,465
AT THE END OF QUARTER 3, 2010, KDE E.V. HADA POSITIVE BALANCE OF €265,840.
Note: The financial numbers provded here are approximations and are provided for informational purposes only. For acomplete accounting record, please contact the KDE e.V. directly.* ALERT is an ECsponsored project to create a real time, collaboration platform for free and open source softwaredevelopment. (http://dot.kde.org/2010/11/23/kdeexpertsneededeuresearchproject)
KDE is a registered trademark of KDE eV in the United States and other countries. Visit ev.kde.org for more information.Visual design by Eugene Trounev and Rob Oakes. Typeset using the ADF Universalis Font (arkandis.tuxfamily.org/adffonts.html).
KDE E.V.BOARDCornelius SchumacherPresident<[email protected]>Frank KarlitschekVice President and Treasurer<[email protected]>Adriaan de GrootVice President<[email protected]>Celeste Lyn PaulBoard Member<[email protected]>Sebastian KüglerBoard Member<[email protected]>This report is published byKDE e.V., copyright 2010CONTACTWebsite: ev.kde.orgEmail: kdeev[email protected]
Report Prepared By
Agata MarszalekBen CooksleyClaudia RauchDinesh SaiLydia PintscherSandro AndradeStuart JarvisCarl SymonsEugene TrounevRob OakesThanks to the many othermembers of KDE whocontributed to this report.
IF YOUR COMPANY WISHES TO SUPPORT KDE, PLEASE VISIT THE SUPPORTINGMEMBERS PAGE AT EV.KDE.ORG/GETINVOLVED/SUPPORTING-MEMBERS.PHP.