[dot] KDE and the Linux Journal 2004 Readers' Choice Awards

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1099004959/

From: Barry O'Donovan <barry.odonovan at kdemail.net>
Dept: writing-while-drinking
Date: Friday29/Oct/2004, @01:09

KDE and the Linux Journal 2004 Readers' Choice Awards
=====================================================

   KDE and its various applications have featured very well in the Linux
Journal [http://www.linuxjournal.com/] 2004 Readers' Choice Awards which
are published in the November issue of the magazine. Most importantly,
in the category of "Favorite Desktop Environment", KDE came in first
followed by GNOME. The trend over recent years has shown KDE gaining
more and more popularity over GNOME and this year KDE received two votes
for every one that GNOME received.

     There was a bit of bad news for KMail [http://kmail.kde.org/] which
dropped from second place last year to third place this year in the
"Favorite E-Mail Client" category. Mozilla came in first with Ximian
Evolution in second place. Kontact [http://www.kontact.org/] received no
mention in the write-up but may have taken a share of KMail's votes.
This dual-heading for KMail may have confused both the voters and the
survey editors which omitted a number of obvious choices in many of the
categories.
     KDevelop [http://www.kdevelop.org/] came in fourth in "Favorite
Development Tool" behind the old favorites of GCC and Emacs in first and
second places respectively. IBM's Eclipse eclipsed KDevelop out of third
place. Also-rans included vi and vim of which the survey editors put
into two separate categories which reinforces my misgivings on the
possible Kontact/KMail mix-up. Not that I'm a sore loser!
     The field of "Favorite Text Editor" was by dominated by 'the old
reliables' - vim took first place, followed by "vi and vi clones" in
second and GNU Emacs in third. Kate [http://kate.kde.org/] came "in at a
strong number four" and the editor, Heather Mead, asks the question
"Could readers finally be ready for a modern user interface in an
editor...?"
     A surprise to me was that KDE Desktop Sharing
[http://www.tjansen.de/krfb/] came in third behind Webmin and YaST in
"Favorite System Administration Tool". Congratulations to the
development team behind that.
     There was also some bad news for the KOffice
[http://www.koffice.org/] team which didn't make the top three in
"Favorite Office Program" or a mention in the editorial on the category.
As you might guess, OpenOffice.org came in a clear first and miles ahead
of the competition. AbiWord took second place followed by StarOffice.
     Kopete [http://kopete.kde.org/] jumped a place to second in
"Favorite Instant Messaging Client". However it only knocked Jabber back
into third by 7 votes. Gaim was the clear winner in first and Kopete has
some ground to make up before it over takes it. In my opinion, Kopete is
a far superior product but lacks the public awareness that Gaim has
gained through outlets such as regularly featuring in the top 20 active
projects of SourceForge as well as winning it's "Project of the Month"
on more than one occasion. The Kopete team should consider a big push to
coincide with the realise of KDE 3.4 concentrating on advertising its
new features that are in development; such as its integration with
Kontact in a similar way as MS Outlook and Messenger. With any luck
you'll rise to first for next year.
     Finally, in the category of "Favorite Web Browser", Konqueror
retained its second place position with Mozilla again taking first.
Opera took third and Galeon ended up in fifth place. Firefox was not
offered as a choice and some users wishing to vote for it used the
Mozilla box or the "Other" and this will no doubt have an effect on the
results.
     All in all I think it's a great set of results for KDE and all
those who contribute to the project should be proud of their work and
the recognition it is receiving.