Applications

• Locations for GUADEC 2020 and 2021 announced! (GNOME)
  The GNOME Foundation is excited to announce that GUADEC, the annual GNOME conference, will be held in Zacatecas, Mexico in 2020, and in Riga, Latvia in 2021. GUADEC brings together hundreds of users and developers every year to further the GNOME Project, and it is one of our longest-standing and most noteworthy events. For the […]
• Libre Graphics Meeting Call for Proposals (KDE)

  

  Update: sorry, the call for proposals is not yet ready, they are working on some technical fixes so please do not fill in the form yet. Watch out on social media for when it is ready.

  The Libre Graphics Meeting (LGM) is the annual international convention for the discussion and development of free and open source graphics software.

  This year it will happen in Rennes, France, from May 26th to 29th. We are welcoming all relevant projects to submit a proposal for a talk and/or a workshop. We already expect Krita and Kdenlive teams to be present. The Krita sprint will be held after the meeting and Kdenlive are planning to have a sprint around that time too. It would be awesome to also see some people from Plasma team working on graphics tablet support and color management, or any other topic of interest for developers and users of graphics creation application.

  LGM are now asking for talks, workshops, BoF meetings and lightning talks for the conference. Please don't be shy and submit your proposal.

  KDE e.V. has agreed to support the event by providing travel support to KDE contributors. If you are interested, make sure to file your reimbursement request before January 31st.

  
  LGM 2019

• Call for GNOME.Asia 2020 Summit proposals (GNOME)
  The GNOME.Asia Committee is inviting interested parties to submit proposals for hosting the GNOME.Asia Summit during the second half of 2020. GNOME.Asia Summit is the featured annual GNOME Conference in Asia. The event focuses primarily on the GNOME desktop, but also covers applications and the development platform tools. It brings together the GNOME community in Asia to provide […]
• Plasma: A Safe Haven for Windows 7 Refugees (KDE)

  
  

  Microsoft will stop providing updates for Windows 7 on January 14 2020.

  There won't be any more patches that correct bugs or even dangerous vulnerabilities. This will leave Windows 7 users exposed to all sorts of bad stuff. But that is not a huge concern for Microsoft. With this move, Redmond hopes to encourage users to upgrade to Windows 10.

  But why should we care? Maybe because Windows currently holds 77% of the global desktop market share (all Linux desktops combined hold less than 2%). Of that 77%, nearly 30% belongs to Windows 7. That is nearly a billion people still holding on to Windows 7 because they are resisting the move to Windows 10. Apart from the natural human resistance to change, Windows 10 has earned a bad rap as an operating system that will gladly leak your data back to Microsoft and lace your desktop with intrusive advertisements as a matter of course.

  Helping people regain control over their systems and protecting their data is precisely what Free Software communities do best, making this the perfect opportunity to help Windows 7 users upgrade to something much better: To the Plasma desktop!

  How you can help

  We need you to help convince Windows 7 users to move to the Plasma desktop. We have set up a task where we are brainstorming ideas, advice and resources. You can contribute your thoughts too. Get your KDE Identity today and join the conversation.

  You can also join the Promo team live on Matrix and help us run this campaign.

  Or fly solo! Talk to your friends, family, classmates and colleagues. Even if you convince just one person to make the transition to any Linux-based system, you will have done something valuable and helped the FLOSS movement.

  ---

  The Windows 7-like theme shown above was put together (from many parts created by many generous contributors) by Dominic Hayes, creator of Feren OS, a cool-looking Ubuntu-based Linux distro aimed squarely at end users. Check it out!

  Dominic used the following elements to re-create the look and feel of the desktop:

  Plasma Theme: Seven Black
  Window Decorations: Seven Black
  Application Style: gtk2
  GTK Theme: Windows Se7en by Elbullazul
  Icons: Darkine
  Colours: Breeze Light
  Cursors: DMZ White
  Splash Screen: Feren OS
  Panel: 38 height
  Widgets: Default Apps Menu, I-O Task Manager, Stock System Tray, Feren Calendar or Event Calendar, Win7 Show Desktop

• KDE is All About the Apps: October Update (KDE)

  KDE is all about the Apps!

  We are a community of thousands of contributors who make hundreds of Apps using collaborative open source methods. Our apps run on Linux with Plasma, of course, but also fit in well with GNOME, Enlightenment, XFCE, or any other desktop you happen to be using. Many of our apps run on Windows, Android and macOS.

  A new goal for the KDE community is to push how we are All About the Apps. We will be highlighting our best software and promoting it to increase its adoption outside the circle of current KDE fans (who we still love very much!). This is a monthly update of what's new in our apps. If you'd like to help out with this community goal, take a look at the All About the Apps workboard, and join us in our Matrix chat channel.

  App Updates

  The elite painting app Krita received a monthly bugfix release, 4.2.7. The developers have improved the layout and functionality of the color selection dialog, and made it possible to save group layers to file layers even if they are empty. The sort order of images imported as frames was fixed, a bunch of crashes removed, and dozens of other bugs tidied up.

  To celebrate, the Krita team also made a video with artist Ramon Miranda that offers some advice for improving your sketches. Krita is available in your favorite Linux distribution, for Windows, macOS, as a Linux AppImage, on Flathub, and in the Snap store.

