[dot] Report: KGX at World's Largest Computer Expo

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1080936701/

From: Daniel Molkentin <molkentin at kde.org>
Dept: commit-to-excellence-and-talk-about-it
Date: Friday 02/Apr/2004, @22:11

Report: KGX at World's Largest Computer Expo
============================================

   The KDE Germany Team [http://www.kde.de] was exhibiting the KDE
team's achivements at the world's largest Computer Trade Show CeBIT
[http://www.cebit.de/homepage_e] in Hannover, Germany from 18.03 -
24.03. Hosted at the booth of Linup-Front [http://www.linup-front.de],
the team presented KDE 3.2 as well as a recent developer snapshot of KDE
PIM [http://pim.kde.org] on an Athlon64 system. Most people asked to see
the KDE/Qt integration for OpenOffice.org [http://kde.openoffice.org]
and GTK as well as Kontact [http://www.kontact.org]. They were impressed
to learn how fast KDE is implementing the promise to become the
"Integrative Desktop Environment" that lets you use a wide variety of
popular applications while still maintaining consistancy in look and (to
some extent) even feel. Another focus of interest was KIOSK, which is
now even easier to handle thanks to Kiosk Tool
[http://extragear.kde.org/apps/kiosktool.php]. Read on for the full
story about KDE at CeBIT 2004.

     Some developers  used the opportunity
[http://ktown.kde.org/~danimo/fairs/cebit2004/rainer/.tmp/img_0313.jpg.html]
to fix bugs as they were reported or at least assisted and motivated
people to file bugs reports or to search for already existing ones and
comment and vote for them. Fundraising was also done. Gifts for
donations included KDE Pins, Stickers, T-Shirts and "KDE Development"
books. A lot of people asked for stuffed Konqis which were unfortunately
not available.

     Among the visitors, even politicians stepped by to see KDE. Jürgen
Chrobog, a State Secretary for the German Department for Foreign Affairs
was fascinated by KDE's language support. Minister of Justice Brigitte
Zypris got an introduction 
[http://ktown.kde.org/~danimo/fairs/cebit2004/rainer/.tmp/img_0301.jpg.html]
to KDE 3.2. When she saw the stack of stickers on software patents in
Europe stating the fact that even the progress bar is patented, asked
for details. Thus, the KDE Team got the unique chance to explain the
danger for FOSS Software as well as small and average companies that
emanates from software patents.

     LinuxPark [http://www.linux-events.de/] was an excellent forum to
get in touch with Linux related companies and other projects such as
Debian [http://ktown.kde.org/~binner/CeBIT2004/dscf0016.jpg], the LPI
[http://ktown.kde.org/~danimo/fairs/cebit2004/rainer/.tmp/img_0308.jpg.html]
and of course GNOME
[http://ktown.kde.org/~binner/CeBIT2004/dscf0014.jpg].  Linux
Information Systems [http://www.linux-ag.de] was kind enough to host
Scribus [http://www.scribus.org] Author Fanz Schmid
[http://ktown.kde.org/~binner/CeBIT2004/dscf0011.jpg] with his
incredible Qt-based desktop publishing software. Even DTP experts agreed
that Scribus is already usable for professional printing and gave
valuable feedback that Franz started to implement in his rare spare time
during the fair.

     Klas Kalaß gave an impressive
[http://ktown.kde.org/~danimo/fairs/cebit2004/michael/.tmp/Klas.JPG.html]
talk [http://ktown.kde.org/~binner/CeBIT2004/dscf0019.jpg] that
introduced KDE with almost all its different aspects. In her talk, Eva
Brucherseifer discussed
[http://www.linux-events.de/LinuxPark/cebit04/LinuxPark/cebitbilder/18/72.jpg]
the possibilities of porting MFC applications to Linux, particulary
using Qt. Daniel Molkentin  showed Kontact
[http://www.linux-events.de/LinuxPark/cebit04/LinuxPark/cebitbilder/23/067.jpg]
interacting with with the Kolab Server and explained the current
development status of the integration with eGroupware and
OpenGroupware.org. All speeches were very well attended. Even though
CeBIT is a fairly big expo with a fairground of about 360.000 square
meters, most people took the time to attend the talks that averaged
30-40 minutes each, including a Q&A session.

     Looking off-site the LinuxPark area, visitors found that more and
more exhibitors now plan to offically support Linux on the desktop. Over
in Hall 1 at the Novell booth, SUSE [http://www.suse.com] showed Beta
Versions of their upcoming version 9.1 featuring KDE 3.2 including
Kontact [http://ktown.kde.org/~binner/CeBIT2004/dscf0002.jpg] and the
KDE OpenOffice Integration [http://kde.openoffice.org/].

     CeBIT 2004 was a successful event for KDE. Thanks go to Linup-Front
[http://www.linup-front.de] for the booth, to Linux New Media
[http://www.linuxnewmedia.de] for providing exhibitor tickets, to
nomachine [http://www.nomachine.com] and basysKom
[http://www.basyskom.de] for paying the expenses of the apartment and
Fujitsu-Siemens Computers [http://http://www.fujitsu-siemens.de/] for
the Demo System. See you all next year at CeBIT 2005!

     Photo galleries: Rainer Endres
[http://ktown.kde.org/~danimo/fairs/cebit2004/rainer/] | Michael Brade
[http://ktown.kde.org/~danimo/fairs/cebit2004/michael/] | Steve Binner
[http://ktown.kde.org/~binner/CeBIT2004/]