KDE Contributor Conference 2003 "Kastle" Report

Last weekend the KDE Contributor Conference 2003 in Nove Hrady ("Kastle") ended. There's a conference report, all slides and papers have been published, and there are lots of photos including the obligatory group photo (use mouse pointer and look at the status bar to see the names!). Also part of kastle were the KOffice Developers' Meeting and the presentation of Qt 4.

Welcome...

[s20451]

Welcome to the KDE Kontributor Konference!

KKK? That's not good ...

KDE's Knot KKK?

[corebreech]

I didn't think so.

Re:Welcome...

[cioxx]

In fact, not far off. Notice the Nazi helmet [kde.org]

Re:Welcome...

[Daengbo]

Nice troll. You mean the one that says "I broke kdelibs?" I would hardly take that as a logo of KDE

Re:Welcome...

[mcgroarty]

I bet you're loads of laughs at parties, too.

Re:Welcome...

[Daengbo]

sarcasm never gets lost in plain text, you know...

Re:Welcome...

[EvilNTUser]

You think that's bad?

I go to the Helsinki School of Economics, which, in Finnish, becomes the Helsinki KKK [www.hkkk.fi] ;-)

Re:Welcome...

[digitalunity]

You fucking troll. Do some research.

On Trolltech's website [trolltech.com], they plainly state that SCO Group(technically, it's the Canopy Group) holds 1.6% of Trolltech. The employees quite obviously have a controlling interest in the company.

Re:Welcome...

[digitalunity]

I understand that. That was my point. I distrust SCO far more than the Canopy Group, which is just a holdings company. SCO is owned by Canopy but SCO is the dangerous, insidious bastard to worry about.

Conference Schedule

[chundo]

8:00 am: Session 1: Why can't we get past using the letter K?

-j

Re:Conference Schedule

[tjansen]

Easy: the next one is reserved for Java applications.

Re:Conference Schedule

[tjansen]

Oops, I have just proved that by alphabet skills have suffered in the last years.

Re:Conference Schedule

[tomstdenis]

You must be from California :-)

[it's too easy, I swear!]

Tom

Re:Conference Schedule

[tomstdenis]

I bow down before the masta'h.

Good one!

Re:Conference Schedule

[Anonymous Coward]

It's their businessmodel.

1) Do free stuff.
2) ?
3) Kall Keverything Ksomething.
4) Profit!

Re:Conference Schedule

[arose]

KDE the desktop writen in K++

Oh, and incidentally...

[leonbrooks]

...KOffice is switching to OASIS, the OOo file format.

Group photo.

[saintlupus]

and there are lots of photos including the obligatory group photo

Wow, look at all the chicks.

*crickets*

So I suppose becoming an Open Source developer isn't going to get me lots of hot action, huh?

--saint

Re:Group photo.

[3.5 stripes]

I count 2 girls there, doesn't seem much worse a ratio than your average lan party...

Or your average tech show when you subtract the booth babes.

Re:Group photo.

[nbarr]

Thats 3 girls (and a guy with a skirt). I counted two at the first time. But there is one partly hidden right in the middle of the picture. Three persons up the lady in the front, and one person to the right.

Re:Group photo.

[3.5 stripes]

That's a MAN baby!

Heh, actually, I counted the obvious girl, and the blonde in the back row. The green stripy shirt looks a lot like a rugby shirt, it's a tough call. I went for man.

Re:Group photo.

[DataCannibal]

With a name like Oswald I reckon a man is a good guess :-) Even given the fact that some german names are very different than english one and quite hard for a non-german speaker to guess the sex of.

How about Wiebke or Swantje anyone ? Any guesses

Re:Group photo.

[beef3k]

Well, maybe there would be more women if only the KDE boys could grow up and stop playing with their food [kde.org]

the dude on the left

[mrgreenfur]

you just know he's thinging "whoa, there's a girl here. how'd she get in?!?! *stares*"

window.status ?