  KMyMoney, the app for managing your finances, also got a new release - 5.0.7. This release introduces updates required for the new regulations of the Payment Services Directive, which affects the online capabilities for German bank users.

  

  To make KMyMoney compatible with those regulations (especially the strong customer authentication part), developers had to adapt it to updated APIs of the Gwenhywfar and AqBanking libraries which provide the banking protocol implementations.

  Coming from KDE and used by many of us, the distributed compiler cluster Icecream and Icecream Monitor have been updated. The new release improves Objective C and C++ support, removes hardcoded compiler paths, and fixes job preloading to again allow sending one extra job to a fully busy node. In the monitor app several new ice cream flavors have also been added, we're not quite sure what this means but it sounds delicious.

  In the last month, Latte Dock (panel for the Plasma desktop) had two new releases, making improvements to its new Win Indicator look.

  KDevelop, the discerning coder's IDE, published a bugfix release - 5.4.2. You can get it from your Linux distribution or as an AppImage, and you can also compile versions for Windows and macOS.

  RSIBreak, the app that helps you prevent damage to your wrists got a new release versioned 0.12.11.

  

  Photo management and editing app digiKam released the version 6.3. The highlight of the new release is the G'Mic plugin.
  G'Mic is the image processing library with over 950 different filters, so you can make all your photos truly beautiful. digiKam can be installed from your Linux distro, AppImage bundles, macOS package, and Windows 32/64-bit installers.

  

  Telescope and astronomy app KStars also had a new release, versioned 3.3.6. The KStars Live Video window can now show debayer frames in real-time, making it possible to create color video streams.

  

  The weather data can be directly displayed in the Observatory Module, and the user interface has been improved in a number of ways. As one of the most feature-rich free astronomy apps, KStars caters to a wide variety of use cases, so you will surely find tools that are useful to you regardless of your level of experience. KStars is available pretty much everywhere - as a Windows installer, macOS installer, Android app, Snap package, and in your Linux distribution.

  Bug Fixes

  We are continually improving our apps, so plenty of bug fixes have been made. Here are some highlights.

  • Our document viewer Okular gained support for HighDPI screens. This one-line fix to add automatic scaling based on the pixel density of the monitor will make viewing documents on fancy monitors so much better.
  • The advanced text editor Kate was similarly updated to work with HiDPI screens throughout.
  • The chess game Knights had a one-line fix in version 19.08.2. Thanks to the fix, you can now start a game when the second player is a computer engine again.
  • Video editor Kdenlive fixed screengrabs in Linux to eliminate crashes, and in Windows to correctly grab the audio.
  • CD burner app K3b fixed a crash where it couldn't find the supporting command-line tool mkisofs.

  Supporting Bits

  

  Libraries and artwork support our apps to make our software work beautifully.

  The Breeze icon theme got new icons for activities, trash, batteries, QR codes, and more. Libical, which is used by Kontact to talk to iCalendar protocols and data formats, had a bugfix release (3.0.6).

  Snorenotify is a notification framework supporting Linux, Windows and macOS. Snoretoast is a command-line application used within Snorenotify for Windows Toast notifications. It is also used in Quassel and Tomahawk, and the good news is that it got a new release this month (0.7.0).

  New in App Stores

  Our software is increasingly available directly through app stores. To celebrate and highlight this (and to help you find them more easily!), this month we added Windows Store links to the KDE Applications web page.

  

  More KDE applications found their way to the Windows Store:

  • Okular - more than a reader
  • Kate - Advanced Text Editor
  • Filelight - Filetree Usage Viewer

  Welcoming New Projects

  New projects are started in the KDE community all the time. When those projects are ready for wider use, they go through a process called "KDE review", where other KDE contributors will check them for code quality, features, licensing, and how well they work on different platforms. Last but not least, we decide whether we are happy to give it the KDE stamp of approval.

  In KDE review this month is Ruqola, a chat app which talks on the Rocket Chat network and uses the Kirigami UI framework. For the more technically-inclined, Elf-Inspector is an app providing tools for inspecting, analyzing, and optimizing ELF files (the executable file format used on Linux).

  Saying Goodbye

  Sometimes, apps are left behind when their code does not keep up with the rest of the world.

  This month, a new version of our multimedia library Phonon was released. In this version, we removed Qt4 support - sensible enough, as Qt4 hasn't been supported since 2015. As a result, the music player app Amarok has become deprecated (at least for now). Don't lose hope, though: the Qt5 port is progressing, but it's not there yet.

  The web browser Rekonq was marked as unmaintained, meaning it's unlikely to ever come back. However, the work carries on in Falkon, so make sure to check out and support the project if you are interested in lightweight web browsers. Also considered unmaintained is the bootup configuration tool systemd-kcm.

  ---

  Enjoy your apps from KDE, and stay tuned for more updates!

• ATK, GTK, and Plans for 2020 (GNOME)
  The GNOME Project is built by a vibrant community and supported by the GNOME Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity registered in California (USA). The GNOME community has spent more than 20 years creating a desktop environment designed for the user. We‘re asking you to become Friend of GNOME, with a recommended donation of $25/month ($5/month […]
• Bringing the free desktop into 2020 (GNOME)
  I am frequently asked if there’s any point in the desktop anymore. With the rise of cloud services, it’s easy to wonder whether there is a need. I believe that a free software desktop system is more important than ever. GNOME creates an entire desktop environment that is beautifully designed and simple to use. We […]
• Announcing Season of KDE 2020 (KDE)

  By Caio Jordão Carvalho

  

  After a one-year hiatus, KDE Student Programs is very happy to announce Season of KDE 2020!

