DATELINE JULY 11, 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KDE Report: LinuxTag 2001

Sixty KDE Developers Converge on Stuttgart, Germany for LinuxTag 2001

July 8, 2001 (Stuttgart, Germany). More than sixty KDE developers from all over the world gathered at the KDE booth during LinuxTag 2001. Among them were KDE developers from the United States, Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Special guest-star from the US was Noatun-developer Charles Samuels, who will probably release KJetLag (which consists of lots of sleep() calls) soon after he returns to the US this week ;-).

On six TFT equipped demopoints, KDE developers displayed the latest stable version of the award-winning KDE desktop, theKOffice office suite and the KDevelop development IDE. They also offered a preview of KDE 2.2 Beta 1, KDevelop 3.0 pre-alpha (a/k/a Gideon) and Reaktivate. The latter enables Konqueror, the KDE web browser and file manager, to embed ActiveX controls, such as the popular Shockwave movies, for which to date no native Linux/Unix solution exists. The well decorated and overcrowded 24 square meter KDE booth and its crew enjoyed the feedback and interest of several thousand visitors, among which remarkably many stopped by to talk to the KDE women team.

The event was highlighted with several KDE-related talks and workshops. These included a presentation on "Universal Components" by KDE founder Matthias Ettrich; a tutorial on "Developing a GUI Using Qt" by Jesper K. Pedersen of Klarälvdalens Datakonsult AB; a presentation on "aRts und Brahms - Multimedia in KDE 2.x" by Jan Würthner and Stefan Westerfeld; and, last but not least, a presentation entitled "KDE 2.2 - Your Personal Desktop", by KDevelop developer Ralf Nolden.

In addition to the lectures, developers hosted several workshops on KDE development. Particularly noteworthy was Michael Goffioul's presentation on CUPS and the KDEPrint System, of which a KPresenter slide show is available for download.

A considerable number of well known representatives of the Linux community attended the KDE booth, including people from Prolinux, LinuxUser and LinuxMagazin, and Tuomas Kuosmanen (a/k/a "TigerT"). Rob Malda (a/k/a CmdrTaco of Slashdot fame), frequently popped by the KDE booth and proudly displayed the latest KDE beta on his laptop.

In addition, on Thursday Margareta Wolf, State Secretary of the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, expressed her interest when she obtained information on current issues concerning Linux and the KDE project, but also shared here concerns about pending patent legislation in the EU and its potential impact on the development of Open Source Software.

Several sets of photos from the event and the KDE booth are available:

• Tackat's photos
• Rob Kaper's photos
• LinuxTag team photos
• Winfried Trümper's photos (KDE photos)
• Deti Fliegl's photos

The KDE-events-team would like to thank all KDE developers and others who contributed to the event for once more making LinuxTag 2001 a huge success for KDE. Specifically we'd like to thank:

• Klarälvdalens Datakonsult AB, TrollTech AS and others for providing the admission charge for the LinuxTag social event;
• SuSE for providing the five TFT monitors, hotel rooms and miscellaneous hardware;
• The KDE League for paying for promotion material and KDE t-shirts;
• RedHat for supplying three demo points; and
• Frontsite for the "dragon food";

and of course we'd like to thank the people who organized LinuxTag 2001.

About LinuxTag

LinuxTag is the largest Linux and Open Source exhibition in Europe. This year 15,000 visitors and 110 exhibitors (among them more than 30 free software projects) attended. The event was hosted in Stuttgart, Germany from July 5 through July 8.

About KDE

KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of developers worldwide to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop environment employing a component-based, network-transparent architecture. KDE is working proof of the power of the Open Source "Bazaar-style" software development model to create first-rate technologies on par with and superior to even the most complex commercial software.

Please visit the KDE family of web sites for the KDE FAQ, screenshots, KOffice information, developer information and a developer's KDE 1 - KDE 2 porting guide. Much more information about KDE is available from KDE's web site.

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