Links 25/01/2014: KDE News Roundup
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-01-25 20:11:59 UTC
- Modified: 2014-01-25 20:11:59 UTC
Summary: Selected (important) news about KDE, accumulated over the past 1.5 weeks
Releases
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Today KDE released updates for its Applications and Development Platform, the first in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.12 series. Starting with the next Applications and Development Platform release, 4.12.2, there will also be a maintenance release of Workspaces 4.11.6. This release contains only bugfixes and translation updates; it will be a safe and pleasant update for everyone.
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The KDE community has announced the updates for KDE SC 4.12 series. According to the community blog, “Starting with the next Applications and Development Platform release, 4.12.2, there will also be a maintenace release of Workspaces 4.11.6. This release contains only bugfixes and translation updates; it will be a safe and pleasant update for everyone.”
Development
Conferences/Meetings
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The Plasma team is meeting in Barcelona, Spain these days to work on the next major version of KDE’s popular workspaces. As we are in a transition period, technically and organisationally, this is a very important meeting. I won’t go into too many details in this post, as they are still being fleshed out, but to give you an idea what we are talking about, here’s a quick run-down of some of the things we talked about.
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conf.kde.in was announced in November, to take place February 21 – 23, 2014 in Gandhinagar, India. This three-day conference, the biggest KDE event in India, will bring together Qt developers, KDE contributors, open source enthusiasts and users from all across the nation. Visitors will have the opportunity to learn, share, contribute, innovate and create around Qt and KDE technology.
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In the second week of January, KDE's Plasma team gathered in the Blue Systems office in Barcelona, Spain, to discuss and work on the next generation of KDE's popular workspace products. The meeting comes just at the right time, as the Plasma team has just finished a first technology preview, which puts the base technology in place and allows for an evaluation of the current progress. It also gives an opportunity for more refined plans for a first stable release.
Applications
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Akregator is the default KDE RSS/Atom feed reader and it does it very well. Without being bloated with a lot of features, Akregator takes a rather simple approach, yet providing all the needed features one would expect from a feed reader. You have an integrated web browser, tabs, feed fetching interval configuration, feed archiving, system tray notifications and a few other notable features shown below. Akregator is part of the KDE Kontact Suite.
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If you have used Gwenview before KDE SC 4.11 you might be familiar with the following situation: you are running Gwenview in fullscreen mode, pressing Space to go through a folder full of images. At one point, pressing Space does not do anything anymore... What's wrong? A quick move of the mouse to bring up the fullscreen bar reveals that you are on the last image.
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The Calligra team is proud and pleased to announce the second beta release of version 2.8 of the Calligra Suite for testing! The team will now focus on fixing remaining bugs. Let’s make sure the final release of 2.8, expected by the end of January is as stable as possible by giving the current beta a good testing!
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Mesa contributor and KDE developer Fredrik Höglund has been working on support within Mesa for GL_ARB_multi_bind. This OpenGL 4.4 extension is implemented across eighteen patches and Fredrik hopes to land the support next week.
Misc.
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In May of this year, our project to place refurbished computers into the homes of disadvantaged kids will turn nine years old. Aside from an extremely short-lived and disastrous trial with Microsoft Windows in the beginning, Reglue (formally HeliOS) has depended on Linux to power those computers and we’ve used a number of distros over the years.