  Focused on offering an opportunity to anyone (not just enrolled students) contributing to the KDE community, this is a program that is comparable to the well-known Google Summer of Code, with some special differences. A key difference is that SoK projects are not limited to code-focused work, but any that benefit our community. For instance, projects can be about documentation, reports, translation, system administration, web and other types of work as well as code. Each contributor will work with a mentor and within a team that will also help the contributor.

  Schedule

  This year we have decreased the duration of the projects. Previously, all projects were 80 days long. However, during SoK 2018 we included the option of 40-day projects. This new option was widely adopted by participants during 2018 and, so we decided to keep only this alternative.

  Timeline:

  • From the 9th of December 2019 to the 3rd of January 2020: Participant and Mentor Application period
  • 6th of January 2020: Projects announced
  • 8th of January 2020, 00:00 UTC: SoK work period begins
  • 17th of February 2020, 23:59 UTC: End of work
  • 21st of February 2020: Results announced
  • 28th of February 2020: Certificates issued
  • Beginning of Q3 2020: Merchandise and Swag sent out by courier

  Getting Started

  Prospective participants should get in touch with us before the application period begins to discuss possible projects. You can connect with us on Matrix, in the #kde-soc room on IRC, in KDE-SoC on Telegram, or through our mailing list. Besides talking to the SoK team, contact the application maintainer and team with whom you want to work.

  If you’re looking for project ideas, you can find some on our KDE Season of Code 2020 Ideas Page. Mentors please add ideas, so that we have a central repository of project ideas for Season of KDE 2020 and even GSoC 2020. Applicants will work with the teams to develop a proposal, and the SoK admin team will help too.

  Help us spread the word! Tell your friends, blog, tweet, and share on Facebook using the #2020SeasonKDE hashtag.

  Participants and mentors can apply here once applications open.

• Akademy 2018 videos are now online (KDE)

  If you missed any of the talks, or couldn't make it to Vienna to attend this year's Akademy, now you can watch the recordings from the comfort of your home. You can find and download the videos from our repository, or browse and share them from the YouTube playlist we have set up especially for all Akademy 2018 videos.

  We recommend starting with this year's keynotes, so make sure to watch Dan Bielefeld talk about how the Transitional Justice Working Group locates and uncovers sites for crimes against humanity committed by the Kim regime in North Korea:

  Also, don't miss what Claudia Garad has to say about onboarding new contributors into an open community:

  If you prefer a more KDE-specific topic, watch Nate Graham lay out a seven-point plan that will help KDE take over the world:

  About Akademy

  For most of the year, KDE -- one of the largest free and open software communities in the world-- works on-line by email, IRC, forums and mailing lists. Akademy provides all KDE contributors the opportunity to meet in person to foster social bonds, work on concrete technology issues, consider new ideas, and reinforce the innovative, dynamic culture of KDE. Akademy brings together artists, designers, developers, translators, users, writers, sponsors and many other types of KDE contributors to celebrate the achievements of the past year and help determine the direction for the next year. Hands-on sessions offer the opportunity for intense work bringing those plans to reality. The KDE Community welcomes companies building on KDE technology, and those that are looking for opportunities.

  Dot Categories:

  • Community and Events
• Promo Sprint Report: What We Did and How You Can Help Us (KDE)

  

  February was a big month for the Promo team - we held a long-awaited sprint in Barcelona, Spain from the 16th to 18th. The aim of the sprint was to look at information we had collected over the prior years, interpret what it meant, and use it to discuss and plan for the future. The activities we came up with should help us accomplish our ultimate goal: increasing KDE's visibility and user base.

  Nine members of the team made it to Barcelona: Aleix Pol, Ivana Isadora Devčić, Jure Repinc, Kenny, Łukasz Sawicki, Lydia Pintscher, Neofytos Kolokotronis, Paul Brown, and Rubén Gómez. We met at Espai 30, an old factory converted into a social center for the neighborhood. Coincidentally, that is one of the places where the Guifi.net project started -- rather fitting for a meeting that comprised Free Software and communication.

  Day 1: Informal Afternoon Meeting

  Although Friday was "arrival day" without an official agenda, we could not resist talking shop over pizza and beer. Discussions gravitated towards the KDE.org website, which will be migrated from an old and clunky backend to a Wordpress framework. The improvement to the framework got us thinking on how we could improve the content, too.

  The consensus was that we want to inform the general public about what KDE is - not a desktop, but the community that creates, maintains, documents, translates, and promotes a large body of multi-purpose software. Our software collection does include a desktop environment, but it also offers utilities, games, productivity applications, media players and editors, an environment and applications for mobile phones, development frameworks, and much more.

  We should also make sure the website caters equally to the tech savvy and unsavvy, since KDE's software is meant for everybody. The new site should clearly direct users to our products, allowing end users to simply download and use them. At the same time, the website should ease the way for potential contributors to join the community.

  Day 2: Espai 30, Stats stats stats, and Improved Communication

  At the break of dawn the next day... well, actually, at 10 o'clock, sprint sessions started in earnest. Ivana gave a recap of Promo's main activities over the last year or so, revisiting funding campaigns we promoted and communication tactics we implemented.

