KOffice 1.3 has been released today. See the
release notes,
announcement
and the complete list of changes.

Months after the previous beta version and a lot of framework changes later, the Kexi Team is pleased to announce Beta 2 of Kexi, the integrated data management environment for KDE. This is a preview release for interested developers and experienced users; changes from the previous beta include an integrated kexisql engine and an improved user interface. Kexi source packages and MS Windows binaries are available at download.kde.org. Kexi is slated for a standalone release later this year and will be in KOffice after the 1.3 release.

The official release of KOffice 1.3 was originally planned for this week
but since many people are already preparing themselves for the upcoming
end-of-year festivities we are afraid that binary packages may not become
available for all platforms in time. For that reason we have decided to
release a special KOffice 1.3 Christmas Preview for all of you who can't wait
to give this new KOffice a try over the upcoming holidays. In the middle of January, the official version of KOffice 1.3 will be released together
with the usual variety of binary packages.

theKompany.com has just announced that Rekall, the rapid application development database tool for Linux, similar in concept to MS Access, has been released under the GPL. Rekall can be built with KDE3 support as well as Qt-only. "Rekall will be supported via a community portal www.rekallrevealed.org. The codebase will be available as source tarballs, and CVS access will also be available for those who wish to stay on the bleeding edge. Feedback, bug fixes and contributions are actively sought. This is meant to be totally community driven and oriented." KOffice has of course evolved Kexi (devel) in the meantime. It will be interesting to see how things play out with Kexi being very new and Rekall relatively mature, but either way the GPL'ing of Rekall is fantastic news for the Linux community at large. Thank you, theKompany.com for your KDE support.

The KOffice team is pleased to announce the availability of the first release candidate of KOffice 1.3. As we're approaching the final release, we definitely need more users to test and report bugs -- there are still some left. A short announcement is available and also a full changelog. Happy downloading and bug hunting!

On September 25th 2003, the KDE Project released the fourth beta version of KOffice 1.3. This release sports tons of bugfixes made during the KDE developers' conference in Nové Hrady, Czech Republic (see KOffice Developers' Meeting Report). It is the last beta in the 1.3 series according to the revised KOffice 1.3 release schedule which plans the final release now for November 12, 2003. Read more in the KOffice 1.3 Beta 4 release notes and in the KOffice 1.3 Beta 4 changelog. For now you can only grab the source. Binaries, if any will be provided, will appear one directory above.

Quite a few KOffice developers took the opportunity to meet during the Kastle event in Nové Hrady, and particularly to discuss the future of
KOffice after the next major release (KOffice 1.3 slated for the end of September 2003). A summary of the topics discussed follows.

On August 14th 2003, the KDE Project released the third beta version of KOffice 1.3. It brings a lot of bugfixes and a couple of new features compared to KOffice 1.3 Beta 2. This release is the last beta in the 1.3 series. There will be only one more release candidate and the final version is expected to be released in September after the KDE Contributor Conference during which hopefully many of the remaining bugs will be fixed. Read more in the KOffice 1.3 Beta 3 release notes and in the detailed KOffice 1.3 Beta 3 changelog. Binary packages are expected to be available soon, for now you can only grab the source.

During the LinuxTag 2003 conference, KOffice hackers Ariya, Norbert and Phillip had a chance to meet and discuss the current state of KSpread as well as the future direction of the project. Plans include an Excel export filter as well as switching to the OpenOffice.org Calc format -- read on for the full KSpread Development Roadmap that resulted from the discussions.

On June 18th 2003, the KDE Project released the second beta version of KOffice 1.3. It comes with a lot of bugfixes and a couple of new features such as a PDF import filter, new OpenOffice.org filters and more stencils for Kivio. Kexi isn't part of this version nor will it be in the final KOffice 1.3 but it's slated for a stand-alone release later this year and will re-integrated into KOffice in the next major version. Read more in the KOffice 1.3 Beta 2 release notes and in the detailed KOffice 1.3 Beta 2 changelog. Binary packages are expected to be available soon, for now you can only grab the source. Next step is a release candidate planned for 8th August.