[CaptainBaz]

Blockquoth the poster...

obligatory group photo (use mouse pointer and look at the status bar to see the names!)

But only in Internet Explorer [microsoft.com], it would seem. Certainly not in Mozilla Firebird [mozilla.org]. It beggars belief that people who are trying to convince the world of the virtues of alternative and open systems can't even code cross-browser [d]HTML.

Re:window.status ?

[mrew]

Works in Konqueror for me.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:window.status ?

[spitzak]

Didn't work in Safari for me. 1.0 v85

Also that balloon page said "sorry Javascript required"

In both cases I have Safari set to the defaults. Java + javascript enabled, popup blocking turned off.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:window.status ?

[spitzak]

Sorry I was a doofus. I thought it was going to popup tooltips using javascript. Instead it was displaying the names in the status bar (which I had turned off).

It still cleared the names instantly on the next mouse move. I just tried it in Konqueror and it works pretty well there and the names stay up. So not sure what the problem is with that.

Re:window.status ?

[Mickey]

I wonder if this is a Mozilla bug. I played with the HTML, but I can't seem to get the names to appear. Does Mozilla not have a mouseover event for image maps?

Re:window.status ?

[stefanlasiewski]

Does Mozilla not have a mouseover event for image maps?

I'm no Mozilla expert, but I can often see mouseover events in image maps on other sites. Just not this one.

Re:window.status ?

[teklob]

works fine in opera 6.12 as well maybe Firebird isnt quite ready yet

Re:window.status ?

[Natalie's Hot Grits]

nice troll...

There is nothing wrong with the code. It is supported in every major browser other than gecko. It is quite funny watching mozilla/firebird fanboys bitch about "non standard" code. Especially when such code is the only way to get the desired effect. Just because it isn't in the W3C document doesnt mean it shouldn't be implemented in a web browser. How about the little animation in the corner of the web broser? Should we not include that because it isn't written into the HTML standard? Its also

Here is a XHTML compliant version

[zerodeux]

Quickly sed'ed for correctness : http://mksp.zerodeux.net/contributors.html [zerodeux.net].

Re:Here is a XHTML compliant version

[Principal Skinner]

Hey, thanks! Finally I was able to learn how quickly I lose interest in the names of the KDE developers :-P

I normally have my JavaScript set to not change the statusbar text in Mozilla, since I think it's evil and serves no purpose that is beneficial to the user.

Re:window.status ?

[John Seifarth]

Works fine in Konqueror 3.0.1. So should you believe in beggars?

Re:window.status ?

[jemfinch]

It works in Konqueror, of course.

That group photo is a fake!

[Snosty]

There are two women in that group photo. Clearly it is a fake designed to psychologically manipulate us into supporting KDE over Gnome.

Damn it, I think it's working.

Re:That group photo is a fake!

[blancolioni]

You went through the photo looking for chicks? You really have to get out of the house more.

Re:That group photo is a fake!

[gowen]

You went through the photo looking for chicks?

Actually, they probably call themselves Khicks...

Re:That group photo is a fake!

[ComaVN]

Thank you. Now my laptop is covered in tea.

Re:That group photo is a fake!

[nbarr]

three girls, and a guy wearing a skirt. look better.

Re:That group photo is a fake!

[jooon]

three girls, and a guy wearing a skirt. That's a Kilt. I guess you see the pattern. :)

Re:That group photo is a fake!

[Rhone]

See the KDE Women [kde.org] page for more psychological manipulation.

This is great!

[Vann_v2]

I read the KOffice Developers' Meeting page [kde.org] and it says that they'll be switching to OpenOffice.org's file format for all major applications. As someone who occasionaly uses both OpenOffice.org and KOffice this is great news, and will also provide an easy way to translate between current KOffice formats and OpenOffice.org. Maybe we have on our hands a new, truly cross-platform file format.

Re:This is great!