  Next we looked at hard, cold data, collected from social media accounts, web statistics, and distro popcons (application popularity contests). The bad news is that visits to our main sites have gone down over the last year. The good news, however, is that followers and interactions on social media have seen a significant increase. Although data collected from popcons are partial, it also looks like Plasma's user base is growing steadily.

  Want to help us with data-collecting and processing, or have ideas about where we can collect more useful information? Send your suggestions to our mailing list and we'll look into it.

  
  

  The data also helps us pinpoint wins and fails in our approach to communicating with the outside world. We found a direct relation between the traffic to our news site (dot.kde.org) and to the main kde.org website. Therefore it makes sense to seriously work on increasing the traffic to kde.org first, in order to improve the visibility and effectiveness of our announcements and campaigns. We also identified ways to make our social media posts more attractive, which should help them garner more re-tweets, boosts (the equivalent of re-tweets in Mastodon), shares and upvotes, and spread our messages further.

  Another way of reaching more people is through events. We discussed Akademy and our plans for promoting the 2018 edition before and during the event, so that news coming out of Vienna in August can reach as many people as possible.

  We also talked about visiting other technical and even not-so-technical events. By showcasing our applications and letting users play with them, we think we will be able to increase our user base. In any case, we need to be well-prepared for all types of conferences, so we made a list of essentials based on our previous experiences.

  We noticed that even within the FLOSS community, there is a large portion of businesses, organizations and developers who are unaware of technologies that KDE develops. Speaking and setting up booths at technical, but non-KDE/Qt events (like the upcoming Embedded Linux Conference organized by the Linux Foundation), could help solve this problem and even attract contributors for KDE.

  Do you have suggestions for events we should attend? Join the Attend External Events task and tell us about them.

  This brought us to the discussion on how Promo can help with the long-term community goals, especially the goal of streamlining the onboarding of new contributors.

  One of the things we have started doing, for example, is creating a list of simple tasks for beginners. We are also trying to identify where people struggle in the process of joining Promo, and working on eliminating obstacles. On a more one-to-one basis, we want to be able to identify people's skills so we can direct them to teams they can join. This was one of the topics we tackled during the last day of the sprint.

  Day 3: Teams, Market Research, and Publicity Stunts

  We already noticed there are wide variety of jobs for our team, and agreed it would be more efficient to classify them and assign them to smaller groups of people with the best skills to carry them out.

  For example, we'd like to have a smoother communication channel with developers, so that we can better understand their work and advise them on how to promote it. The best way to do this, we thought, would be to recruit developers already in the Promo group as liaisons with their colleagues.

  Likewise, experienced YouTubers and videographers can create promotional videos for product releases; journalists and editors can write or help improve blog posts and news articles; and people with a background in marketing can use their knowledge to do some serious market research.

  That last thing is important because the Promo team must discover what technologies people use, how they use them, and what they like and dislike about them to be able to market KDE products. We decided to take a step back and work on a market research project that will provide us with solid information on which to base our actions.

  Got experience in marketing? Join the effort!

  At the same time, we can entice people to use Plasma and KDE applications with straightforward advertising, or rely on the more subtle art of product placement. Regarding the former, we looked at publicity stunts that had helped other community projects in the past, like full page ads in prominent newspapers, or messages on public transport. For example, ads at bus stops in university areas may help encourage students join the community.

  Got an idea for advertising campaign which is both effective and cheap to carry out? Share it with us!

  As for the latter, it turns out that TV shows and movies sometimes have a hard time when they want to show a flashy computer or mobile device interface. Because they can be endlessly customized, Plasma, Plasma Mobile and the applications that run on them are perfect candidates for the likes of The Blacklist, CSI Cyber, Mission Impossible 7... Okay, maybe we will have to start more modest, but remember that KDE tech was already featured on Mr Robot, albeit as the choice of the villain.

  We discussed other ways of indirectly increasing the popularity of KDE, including working with journalists, bloggers and vloggers from outside of our community. We started brainstorming a list of "influencers", journalists and publications.

  Do you know somebody with a solid audience on the fringes of open sourcedom that could influence a large group of people? Go and add them to the list.

  We also want to improve our presence in businesses. To do that, we would first have to approach businesses and contractors that already work with KDE/Qt-based technologies. The idea is to get them on board and create a marketplace/support network that other companies can rely on when considering a migration to desktop Linux.

  While brainstorming other ways to increase awareness, we realized we could improve videos and help them reach a wider audience by adding subtitles. If you would like to help creating subtitles in your language, sign up for the video group and tell us what you can do.

  Conclusion

  
  

  This was an intense and intensive sprint. The full list of topics we discussed is longer than this report, but we managed to devote enough time to the most pressing issues. We came up with ideas for targets and ways to work towards them that will translate into real results. We are now progressively implementing tasks that will help us reach those targets, but we need your help.

  If you think you can help us achieve our goals, please join the Promo group. We have a mailing list, IRC channel, and a Telegram group. You can also take a look at our workboard and leave your feedback on tasks that are in progress.

  Developing KDE's software is super-important, but so is spreading the message that the software exists and that everybody, regardless of their level of computer-literacy, can and should use it. That is what the Promo team is all about, and we will keep practicing what we preach.

