KDE-cygwin news from the linuxtag

[RichardL㱫㭧]

Hi Ralf

Thanks a lot for sharing. 

It is nice to hear that the kde teams seem interested
in getting KDE to run on windows too.

Also I wonder if Holger is cooperating with Jaroslaw 
Staniek, who's working on QKW (http://www.iidea.pl/~js/qkw/), which is
basically the same thing. Would be a shame duplicating the efforts.

Nove Hrady seems interesting, too bad I can't even
afford to fix my own computer at the moment :-(

(and btw, no need to worry about your english,
it's a good as anyone around here)

Richard

> Hi all,
> 
> This week the linuxtag happens in Karlsruhe, Germany from 10.7 to
> 13.7. 2003
> 
> On thursday I was on the linuxtag business congress with some
> interesting sessions about managing and lawing aspects of oss 
> development which are also interesting for the kde-cygwin project.
> 
> Also I was on the linuxtag to talk with some important people like
> Holger Schröder, the kde team and others.
> 
> For example I have asked Kalle Dahlheimer, one of the chiefs of the
> kde e.V. some questions:
> 
> An important question was about there influence on the trolltech
> manager to release a win32 based gpl'ed port of QT (which would be
the 
> easiest solution for us). He answered, that - although he knows the 
> trolltech chiefs very well - the people who really direct the
company 
> are the investors and the layers.
> 
> Kalle Dahlheimer stated too, that some analysts see that trolltechs
> dual licensing strategy of the x11 qt as one of the major reasons,
why 
> trolltech was able to stand against much bigger companies in the
early 
> days. Because trolltechs market situation currently is complete 
> different - they has much more market share and more money, this
dual 
> licensing strategy of trolltech will probably *never* be applied to 
> the windows release. This make us (Holger and me) sure, that the
> started qt win32 port seems the *only* way to get ever a 
> gpl'ed win32 qt (and a win32 based kde in the future) and 
> that we should not expect any help from trolltech for this port!
> 
> But this doesn't matter, if you take a look into the qt/win32
roadmap
> on http://cygwin.kde.org/qt2-win32/roadmap.php you can see that we
are 
> currently in stage 2 of the porting. So we can say that, Richard 
> Lärkäng has introduced this stage. Whow !!
> 
> I'm very impressed by this. As Holger has started the qt2 port, I
have
> thought about how this port should go to miminize the steps and the 
> needed efforts, but I haven't thought that step 2 would be started
at 
> only half a year after the qt2 port and how far the results already 
> are.
> 
> Seeing this makes me more believable, that another important step,
> which isn't documented yet, but will be coming soon, could happen.
> 
> An additional question was, how the KDE organisation the KDE on
> windows initiative see and he answers, that they like see this
happens 
> and that they will not put any stones in the way. Later in the day 
> Ralf Nolden told us: "KDE on windows ? Great thing. Do it!!!". So 
> everybody is invitated to help, that this vision will be come true.
> 
> 
> Notes to the KDE3/win32 port
> 
> After Holger Schröder leaved the qt2/win32 porting - going to earn
> money in a company, while he is still studing in hannover,  he have 
> gotten access to a commercial qt license, which give him the chance
to 
> try how kde/win32 works with a already ported QT3/win32 library. So
he 
> is preparing the kde3/win32 port in the background.
> 
> A very important event will be the KDE developer conference in Novre
> havre. Holger Schröder will have the chance to speek to the
developer 
> forum about the ongoing efforts of the KDE-cygwin team.
> 
> One of the major goals of this presentation will be to inform the
kde
> developers about the requirements of the windows port in relation to

> the operation system and gui differences like forking, which isn't 
> available under a native windows, unix domain sockets, unix path 
> layout versus windows path layouts, how to separate os and gui 
> depending kde code from the rest and other important this. In the
next 
> time we are going to collect such issues to which anyone is
invitated 
> to contribute. For example we will start to publish a class list
> todo of some kdelibs parts in the next week.
> 
> If you are interested in contributing to the coming KDE windows
port,
> think about visiting the developer conference. You have the chance
to 
> get in contact with many kde core or application developers, which
may 
> be important for your further personal business carrier, because KDE

> will be one of the major platform independent application framework
in 
> the furture and you can get a part of this now. If you are really
> interested, please contact Holger Schröder.
> 
> KDE/cygwin on the linuxtag dvd
> 
> Another interesting news is, that Klaus Knopper - the maintainer of
> the KNOPPIX Linux CD - has build a linuxtag DVD with a special
KNOPPIX 
> edition, informations about the linuxtag and now the very good news,

> he has added the KDE-3.1.1/cygwin release to this dvd. This is very 
> cool and a good way to increase the publicity of the KDE/cygwin
port.
> 
> Additional we have spoken how to distribute further KDE/cygwin
> releases and/or applications like a kgroupware client or something 
> else. I think we will be in contact in future.
> 
> KDE on Windows will be more interesting for people, if it
distributes
> real known and functional applications.
> 
> On the linux tag I've got the chance to speek with people of the
> german BSI (Bundesamt für Sicherheit und
> Informationstechnik) and the german Innenministerium, which
> are responsible for the oss strategy of the german goverment, 
>  for example they have initiated and sponsered the Spinx and 
> the KGroupware project.
> 
> I've informed them about the real possibility to provide a KDE based
> win32 Kroupware client in the future replacing outlook and the 
> commercial connecter, which is used currently. They were very 
> surprised about this possibilities and requested to hold in contact 
> with the kde-cygwin team. Great possibilites, i think.
> 
> I think thats all for now and please forgive my bad english. I'm
still
> learning
> :-)
> 
> 
> Cheers
> Ralf