[dot] Second KOffice Sprint in Berlin Focuses on Release, Polish

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1193700454/

From: Inge Wallin and Boudewijn Rempt <>
Dept: release-and-polish!
Date: Monday 29/Oct/2007, @16:27

Second KOffice Sprint in Berlin Focuses on Release, Polish
==========================================================

   This weekend, ten KOffice hackers congregated once again in the
hospitable Berlin KDAB headquarters. KOffice has come a long way in six
months: all the groundwork has been laid for the new version, KOffice
2.0. From Krita to KPresenter, KWord to KSpread, KChart to Karbon,
KPlato to Kexi, and from KFormula to Kivio, the big underlying
frameworks are ready. This meeting was called to decide on common look &
feel issues and a release plan and schedule.

     For a long time, the KOffice team has worked towards a release
around the new year 2008. The meeting decided that it was a good idea to
aim for a slightly later release near the end of Q1. This gives us time
to work with the distributions to ensure that their needs are met, and
also to make KOffice take a more prominent role in some of them.
  [http://static.kdenews.org/dannya/koffice_sprint2/groupphoto.jpg]
     Given that all the big architecture work has been done, it was also
decided to try and release every six months after that, keeping
synchronized with Kubuntu and possibly other distributions releasing
semi-annually.

     Unfortunately, the first release in the KOffice 2 series might not
contain all the old KOffice applications. There remains a lot of work to
be done, especially on KPresenter and Kivio! More help is definitely
needed here. The Junior Jobs
[http://www.koffice.org/getinvolved/junior-jobs.php] page has been
resurrected and will be filled in the coming week with enticing little
tasks any aspiring hacker might be proud to attempt. This has been shown
to be a great way to get into KOffice hacking in the past, so don't
hesitate to contact us either at koffice-devel at kde.org or #koffice on
irc.kde.org.

     On the tangible results front, lots of work has been done on
identifying issues where the KOffice applications duplicate code. For
Create Project [http://create.freedesktop.org] resources like patterns,
gradients and colour palettes, a common loading infrastructure is
already in development. And a KOffice 2 Application Style Guide, an
extension to the OpenUsability KDE HIG
[http://wiki.openusability.org/guidelines] has been started to aid
developers in doing the right thing.
  [http://static.kdenews.org/dannya/koffice_sprint2/tabletcomputer.jpg]
     Of course, the intangibles are just as important: meetings like
this are great opportunities to meet new KOffice developers in real
life. Since the KDE e.V has the rule that each meeting should also
feature 10% new developers, this virtually ensures that new people will
be taken into the community in an exciting way. This years new developer
was Johannes Simon, who has done work on KChart and the libraries.
Another developer who took the chance to meet his online friends in
person was Sven Langkamp, who is a long-time Krita developer, but had
never met the other KOffice hackers.

     Finally we would like to thank again our sponsors: KDE e.V.
[http://ev.kde.org/] for taking care of the travel and hotel costs for
eight hackers, and KDAB [http://kdab.net/] for the wonderful hacking
location and the great food. Thank you!