• KEXI 3.1 Brings Database Application Building to Windows (KDE)

  After many months of hard work and more than 200 bugs fixed, KEXI is back with a new major release that will excite Windows and Linux users alike.

  If you are looking for a Free and open source alternative to Microsoft Access, KEXI is the right tool for you.

  
  KEXI offers an easy way
  to design all kinds of databases.
  

  As part of the Calligra suite, KEXI integrates with other office software, providing an easy, visual way to design tables, queries, and forms, build database applications, and export data into multiple formats. KEXI also offers rich data searching options, as well as support for parametrized queries, designing relational data, and storing object data (including images).

  A new version of KEXI has just been released, so if you have never tried this powerful database designer application, now is the right time.

  KEXI 3.1 is available for Linux and macOS, and after many years, for Windows as well.

  KEXI Is Back on Windows

  Business environments are often concerned about migrating to FOSS solutions because of compatibility issues with the proprietary software and formats they currently use. KEXI solves that problem with its Microsoft Access migration assistant that ensures database tables are preserved and editable between applications. Even better, KEXI works natively on the Windows operating system. In fact, KEXI was the first KDE application offered in full version on Windows.

  After a long hiatus, the new version of KEXI offers convenient installers for Windows once again. Although it's a preview version, the users are invited to try it out, report bugs, and provide feedback.

  Usability and Stability for Everyone

  
  KProperty is included in the first
  major release of KEXI Frameworks.
  

  Similar to Plasma 5.12 LTS, the focus of KEXI 3.1 was to improve stability and (backward) compatibility. With more than 200 bugfixes and visibly improved integration with other desktop environments, the goal has definitely been achieved.

  Usability improvements have also made their way into KEXI 3.1 dialogs. When using the Import Table Assistant, it is now possible to set character encoding for the source database. Property groups are now supported, and users can set custom sizes for report pages.

  Great News for Developers

  KEXI 3.1 marks the first official release of KEXI Frameworks - a powerful backend aimed at developers who want to simplify their codebase while making their Qt and C++ applications more featureful. KDb is a database connectivity and creation framework for various database vendors. In KEXI 3.1, KDb offers new debugging functions for SQL statements and comes with improved database schema caching.

  KProperty is a property editing framework which now comes with improved support for measurement units and visual property grouping. Last but not least, KReport is a framework for building reports in various formats, offering similar functionality to the reports in MS Access, SAP Crystal or FileMaker. The most useful new feature in KEXI 3.1 is the ability to set custom page sizes for KReport.

  
  New options in KReport allow you to
  tweak the appearance of reports.
  

  Alongside Frameworks, KEXI 3.1 offers greatly refined APIs and updated API documentation. According to the developers, “the frameworks are now guaranteed to be backward-compatible between minor versions”.

  Translations have also been improved, and KEXI 3.1 is the first version where they are bundled with the Frameworks. This will make it easier for the developers using KEXI Frameworks, as they will be able to use translated messages in their apps.

  Make KEXI Even Better

  Even with all the excitement about the new release, KEXI developers are already working on new features and improving the existing ones. If you'd like to help make KEXI better, it's never too late to join the project! Take a look at the list of available coding and non-coding jobs.

  Although the API documentation has been updated, the user documentation could use some love. If you're good at writing or teaching others, why not chip in?

  Finally, if you know a business or an individual that's looking for a Microsoft Access replacement, tell them about KEXI.
  They just might be pleasantly surprised with what they'll discover.

  ---

  Download the KEXI 3.1 source or install it from the repository of your distribution. For the full list of changes in the new version, take a look at the official changelog.

• The GNOME Foundation Statement on Immigration Ban (GNOME)
  The GNOME Project is responsible for the software that is used by hundreds of thousands of people, companies, and organizations around the world. Anyone can participate in the development of our software, and that equality of opportunity is an essential part of GNOME’s mission. Our project and our software exist thanks to the GNOME community: […]
• Host Akademy 2020 in your City! (KDE)

  By Aleix Pol

  

  Hosting an event is a big and significant way of contributing to Free Software. One of the biggest challenges in international distributed teams like KDE is communicating effectively with one another. Akademy, the yearly global conference of the KDE community, solves that by bringing the community together in one place, allowing us to share what we have been up to and have it reach its potential.

  By organising Akademy we are then turning one of our weak points into a strength. We get to work together like a local team does, while remaining flexible and geographically distributed for most of the rest of the year. It becomes therefore one of the best ways for Free Software to thrive in your area.

  What is Akademy

  

  While Akademy has evolved over the years, its main structure remains similar: We have two conference days, the KDE e.V. Annual General Meeting and few days with smaller meetings and trainings. Akademy is open for everyone to join and participate, regardless of their background, studies or origin.

  We would like you to consider hosting Akademy. We could look into doing it in 2020, although if you think this is too short-notice, 2021 could also be discussed.

  You can find the full description of what's necessary in this simple-to -follow brochure. Reach out to the KDE e.V. Board and the Akademy team and put your thoughts in action.

• Announcing KDE Plasma 5.18 Wallpaper and Video Contests (KDE)

  By Niccolò Venerandi

  

  KDE wants you to create the next wallpaper for Plasma 5.18 and the promotional videos for Plasma and applications of KDE.

  
  

  The chance of getting your work seen by thousands of people and organizations worldwide, including at NASA and CERN, is within your grasp! You can also win some really astounding prizes courtesy of our friends at TUXEDO Computers.