[Zeut]

It would be nice if Abiword and Gnumetric also switched to the OO formats.

OO.o format

[Daengbo]

File format
We will switch to the OASIS (OpenOffice.org) file format for all the major applications. This has many advantages:

• file format shared with the OpenOffice.org suite, we don't have to reinvent the wheel
• we'll be able to drop our OOo import filters and use the export filters as a compatibility layer for older KOffice versions documents
• we can actively participate in the standard file format creation in the the case of Kexi and Kugar which are applications that don't currently exist in OOo

I can't believe how awesome this is. As they say, koffice users can now swap files with OO.o users on Windows. I somehow wonder how they will get the frame orinted approach in koffice to save well in the OpenOffice format, but I am all for the interoperability this will offer.

Re:OO.o format

[Daengbo]

I apologize for repeating some of what this post [slashdot.org] said, but I refreshed right before writing my post, and still saw nothing but mentions of the women in the photos. You may safely mod me redundant now...

Two girls!?!?!?!?!?

[nbarr]

I mean, GUI development needs more women. You know its very difficult to find a man that has UI and aestetics capabilities (at least a straight one). If we want more friendly to use GUIs, we need women! Pronto!

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Two girls!?!?!?!?!?

[nbarr]

Actually, you are right. There are two girls. The third one is two persons to the top of the front one, and one person to the left.

Re:Two girls!?!?!?!?!?

[jester]

How exactly is that a girl ? He is called Oswald (use the mouseover to see the names). I've never met a girl called Oswald before :-)

Re:Two girls!?!?!?!?!?

[Ilan Volow]

The problem isn't that GUI development needs more women, the problem is that GUI development needs programmers who will actually listen to the existing men (or women) who are knowledgable in areas of usability who have been screaming at them about really bad usability problems for the last five years.

If you want more user friendly GUI's, what you really want are Free Software developers who will actually listen to the usability people and not tell them "That's what you want. That's not what I want" or "Qui

skirt

[nbarr]

And the one wearing the skirt is not a girl, or is it...

Group photo splash screen

[Gaima]

I keep upto date with KDE from CVS (using Gentoo's excellent KDE CVS ebuilds [gentoo.org]) and noted, along with the large number of changes, that in the last week or so the default splash screen has been changed to the group photo.
It's nice an' all, but could we have it changed back please? :)

Just like the 2 guys on the left I was also like "whoa, there's a girl here. how'd she get in?!?! *stares*" (mrgreenfur).

Kudos to the KDE Developers too, some good work going on.

Re:Group photo splash screen

[dylan_-]

the default splash screen has been changed to the group photo.
It's nice an' all, but could we have it changed back please?

The splash pics are in /usr/kde/3.1/share/apps/ksplash/pics so you can change them, and I believe if you put files in ~/.kde/share/apps/ksplash/pics you can have a customised one for your own login.

Hope this helps.

KDE Developers Anonymous

[ThyTurkeyIsDone]

Hello group, my name is Klark... As is the kase with many of you, I love komputers and was about to embark on a kareer in the field of information and kommunikation teknology... but my troubles started when I got into KDE development... it wasn't really konspikuous at first when I started to spell everything with a k, sometimes even with a kapital K, but soon my kolleagues began to wonder whether I kouldn't spell... they asked me, "Are you on krack? Kut the krap!"... some even went as far as kalling me kompletely krazy! What kould I do? I must admit, I'm a kolerik person, kwick-tempered as you might say... sometimes I got inkredibly angry, and I kussed and kursed at my ko-workers... People should judge me by the kontent of my karakter instead of just kriticizing my kurious spelling! However, when I was sacked for being unkooperative, I developed an inferiority komplex and finally realized I had to kome to terms with my problem... so here I am, this is my koming-out... I know my kase is a komplex one, but I do hope it is kurable...

KDE-3.2 release cycle starts today !

