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27 May 2010

Inovating Open Source Software

This is a great article over at info world about Open Source Software that is "doing it's own thing". Seven applications that are not based on existing products and which are developing new ideas and pushing software in new directions.

Nice to see the KDE SC social desktop stuff makes it in the list.

Code Leaders and Beautiful Teams

I sometimes listen to presentations on technology subjects while I work. Especially when I am working on stuff that requires not too much thought!

Today I listened to Code Leaders and Beautiful Teams. This was a very funny and entertaining presentation and I found the presenter, Roy Osherove, gave some really simple advice which when you step back and think about it makes you wonder why you have never thought of it before.

24 May 2010

KDE 4.5 Activities

Chani has created a screen cast to show off the work on activities that will be included in the upcoming 4.5 release of the KDE SC.

Watch it here

19 May 2010

Linux Software Development.

I came across this article by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols regarding the the fact that Linux needs to do more for programmers and ISV's. He argues that Microsoft tends to do more for ISV's with better tools and resources.

Although I can see exactly where Steven is coming from I do not exactly agree. Now do not get me wrong I am not trying to start an argument but rather pass comment from what I feel is a fair position.

By day I work with the .Net framework and Visual Studio (2008). I can see the point that Steven makes regarding the tools and resources that Microsoft provide but I would argue that they have it quite easy. Microsoft are only targeting their own platform. They produce the OS, an SDK for that OS and a development platform that sits on top of that OS. Their tools while comprehensive are full of utilities to make life easy for developers and for novice coders.

Now take the Linux platform. At present there are over 300 Linux distro's on distrowatch. They may all share the Linux Kernel and there will be a lot of variations of other distro's but there will be a mass of differences between lots of them. Then you take the various languages and tool kits that are available compared to Microsoft's handful. Lastly you consider the difference in development methodology. Microsoft provide a limited set of tools to drive the adoption of their core business (the OS) and to tie people into their platform. Linux and OSS developers do it because they want to a lot of the time. The OSS community has spawned a business market and not, as in Microsoft's case, created a community from a business.

Non paid OSS developers will always choose the tools, languages and utilities they want to develop their software and they should have that right. However, ISV's should not feel that they are not catered for. Qt is a great tool kit that provides a level of abstraction that allows developers to create software that is truly platform independent and not only that provides a great IDE and a very detailed documentation package. Mono, love it or not, also provides a large framework that not only provides easy to use tools and documentation but provides an easy move into Linux development for companies that have previously been involved in Microsoft based development.

I don't think that while Linux is as fragmented as it is one company could stand up and provide for developers as Microsoft does. Instead of the LDN providing more comprehensive documentation and guides it should be the companies that provide the languages and frameworks that sit on top of Linux that should do more to push their capabilities and knowledge.

17 May 2010

New KDE Focused Podcast.

This is a link to the new KDE focused podcast, KDE & The Masters Of The Universe.

Guillermo Amaral the host starts off by interviewing the one and only Aaron Seigo and has one question that makes Mr Seigo stop and think!

11 May 2010

KDE Global Menu.

I have just seen this article outlining a new global menu system developed by Aurelien Gateau.



The article does not provide much detail other then it is aimed for Netbooks and will be in the next Kubuntu release. Looks interesting but I was not aware this was something that many people would be interested in.

7 May 2010

Visual Studio Styles

I have just come across this site, studiostyles.info which not only house's loads of Visual Studio styles but it also has a style builder available for you to create your own.

When I get some time I will have a play but I am very happy with my own style at the moment

5 May 2010

KDE 4.4.3 "Cuality" Is Out!

KDE 4.4.3 is out. This is the monthly bugfix and translation release code name "Cuality".

The main highlights this month are :

* Numerous fixes in Konsole, KDE's terminal emulator, among them two possible crashers in session management
* Flash plugin support in KHTML has been enhanced to work with newest Youtube skins
* Case-sensitivity in renaming fixes in KIO, KDE's network-transparent I/O library
* Hiding the mouse cursor in some special cases in presentation mode and two possible crashers have been fixed

The full change log can be read here.

kde_4.4.3

pacman here I come!