[dot] The Pillars of KDE 4: Decibel

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1170892771/

From: Nathan Ogden <nathanogden76 at gmail.com>
Dept: are-we-there-yet?
Date: Wednesday07/Feb/2007, @15:59

The Pillars of KDE 4: Decibel
=============================

   The KDE development team is working hard on the KDE 4 platform. KDE 4
will include many exciting new technologies which will greatly enhance
the functionality of KDE. One of these new technologies is Decibel
[http://decibel.kde.org/]. We would like to give you an idea of what
Decibel is all about.

     In putting this article together, the KDE promotional community was
able to get most of the information from the lead developer of Decibel,
Tobias Hunger. Tobias lives in Germany and studied Computer Engineering
at the University of Kaiserslautern. Upon graduating, he found a job as
a consultant for a small company specializing in systems management.
Currently, he is employed as a software developer for basysKom GmbH.

     This article is part one of a four part series about Decibel. In
part one, we would like to provide a general overview of Decibel. Part
two will define several terms related to Decibel. Benefits for
developers will be covered in part three. Finally, part four will
discuss benefits for users.

     People use their computers to communicate with others. Usually,
they want to communicate as close to real-time as possible. Email,
instant messaging, and Voice over IP (VoIP), are some of the different
ways people communicate using their computers. Each of these has its
strengths and weaknesses. Ironically, each of these means of
communication do not talk very well with other means of communication.

     This is where Decibel comes in. Decibel is a service, not an
application. The goal of Decibel is to create a bridge between different
communication technologies. Decibel will make it easy to integrate
real-time communication technologies into applications, Tobias says.
Decibel provides a central storage place for settings of real-time
communications. This will allow one communication application (say,
email) to talk to another communication application (say, instant
messaging) without having to learn a new language.

     However, Decibel is not going to become yet another isolated box
dealing only with communication. There are at least two ways Decibel
will be able to connect to technologies and applications not normally
associated with communication. Because Decibel allows programs in
general to talk to each other in a more streamlined manner, programs
that are not related to communication can also take advantage of this
technology. For instance, document editors (such as word processors or
graphics editors) could use this technology to allow better
collaborative editing.

     Also, Decibel is being developed to integrate with other KDE
technologies. For instance, Phonon [http://phonon.kde.org/] is a KDE
technology that deals with integrating multimedia programs and services.
It is possible for Decibel to work with Phonon in situations such as
encoding and decoding voice data during a VoIP conversation.

     In part two of this series on Decibel, we will define some terms to
help further enhance your understanding of Decibel. In the final two
sections, we describe potential benefits for both users and developers,
and provide information on how to get involved with the Decibel project.
The goals of the Decibel team are wide-ranging and forward-thinking.
They have done an excellent job of specifying their vision. However,
they are still in the beginning stages of reaching their goals. Much
work needs to be done. The Decibel team would appreciate any help they
can get.