[InodoroPereyra]

A great way to capitalize all the discussions at the Kastle: the devs are starting the 3.2 release cycle [kde.org] now . The integration of PIM stuff in 3.2 will make for a complete, extremely consistent desktop environment (except for KOffice that will need onesome extra time to mature, incorporate the OpenOffice filters, etc.)

KDE Girl hackers

[jester]

While there were indeed 3 girls there, one of them has had a bit too much to drink as you can see
here [kde.org].

Re:KDE Girl hackers

[alonso]

I really love hers red eyes ;)

hmmm

[veeoh]

popular with the chicks then?

I count 1?

Glad they didn't use all Ks cause ...

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

... the KDE Kontributor Konference abbreviation wouldn't go very well. Just ask Krusty how well his Krusty Komedy Klassics went over at the Apollo...

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Bob/Dangerous Creatures/Xenix/Entertainment Pack

[leonbrooks]

Very corporate friendly. And then of course there's TFPC. (-:

Re:Stop with the stupid Ks...

[richie2000]

"KDE" stands for "Kool Desktop Environment".

Um, no it doesn't. [linuxquestions.org]

The K in KDE does not stand for anything. It is the character that comes before L in the Latin alphabet, which stands for Linux. It was chosen because KDE runs on many types of UNIX (and perfectly well on FreeBSD). "

OTOH, putting the name of a seriously debilitating illness [mssociety.org.uk] in front of all program names is OK? I guess it's fitting that billg talked about the Digital Nervous System a few year's back... MS is a disease.

Re:Stop with the stupid Ks...

[rking]

The K in KDE does not stand for anything. It is the character that comes before L in the Latin alphabet, which stands for Linux. It was chosen because KDE runs on many types of UNIX (and perfectly well on FreeBSD).

It is true, or at least reasonably true, to say that the K doesn't stand for anything now. Claiming that it was chosen for any reason other than because KDE was originally called the Kool Desktop Environment [urbanlizard.com] is not true.

Seriously, they started with a bad name. They very sensibly ditched it. No need to go on about it but no reason to pretend it never happened either.

Re:Stop with the stupid Ks...

[Natalie's Hot Grits]

You have to also realize the history behind the acronym "KDE"

Yes, Kool Desktop Environment was the origional name. But it was a play off of CDE, the Common Desktop Environment. You see, back when KDE started, CDE was all there was, and GNOME did not exist. People were sick of fvwm95 which was the default desktop in redhat, and other linux distros, and when they saw KDE (similar in name to CDE, which everyone knew) they could relate...

Kool didn't just come out of thin air. They couldn't name it the Cool De

Re:Stop with the stupid Ks...

[kris]

Some people claim that KDE stands for Kalle Dalheimer Experience.

Re:Stop with the stupid Ks...

[Rob Kaper]

For the last time (not!): it's the Klingon Desktop Environment [unixcode.org]. Only ~130 strings translated though, if only I'd get some help!

Fecal matters (was Re:Stop with the stupid Ks...)

[mousse-man]

Immediately, I was thinking of "Klo" (toilet) and "Kacke" (look it up yourself) when I saw this....ah the possiblities that good knowledge of the German language can open!

But soon we might have "Krap" as well....

Re:Stop with the stupid Ks...

[Arandir]

Well, you could always use FreeBSD instead.

"What does BSD stand for?"

"Berkeley Software Distribution. It's the UNIX developed at UC Berkeley."

Re:Stop with the stupid Ks...

[be-fan]

How is KDE any different from CDE, which corporations ran for a long time?

How is KWord any different from MS Word?

The K is just branding. If you notice, most Windows apps have an MS (or a full Microsoft) in front of them:

It's not IE, but MSIE
It's not Word, but MS Word,
etc.

Re:The K is not for Kool

[JamesKPolk]

http://www.hakubi.us/kdeannounce.html

"New Project: Kool Desktop Environment (KDE)"

And if you don't believe my mirror:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl263011379 5d &dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=53tkvv%24b4j%40newsse rv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de

Re:Stop with the stupid Ks...