  Prizes

  
  

  The winner of the wallpaper contest will have their work included as the default background on KDE's upcoming Plasma 5.18 desktop. This means you will not only earn the admiration of thousands of Plasma users, but you can also win a very cool TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 computer.

  More details about the InfinityBook Pro are available on the Wallpaper Contest's page.

  Is fillmmaking more your thing? Try your hand at shooting and editing an exciting promotional video for Plasma or for applications KDE makes. The winners of the best Plasma promotional video will win a TUXEDO Gaming PC, and if you win the best Applications video competition, you'll get a TUXEDO InfinityBox.

  
  

  You can read about the specs of each machine on the Video Contest's page.

  Twelve finalists will also receive a package of goodies containing among other things:

  • A KDE Baseball cap
  • A plush Tux
  • KDE Stickers
  • A frozen glass coffee mug

  How to Participate

  Taking part is easy! Check out the rules for Wallpaper Competition and send in your masterpiece. Remember that, in order to submit a wallpaper, you need to follow the link to the appropriate subforum where you can create a new post. You can also find suggestions and helpful material on the webpages.

  Want to make a video instead? Read the rules for the Video Competition carefully and start shooting your clip!

  We can't wait to see what you will create!

• GNOME.Asia Summit 2019 Call for participation is now open (GNOME)
  GNOME.Asia Summit 2019 invites you to participate as a speaker at the conference on the 12th and 13th of October 2019 in Gresik, Indonesia. GNOME.Asia Summit is the featured annual GNOME conference in Asia. It focuses primarily on the GNOME desktop, but also covers applications and the platform development tools. The summit brings together the […]

• Linux App Summit 2019 to be held in Barcelona, Spain! (GNOME)
  The GNOME Foundation, in collaboration with KDE e.V., is pleased to announce the 2019 Linux App Summit, also known as LAS 2019. This year, LAS will be held in Barcelona, Spain from November 12th to 15th. Our Call for Participation (CfP) opens on July 31st, and will run until August 31st. The Linux App Summit, formerly called […]
• GUADEC 2020 announcement (GNOME)
  The GNOME Foundation is excited to announce that GUADEC 2020 will take place between the 22nd – 28th of July in Zacatecas, Mexico. Zacatecas is a city and municipality in Mexico, located in the north-central part of the country. Set in a valley and surrounded by mountains, the city, which had its start as a […]
• GNOME Turns 18 this Saturday (GNOME)
  Join us in celebrating GNOME’s birthday this Saturday, August 15th. This is a great chance to tell the world why you love GNOME, inspire others to give it a try, give back to the community, and just wish GNOME a happy birthday. Here are some ways that we encourage you to participate in GNOME’s birthday: […]
• Step up and become a Friend of GNOME! (GNOME)
  The GNOME project is built by a vibrant community and supported by the GNOME Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity registered in California (USA). The GNOME community has spent more than 20 years creating a desktop environment designed for the user. We‘re asking you to step up for GNOME and become Friend of GNOME. We're working to have 100 new Friends of GNOME join by January 6, 2020.
• KDE at Asian FOSS conferences (KDE)

  It feels great to say that KDE has active contributors across the globe. Two KDE contributors recently presented talks in Asia about their work and encouraged new contributors to join us and get started.

  Hong Kong Open Source Conference 2017

  
  

  Heena Mahour presented a talk on ‘KDE : Journey of a SoK student to GCI organization administrator’ at Hong Kong Open Source Conference 2017.

  HKOSCon is an open source event held in Hong Kong which aims to showcase and promote open source projects and activities happening across the globe.

  Heena discussed her experience as a Season of KDE student which was her initial project and how she continued contributing to KDE afterwards. She also talked about recent trends in the community outreach program Season of KDE and her insight into the Plasma projects as an example of the vastness of KDE.

  Heena also discussed the contributions made by KDE in Google Code-In, encouraging the students to get started with it. She provided information about GCompris and Pairs and a word cloud from Season of KDE Twitter posts and listed the contributions she had made so far.

  It was amazing to help the new contributors join the KDE community in a similar fashion as to how her mentors helper her.

  
  

  FOSSASIA 2017

  
  

  Anu Mittal presented a talk on ‘K’oding with KDE at FOSSASIA 2017, Singapore.

  At the FOSSASIA conference, many communities showcased their hardware, designs, graphics, and software. Anu talked about KDE, what it aims at, the various programs that KDE organizes to help budding developers, and how they are mentored. She walked through all the steps to start contributing in KDE by introducing the audience to KDE bug tracker, the IRC channels, various application domains, and the Season of KDE proposal format.

  She also shared her journey in KDE, talked briefly about her projects under Season of KDE and Google Summer of Code. The audience were really enthusiastic and curious to start contributing in KDE. Overall her experience working in KDE has been very enriching. She wished to share her experiences to help budding developers get started.

  It was interesting to see an emerging interest to participate and contribute to open source. KDE is one of the projects students are keen to contribute to. We do hope we, together as a community, keep it blooming more.

• Plasma 5.16 by KDE is Now Available (KDE)

  

  Say hello to Plasma 5.16, a the newest iteration of KDE's desktop environment, chock-a-block with new features and improvements.

