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
- LLM Slop is Not Reliable, Constitutes No Process of 'Thinking'; There's No Thought Process at All, No Grasp or Understanding, Let Alone Context
- Lies have become the "business model" [...] More people ought to talk about it and explain to other people what LLMs really are
- Not a Security Expert If You Cannot Manage to Keep Online a Simple Two-User Mastodon Instance Somebody Else Built
- From uptime of ~99% to maybe 80%
- Microsoft Has All the Symptoms of a Dying Company (Mass Layoffs of the People Who Built the Company)
- the company's debt is going through the ceiling
- For Effective 'Finlandisation' (Not Digital Sovereignty) to Be Replaced by Autonomy Finland Needs to Think Like GNU (Software Freedom), Not Linux (Openwashing Source, Plus LLM Slop and Killswitches)
- What is 'Finlandisation'?
- IBM's Kyndryl in Trouble: Mass Layoffs, Payroll Problems, Buybacks (in Company Whose Debt is Almost Twice Its Total Value), and Soon $9 Per Share (Down Over 80%)
- Kyndryl is done. Stick a fork in it.
- ICYMI: GNU/Linux Did Not Start in Finland
- If we're honest/true to ourselves, we need to recognise history for what it is, not what some corporations (like GAFAM) want it to be
- Codecs and Software Patents - Part VII - Entering Phase II, the Battle Against Companies That Normalise Taxed (by Patents on Mathematics) Codecs
- In the next few part we'll deal with the impact on Free software, including the GNU Project
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- Links 15/05/2026: Electric Company Shuns Entire Town to Prioritise Only Data Centres, Saudi Arabia and U.A.E. Carried Out Secret Attacks in Iran
- Links for the day
- Focus is Important, Focus is Everything
- We are still running 6 multi-part series in tandem
- Guest Post on False Marketing and PR Blitzes by Anthropic
- A lot of people my age are just tired of the nonsense
- Links 15/05/2026: UK antitrust regulator is officially investigating Microsoft Office, Anthropic’s Fraudulent Lies About Mythoslop Don't Withstand Scrutiny
- Links for the day
- IBM is Googlebombing the Media With Fake Numbers to Promote Fake Technology
- a classic example of why much of today's media cannot be trusted (anymore)
- Up to 10,000 Microsoft Layoffs in a Couple of Months
- Many ways to skin a cat
- Truth Hurts. People Hurt by Truth Aren't Entitled to Compensation.
- Family members aren't exempt
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 77 Out of 200: They Never Knew How to Handle Women (Except to Attack Them)
- The case against us was really quite simple
- Update on Sirius Open Source in 2026 (When Your Former Employer Commits Crimes and Nobody is Held Accountable)
- I did not envision myself spending several years (even 4 years after leaving that company) challenging the system for tolerating and even covering up corruption
- The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXIII - Cocaine Use at the EPO's Top-Level Management "Adds Up" and Worsens Things "Over Time"
- "cocaine use knocks the IQ down permanently a tiny bit with each use. Over time that adds up."
- Gemini Links 15/05/2026: Slop Fatigue and Banning LLM Use
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 14, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, May 14, 2026
- Links 14/05/2026: Health Science, Cheeto Meets Pooh, and Facebook Staff Loathing the CEO
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 14/05/2026: Early Morning Practice and Number to Roman Numeral Converter
- Links for the day
- FSF Advertises the Father of Software Freedom Giving a Talk in Germany (a Digital Sovereignty Interest Hub, Sponsor of Free Software)
- Free Software vs malware and the need for reverse engineering
- Cybershow (UK) Shaping Up to be a Neat and Very Large Gemini Capsule
- If only more platforms did the same, plenty of energy would be spared, "old" machines would be totally suitable (even with 20 tabs open), as we'd focus on substance, not bells and whistles
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 76 Out of 200: The Problem With the United Kingdom Allowing Americans to File Lawsuits by Proxy (Relayed by "Hired Guns")
- Solicitors in UK warned not to act as ‘hired guns’ to silence critics of super-rich
- When Microsoft's LinkedIn Goes Offline All Your Fake Friends/Connections and Manufactured 'Status' Will be Gone
- Many people quit social control media because they recognise it for what it truly is
- Major Setback for IBM in the Courtroom, the Demolition of IBM is Proving Costly
- Kyndryl is a sign of how IBM ("mother ship") is run and where IBM is heading
- Links 14/05/2026: Willful Ignorance and Mass Layoffs at Microsoft
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 14/05/2026: Rewatching V for Vendetta, JPEG XL, and Platform Migrations
- Links for the day
- The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXII - What the Science Says About Cocaine in the Workplace (EPO President, Mr. Campinos, Please Take Note)
- What the science says
- European Patent Office (EPO) President, Mr. Campinos, Ignoring Its Staff While Protecting His Friends
- the President is covering up cocaine use while ignoring his own workers
- Slop Cannot Replace Everybody (the Story of Perl and Universities)
- Quantity where abundance exists is without merit; quality is what people opt for as they have limited time and patience
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 13, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, May 13, 2026
- Links 13/05/2026: Sudan War Enters Fourth Year and Strait of Hormuz Leaves Safe Passage a Gamble
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 13/05/2026: Useless Protests and Foofaraw on Geminispace
- Links for the day
- Mainstream Media: Microsoft Says No Layoffs. Microsoft: OK, There Are Layoffs.
- Where is Waggener Edstrom/Frank Shaw now?
- IBM's Kyndryl Down Almost 20% in 5 Days, IBM Down 35% in About 6 Months, Further 'Staff Reductions' at Red Hat (Problems Paying Salaries!)
- Will this year's festivities be Krishna's last?
- More Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, Only Weeks After the "Buyout" Nonsense (Glorified Severance to Highest-Paid American Staff)
- Next up it is LinkedIn
- IBM is in a Freefall, When Will IBM's CEO Fall on His Sword?
- Since he controls the Board, is anyone in a position to fire him?
- At GitLab, "AI" is "All India"
- It says "as much as 30%," but they also hire and it's clear what demography is targeted
- Verified Accounts of Microsoft Offering 'Retirement' (Layoffs) to People in Their 40s, Over Two Decades Earlier Than Retirement Age
- It's not even about performance, it's about age (or "cost" as well as location; they cheapen the labour)
- Links 13/05/2026: Slop Turns Into 2008-Style Subprime Bubble, Mass Layoffs at Starbucks
- Links for the day
- They Don't Like the Layoffs, So They Are Rebranding Them
- Layoffs are layoffs
- IBM Downgraded as the Shares Sink to New Lows
- The current strategy of IBM is financial engineering, wage reductions, and mass layoffs that the corporate media refuses to even write about
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 12, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, May 12, 2026
- Gemini Links 13/05/2026: TUIs and Internet Radio
- Links for the day
- How the European Patent Office Became a Crime and Corruption Hub, One of Europe's Biggest
- incomplete outline