[debest]

I'm not sure why you're so upset with KDE projects in particular. Free software is full of "cute" names: to make the whole bunch of them sound "professional" would affect a lot more than KDE.

Given this situation, I rather like KDE's project names. It makes it easier to tell that they are, in fact, KDE applications.

If the names are so bothersome, I'm sure you could just fork all the projects so you can rename them!

Not everyone minds the Kisms

[nurb432]

True its often over done, but at its root it makes a LOT of sense.

If its prefixed with K, you pretty much can guess its integrated with KDE..

Don't forget, G goes with Gnome.. I don't see people bitching about that, and its just as effective/silly/etc.

Re:Not everyone minds the Kisms

[Al Al Cool J]

Sometimes guessing can be bad, because sometimes k stands for kernel. Ah, but isn't it always fun to tell a newbie that things like kswapd, keventd, and kupdated are leftover KDE processes that can be safely killed after KDE has shut down.

Yes, I know, I'm pure evil.

Re:Not everyone minds the Kisms

[Scarblac]

What part of "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" do you not understand

The comma.

Re:Not everyone minds the Kisms

[Ed_Moyse]

Very good! That just made me laugh out loud!

Its not perfect....

[nurb432]

I agree the more esoteric K-apps is silly.. if they would stick to common words ( + the K ) then things would be better..

Kmail, Koffice, etc are good examples.

Kopete, Konqueror are bad examples..

Then you have things like Aethera.. Geezh.. I will hate to have to explain to clients about that one.. Aside from the question, 'is it KDE compliant?', its just really really poorly named.. ( unless its some german thing that we here in the USA use differently )

Re:Stop with the stupid Ks...

[bogie]

Blah Blah. Again with the stupid arguement that names matter...

From now on I'm just putting all of you down as enemies so that you will be forever modded to -6 and I won't have to read this pointless arguement about names anymore.

When you see a shiny colored button in the comments while your reading /. at least you'll now why. :-/

Re:This was not a troll

[Rhone]

I suspect your post was moderated as a troll because the complaint you made already gets made several times in every vaguely KDE-related thread. It's getting old.

The continued, annoying repetition makes the "I'm sick of all the K's!" posts feel like trolls even when they aren't meant that way.

Re:This was not a troll

[Overly Critical Guy]

It's tiring when nobody listens to the users. And the repetitive Ks are more "old" than posts like this, I feel.

Re:NOT TROLL, KDE IS ANTI AMERICAN!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! About time they threw that PNAC Nazi out!

Google

[Rob Kaper]

Website links are only a very small part of PageRank. If you still believe link whoring matters, you're sadly mistaken. Besides, if I were trying to inflate my page rank in such a way, it wouldn't make sense to link a *different* URL, would it?

Furthermore, "again" looks a bit silly given the fact my sites have had decent Google (and MSN Search) ratings for quite a while. We've been top ten for "governor schwarzenegger" for months without a single incoming link to said pages. Why? Because we've had regular

Re:Google

[JamesKPolk]

I post under my account.

Re:NOT TROLL, KDE IS ANTI AMERICAN!

[10Ghz]

Let me get this straight: KDE protested against software-patents. Now, software-patents are an issue that relates directly to KDE (and all open-source software for that matter). How did they protest? They closed their website for one day. Then an american KDE-developer decided that since KDE protests against software-patents by closing their website, it's perfectly OK to embed pro-US Army proganda right in to KDE itself. Obviously other KDE-developers disagreed.

Protesting against software-patents (a thing

Re:Warning : KDE 3.2 Kould be krippled!

[JamesKPolk]

Nah, it's not starting with obvious things like kwin. The Havoc-ification of KDE started with XDG Desktop Files, then it'll be DBUS, then it'll be GConf.