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KDE’s leadership is an opportunity to extend free and open technology, providing creative minds unlimited room to innovate. Mainstream tech companies try to do this without disrupting their profits or stock prices. We are fortunate to have such freedom.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Red Hat QA Team "Had Shrunk by Half Over the Past Year." (After IBM Divestment)
- If Red Hat's workforce is being moved to the East, then RHEL can become a national security problem
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- Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Digital Minimalism and Social Control Media
- Links for the day
- IBM's GNU/Linux Divestment, Based on Hard But Anecdotal Evidence (IBM Fails to Recognise How Much Money It Made and Can Still Make From "Linux")
- Love us or hate us, a lot of what we've been saying about Red Hat under IBM turns out to be rather accurate
- Links 04/09/2025: Massive Microsoft Staff Cuts (Barely Reported), "Strange Conspiracy Theory Is Reportedly Spreading Inside OpenAI"
- Links for the day
- Activists Can Win, But Keep an Eye on the Ball and on the Trophy
- GitHub is dying, it was a loss-making trap, not free hosting
- Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Katrina Remembered, Distracted Driving, and Virtual Economics
- Links for the day
- At This Point It's No Longer Matthew Garrett But People Who Fund Matthew Garrett (or Companies That Fund His SLAPPs Against My Wife and I)
- The only thing worse than misogynists are misogynists who fail to respect other people's right to go on holiday
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 03, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, September 03, 2025
- The UEFI 9/11 - Part VI - This Serious Harm Was Planned for Over a Decade, Not an Accident or Merely Some Misfortune
- The term "Serious Harm" is legally meaningful here
- GNOME Unfit for Diversity and Inclusion
- GNOME's leadership is using "bad words"
- Brodie Robertson Addressing the Recently-Discovered Comments
- Most people probably knew nothing about this until he wrote a response
- Slopwatch: "Open Source" and "Linux" News Faked, Made by Bots and Entered Into Google News
- Spam combined with slop about "Linux" has entered Google News
- Links 03/09/2025: Microsoft Causes Mass Layoffs Outside Microsoft Also, "Google Can Keep Paying for Firefox Search Deal"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 03/09/2025: calendar.txt, Alhena 5.3.1, and ROOPHLOCH
- Links for the day
- The Theory That the Man From McKinsey, Whom Red Hat Took From Microsoft a Month Ago as Executive, Wants 'Efficiency' (Lower Salaries)
- So far... no "official" word
- When Your Site's Articles Are Being 'Cheapened' by Slop as Feature Images
- Dr. Farnell should become an advisor to The Register MS
- Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Drops to Only Half a Dozen Capsules and 0.2% of the Whole in Geminispace, Self-Signed is the Way to Go
- It used to have hundreds, according to Lupa
- Doing to Red Hat What They Already Did (and Still Do) to IBM
- there seems to be a drive to hire cheaper staff, and it may be led by somebody Red Hat hired from Microsoft
- Links 03/09/2025: Salesforce's Latest Mass Layoffs, 93% in Large Poll at The Register MS Say UK Government Should Dump Microsoft
- Links for the day
- Preparations for Our 19th Anniversary Have Already Begun
- When we get back we'll probably sort out some balloons and venue for the next party
- Pleased After 2 Years With team.blue
- Moving from a Content Management System (CMS, dynamic) to a Static Site Generator (SSG) was a wise decision that made life so much easier
- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is Being Attacked by Organisations Jealous of Its Principled Stance and Longevity
- Nobody is perfect, but imperfection does not instantaneously imply sinister intent
- If You Reject the Google Verdict in the US, Then You Should Also Reject the "Modern" Web (Do Something About It)
- Gemini Protocol is still open; it cannot be hijacked or subverted because it's frozen by design and by intention
- Open Source Initiative IRS Filing: Almost All the Money is Corporate, Stefano Maffuli (Executive Director) Takes About a Quarter of That Money for Openwashing of "AI" Ponzi Scheme
- OSI is currently little but a PR/marketing agency of Microsoft
- Many People Are "Leaving" Red Hat, Even High-Level Managers
- Something is definitely going on at Red Hat
- Techrights Has Been Subjected to Calls of Violence (and Death Threats), It Never Condoned Violence
- I have no sympathy for people who call violence "free speech" and then get in trouble
- Condoning Violent Behaviour and "Free Speech"
- perhaps Microsoft Lunduke lost touch with what constitutes violence
- Takeaway From the Google Verdict: GAFAM Has Too Much Control (Even Over the US Government and Courts With Government Appointees)
- Many people feel disappointed but hardly surprised by the verdict
- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 in One Month
- As noted a few days ago, several times in fact, many people now recognise the importance of the FSF's mission, even if most people don't know what the FSF is
- Many Microsoft "Assets" Are Fabricated Baloney (to Game the Numbers)
- At times it seems like what we deal with are many weak patents (on algorithms), valuations or speculations based on hype ("hey hi"), and stocks held by Microsoft and its own staff
- "Voluntary" Layoffs at Microsoft (to Game the Numbers, Sugar-Coating a Crisis)
- "Employees interested have until the end of October to volunteer."