  For starters, check out the new notification system! Not only can you mute notifications altogether with the Do Not Disturb mode, but the system also groups notifications by app. Like this, when you run through the history of past notifications, you can see all the messages from KDE Connect in one category, the download information in another, email alerts in a third, and so on.

  Discover, Plasma's software manager, is also cleaner and clearer as it now has two distinct areas for downloading and installing software on the Update page. Besides, when updating, the completion bar now works correctly and the packages disappear from the list as the software manager completes their installation.

  With each new version, we make Plasma safer, and protect your data better. In 5.16 we have made using Vaults easier and more convenient. Vaults are a built-in utility to encrypt folders, installed by default on Plasma, and you can now open them directly from Dolphin.

  Protecting your privacy requires that we focus on the small details, too. When any application accesses the microphone, an icon will pop up in your system tray, showing that something is listening. It doesn't matter whether it is graphical application, a web app or a process started on the command line - the icon will show up alerting you to the fact. You can deactivate your mic by clicking the icon with the middle button on your mouse.

  Plasma 5.16 is also spectacular to look at, with our new wallpaper called Ice Cold. Designed by Santiago Cézar, it is the winner of a contest with more than 150 entries. Ice Cold will keep you cool and feeling fresh for the upcoming summer months. Again, giving you options is what Plasma is all about, so we have included a few other contest submissions for you to choose from.

  Talking of options, many of the pages in the System Settings have been redesigned, with clearer icons and friendlier layouts. Getting back to wallpapers: the Wallpaper Slideshow settings window displays the images in the folders you selected, and lets you select only the graphics you want to display in the slideshow. To improve visibility, window and menu shadow colors are pure black - something that works especially well when using dark themes.

  And if creating themes is your thing, many of the hard-coded look and feel options are gone know, allowing you full freedom to design widgets to your liking. You'll notice it in the small things, like the analog clock handles: Plasma themes now let you tweak their look by adjusting the offset and toggling the blur behind panels.

  For a more comprehensive overview of what to expect in Plasma 5.16, check out the official announcement or the changelog for the complete list of changes.

  Functional, feature-rich, privacy-protecting and beautiful... What else could you ask for? Look out for Plasma 5.16 in a distribution near you!

• Annual Report 2018 (GNOME)
  What a wonderful year 2018 was! We are very excited to share with you some of our best moments, achievements, and great conferences/events which happened throughout the year in our annual report. Worth mentioning: Two new releases, 3.28 and 3.30, with some great new features and support for Thunderbolt 3 connections with added security checks […]
• Akademy 2019 registration now open (KDE)

  

  Akademy is free to attend, however you need to register to reserve your space.

  Once you have registered, take a look at our guide on how to travel to Milan and check out the accommodation we have arranged and recommend for attendees. We also have a guide on how to get from different locations within Milan to Akademy. This guide also includes information on how to move around the city in general -- useful for sightseeing!

  IMPORTANT: All attendees are expected to read and required to follow Akademy's Code of Conduct.

  Badges

  Show your friends you are attending Akademy 2019 by displaying a badge on your blog, your website or social media account:

  
  
  

  About Akademy

  
  Akademy 2018, Vienna

  For most of the year, KDE - one of the largest free and open software communities in the world - works online by email, IRC, forums and mailing lists. Akademy provides all KDE contributors the opportunity to meet in person to foster social bonds, work on concrete technology issues, consider new ideas, and reinforce the innovative, dynamic culture of KDE. Akademy brings together artists, designers, developers, translators, users, writers, sponsors and many other types of KDE contributors to celebrate the achievements of the past year and help determine the direction for the next year. Hands-on sessions offer the opportunity for intense work bringing those plans to reality. The KDE community welcomes companies building on KDE technology, and those that are looking for opportunities. For more information, please contact the Akademy Team.

  Dot Categories:

  • Community and Events
• Neil McGovern Named New Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation (GNOME)
  ORINDA, CA. The GNOME Foundation is pleased to announce the appointment of Neil McGovern as its new Executive Director. McGovern officially starts work for the GNOME Foundation on February 15, 2017 and will operate from the United Kingdom. McGovern is an experienced leader in Free Software projects and is best known for his role as […]
• KEXI 3.1 Brings Database Application Building to Windows (KDE)

  After many months of hard work and more than 200 bugs fixed, KEXI is back with a new major release that will excite Windows and Linux users alike.

  If you are looking for a Free and open source alternative to Microsoft Access, KEXI is the right tool for you.

  
  KEXI offers an easy way
  to design all kinds of databases.
  

  As part of the Calligra suite, KEXI integrates with other office software, providing an easy, visual way to design tables, queries, and forms, build database applications, and export data into multiple formats. KEXI also offers rich data searching options, as well as support for parametrized queries, designing relational data, and storing object data (including images).

  A new version of KEXI has just been released, so if you have never tried this powerful database designer application, now is the right time.

  KEXI 3.1 is available for Linux and macOS, and after many years, for Windows as well.

  KEXI Is Back on Windows

  Business environments are often concerned about migrating to FOSS solutions because of compatibility issues with the proprietary software and formats they currently use. KEXI solves that problem with its Microsoft Access migration assistant that ensures database tables are preserved and editable between applications. Even better, KEXI works natively on the Windows operating system. In fact, KEXI was the first KDE application offered in full version on Windows.

  After a long hiatus, the new version of KEXI offers convenient installers for Windows once again. Although it's a preview version, the users are invited to try it out, report bugs, and provide feedback.

