Sixty KDE developers converge on Stuttgard, Germany for Linux Tag 2001

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Author: JT Smith

More than 60
KDE developers from all over the world gathered at the KDE booth during
LinuxTag
2001. Among them were KDE developers from the United States, Austria,
the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Special guest-star from the
US was Noatun-developer Charles
Samuels, who will probably release KJetLag (which consists of lots
of sleep() calls) soon after he returns to the US this week ;-).On six TFT
equipped demopoints, KDE developers displayed the latest stable version
of the award-winning KDE desktop, theKOffice
office suite and the KDevelop development
IDE. They also offered a preview of KDE
2.2 Beta 1, KDevelop 3.0 pre-alpha (a/k/a Gideon)
and Reaktivate. The latter
enables Konqueror, the KDE web
browser and file manager, to embed ActiveX
controls, such as the popular Shockwave
movies, for which to date no native Linux/Unix solution exists. The well
decorated and overcrowded 24 square meter KDE booth and its crew enjoyed
the feedback and interest of several thousand visitors, among which remarkably
many stopped by to talk to the KDE women
team.

The event was highlighted with several KDE-related talks and workshops.
These included a presentation on “Universal Components” by KDE founder
Matthias Ettrich;
a tutorial on “Developing a GUI Using Qt” by Jesper K. Pedersen of Klarälvdalens
Datakonsult AB; a presentation on “aRts
und Brahms – Multimedia
in KDE 2.x” by Jan Würthner and Stefan
Westerfeld; and, last but not least, a presentation entitled “KDE 2.2
– Your Personal Desktop”, by KDevelop developer Ralf
Nolden.

In addition to the lectures, developers hosted several workshops on
KDE development. Particularly noteworthy was Michael
Goffioul‘s presentation on CUPS
and the KDEPrint System, of
which a KPresenter slide
show is available for download.

A considerable number of well known representatives of the Linux community
attended the KDE booth, including people from Prolinux,
LinuxUser and LinuxMagazin,
and Tuomas Kuosmanen (a/k/a “TigerT”). Rob
Malda (a/k/a CmdrTaco of Slashdot
fame), frequently popped by the KDE booth and proudly displayed the latest
KDE beta on his laptop.

In addition, on Thursday Margareta
Wolf, State Secretary of the German Federal
Ministry of Economics and Technology, expressed her interest when she
obtained
information on current issues concerning Linux and the KDE project, but
also shared here concerns about pending patent legislation in the EU and
its potential impact on the development of Open Source Software.

Several sets of photos from the event and the KDE booth are available:

The KDE-events-team would
like to thank all KDE developers and others who contributed to the event
for once more making LinuxTag 2001 a huge success for KDE. Specifically
we’d like to thank:

  • Klarälvdalens Datakonsult
    AB    , TrollTech AS and others
    for providing the admission charge for the LinuxTag social event;
  • SuSE for providing the five TFT monitors,
    hotel rooms and miscellaneous hardware;
  • The KDE League for paying for promotion
    material and KDE t-shirts;
  • RedHat for supplying three demo points;
    and
  • Frontsite for the “dragon food”;

and of course we’d like to thank the people who organized LinuxTag 2001.


About LinuxTag

LinuxTag is the largest Linux and Open Source exhibition in Europe. This
year 15,000 visitors and 110 exhibitors (among them more than 30 free software
projects) attended. The event was hosted in Stuttgart, Germany from July
5 through July 8.


About KDE

KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of developers
worldwide to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop environment
employing a component-based, network-transparent architecture. KDE is working
proof of the power of the Open Source “Bazaar-style” software development
model to create first-rate technologies on par with and superior to even
the most complex commercial software.

Please visit the KDE family of web sites for the KDE
FAQ, screenshots,
KOffice information, developer
information and a developer’s KDE
1 – KDE 2 porting guide. Much more information about KDE is available
from KDE’s web site.

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