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 02, 2025
- IRC logs for Tuesday, September 02, 2025
- Links 02/09/2025: Oligarch Tech and Text Encoding Concerns in Ada
- Links for the day
- "Internal Changes at Red Hat / IBM"
- It seems like quite a few people are leaving
- Confirmed in French Media: Mass Layoffs (10% Culled) in Microsoft France
- Now some reports in French
- "People on LinkedIn Saying That They've Left Red Hat."
- We already saw signs of it a month ago and named some of the people
- Gone With the BRICs (or BRICS): "Linux 8" in Cuba
- GAFAM must be worried
- Telecompaper Reports Microsoft to Reduce the Workforce by Another 10% (in France)
- Imagine what this will do to staff's morale
- Microsoft in Freefall in Finland
- Can Finland eradicate Windows from all its infrastructure, including core operations that are sensitive to sabotage by cracking?
- Google's Chrome Passes 70% and Web Standards Are Dying
- The Web is quickly becoming devoid of any standards
- India is Back to Windows 8 (Market Share Down to 8%) as Android Soars to a New Record High
- For Microsoft, India is a runaway market
- Slopwatch: Plagiarism and Ponzi Scheme, Bubble About to Burst Entirely, Admits Goldman Sachs
- the hype that Google News and The Register MS actively participate and profit from
- Links 02/09/2025: SCO Summit and Russia Suspected Of Jamming GPS
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 02/09/2025: Mediterranean Marriage and Staying Connected at 35,000 Feet
- Links for the day
- The Register MS Says "AI Web Crawlers Are Destroying Websites", So Why Does The Register MS Help 'AI' Companies? (Spoiler: Money)
- People need to call out The Register MS on its hypocrisy
- Slopfarms Already Peaked, They Will Die When Slop Companies Run Out of Money to Borrow
- slopfarms will lack an actual "engine"
- Links 02/09/2025: Attacks on Unions, Microsoft TCO, and DDoSing a Growing Problem
- Links for the day
- Why We Publish Information About the SLAPPs (But Not About the Legal Process), an Abuse of Process by Americans Trying to Silence Critics of Their Employer, Microsoft
- It doesn't take thousands of pages to explain something simple
- Internet Relay Chat Didn't Fall Off a Cliff
- IRC will turn 40 in less than 3 years from now
- The UEFI 9/11 - Part V - This is Not a Drill (Disable "SecureBoot" Now)
- A "9/11" Coming
- There's No Obligation to Speak to Anybody
- The very fact that "bkuhn" is till spending time in social control media says a lot about his poor judgment
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 01, 2025
- IRC logs for Monday, September 01, 2025
- Microsoft Trying to Force People to Resign (Amid Mass Layoffs) a Strategy That Takes Its Toll
- Microsoft seems to be circling down the drain and the "final flush" will be the moment the "hey hi" (AI) bubble implodes completely
- Google Simply Cannot Be Trusted
- Only fools would trust GAFAM
- Admission That a Third Party (or Parties) Funds the SLAPPs Against Techrights
- This can end up costing them over a million dollars
- Modifying and Writing One's Own Computer Programs is Not a Crime (or: Google Proves That Stallman Was Right)
- We're generally gratified to see so many positive mentions of him
- Why We Stopped Publishing Videos (for Now)
- We'll probably get back to videos one day, but it's hard to say when or to what extent
- What Animal Rights Activism Teaches Us About Sympathy and Focus
- It's possible to believe that the planet is warming, that we must do something about it, and still eat eggs and butter