  Usability and Stability for Everyone

  
  KProperty is included in the first
  major release of KEXI Frameworks.
  

  Similar to Plasma 5.12 LTS, the focus of KEXI 3.1 was to improve stability and (backward) compatibility. With more than 200 bugfixes and visibly improved integration with other desktop environments, the goal has definitely been achieved.

  Usability improvements have also made their way into KEXI 3.1 dialogs. When using the Import Table Assistant, it is now possible to set character encoding for the source database. Property groups are now supported, and users can set custom sizes for report pages.

  Great News for Developers

  KEXI 3.1 marks the first official release of KEXI Frameworks - a powerful backend aimed at developers who want to simplify their codebase while making their Qt and C++ applications more featureful. KDb is a database connectivity and creation framework for various database vendors. In KEXI 3.1, KDb offers new debugging functions for SQL statements and comes with improved database schema caching.

  KProperty is a property editing framework which now comes with improved support for measurement units and visual property grouping. Last but not least, KReport is a framework for building reports in various formats, offering similar functionality to the reports in MS Access, SAP Crystal or FileMaker. The most useful new feature in KEXI 3.1 is the ability to set custom page sizes for KReport.

  
  New options in KReport allow you to
  tweak the appearance of reports.
  

  Alongside Frameworks, KEXI 3.1 offers greatly refined APIs and updated API documentation. According to the developers, “the frameworks are now guaranteed to be backward-compatible between minor versions”.

  Translations have also been improved, and KEXI 3.1 is the first version where they are bundled with the Frameworks. This will make it easier for the developers using KEXI Frameworks, as they will be able to use translated messages in their apps.

  Make KEXI Even Better

  Even with all the excitement about the new release, KEXI developers are already working on new features and improving the existing ones. If you'd like to help make KEXI better, it's never too late to join the project! Take a look at the list of available coding and non-coding jobs.

  Although the API documentation has been updated, the user documentation could use some love. If you're good at writing or teaching others, why not chip in?

  Finally, if you know a business or an individual that's looking for a Microsoft Access replacement, tell them about KEXI.
  They just might be pleasantly surprised with what they'll discover.

  ---

  Download the KEXI 3.1 source or install it from the repository of your distribution. For the full list of changes in the new version, take a look at the official changelog.

• KDE End-of-Year Fundraiser 2017 is Live! (KDE)

  

  It's that time of the year again - the time for our End-of-Year fundraiser!

  After an exciting and successful year, we give you all an opportunity to help us recharge our proverbial batteries.

  You've always wanted to contribute to a Free and open source project, right? Maybe you wondered how you could do that.
  Well, supporting our fundraiser is a perfect way to get started. Donations are also a great way to show gratitude to the developers of your favorite KDE applications, and to ensure the project will continue.

  Besides, you know that this is a project worth backing, because we get things done. Since proof is in the pudding, let's take a quick look at what we did this year.

  2017 Software Landmarks

• In 2017, we released 3 major versions of Plasma - 5.9, 5.10, and 5.11
• KDE Applications also saw 3 major releases, with the last one released just recently
• There were 2 big releases of KDevelop, with improved support for PHP, Analyzers mode with plugins like Heaptrack and cppcheck, and support for Open Computing Language
• We kept pushing Kirigami forward with releases 2.0 and 2.1, and several applications newly ported to the framework. Thanks to the new Kirigami, even more apps can be ported to a wider range of desktops and mobile environments
• There were 4 releases of digiKam, the image management software, which also got a new, prettier website design



• Krita continued to amaze everyone with its high-quality features, and it just keeps getting better
• We welcomed a new browser Falkon (formerly known as Qupzilla) into our KDE family. We were also joined by several new applications, including Elisa, a simple and straightforward music player
• Our developers focused on accessibility and made our applications more usable for everybody during the Randa Meetings developer sprint

Into 2018 with You

We look forward to the new year with all its challenges and excitements, and we don't plan on slowing down.

There will be new Plasma and KDE Applications releases, with a new Plasma LTS release (5.12) planned for the end of January. Season of KDE will bring a stream of fresh contributors. Konversation 2.0 will present a completely redesigned interface, and you can be sure it's not the only application that will positively surprise you in 2018.

We will spend a lot of time and effort on our long-term goals, which include improving software usability, protecting your privacy, and making it easier to become a KDE contributor. And as always, we'll be on the lookout for more Free Software projects that we can bring under our wing and help the developers bring their ideas to fruition.

But we cannot do all this without you. The community - that is, people just like you - is what drives KDE forward. Your energy motivates us. Your feedback helps us improve. Your financial support allows us to organize community events and developer sprints, maintain our websites and infrastructure, and so much more.



Help us build a bigger, better, more powerful KDE Community by donating to our End-of-Year fundraiser. We appreciate every contribution, no matter how modest.

You can also support us and power up our fundraiser by posting about it on social media. Share the link, tell others about it, or write a post on your blog and share that. Tweet us a link to your blog post, and we will share it on our social media.

Let's empower each other!

Dot Categories:

• KDE Official News

Découvrir

• Accueil
• Certifications
• Certification LPI
• Objectifs LPI
• FAQ

Apprendre

• Articles
• Mots-clés
• Glossaire
• Pages de manuel
• Ressources

Partager

• Contact