KDE Projects

Last updated
KDE Projects
Developer(s) KDE
Written in C++, Qt, QML and many more
Operating system Unix-like with X11 or Wayland, Windows, Android, MacOS
Type Free Software
License GNU GPL, GNU LGPL, BSD License, MIT License [1]
Website invent.kde.org

KDE Projects are projects maintained by the KDE community, a group of people developing and advocating free software for everyday use, for example KDE Plasma and KDE Frameworks or applications such as Amarok, Krita or Digikam. There are also non-coding projects like designing the Breeze desktop theme and iconset, which is coordinated by KDE's Visual Design Group. Even non-Qt applications like GCompris, which started as a GTK-based application, or web-based projects like WikiToLearn are officially part of KDE.

Contents

Overview

As of today there are many KDE projects that are either stand-alone or grouped into larger sub-projects:

KDE Core projects

KDE Applications

The Kontact personal information manager and Konqueror file manager/web browser running on KDE Plasma 5.2 KDE 5.2 Konqueror and Kontact.png
The Kontact personal information manager and Konqueror file manager/web browser running on KDE Plasma 5.2

Major applications developed by KDE include:

Other projects

Development

Source code

The source code of every KDE project is stored in a source code repository using Git. [5] Stable versions are released to the KDE FTP server [6] in the form of source code with configure scripts, ready to be compiled by operating system vendors and to be integrated with the rest of their systems before distribution. Most vendors use only stable and tested versions of KDE programs or applications, providing it in the form of easily installable, pre-compiled packages.

Implementation

Most KDE projects are using the Qt framework, which runs on most Unix and Unix-like systems (including Mac OS X), and Microsoft Windows. As of 2011 CMake serves as the build tool. This allows KDE to support a wider range of platforms, including Windows. [7] GNU gettext is used for translation. Doxygen is used to generate api documentation. [8]

Licensing

KDE software projects must be released under free licensing terms. In November 1998, the Qt framework was dual-licensed under the free and open-source Q Public License (QPL) and a commercial license for proprietary software developers. The same year, the KDE Free Qt foundation was created which guarantees that Qt would fall under a variant of the very liberal BSD license should Trolltech cease to exist or no free version of Qt be released during 12 months. [9]

Debate continued about compatibility with the GNU General Public License (GPL), hence in September 2000 Trolltech made the Unix version of the Qt libraries available under the GPL in addition to the QPL which eliminated the concerns of the Free Software Foundation. [10] Trolltech continued to require licenses for developing proprietary software with Qt. The core libraries of KDE are collectively licensed under the GNU LGPL but the only way for proprietary software to make use of them was to be developed under the terms of the Qt proprietary license.

Starting with Qt 4.5, Qt was also made available under the LGPL version 2.1, [11] now allowing proprietary applications to legally use the open source Qt version.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GNU Lesser General Public License</span> Free-software license

The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own software without being required by the terms of a strong copyleft license to release the source code of their own components. However, any developer who modifies an LGPL-covered component is required to make their modified version available under the same LGPL license. For proprietary software, code under the LGPL is usually used in the form of a shared library, so that there is a clear separation between the proprietary and LGPL components. The LGPL is primarily used for software libraries, although it is also used by some stand-alone applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KDE</span> Free software community

KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that enable collaborative work on its projects. Its products include the Plasma Desktop, KDE Frameworks, and a range of applications such as Kate, digiKam, and Krita. Some KDE applications are cross-platform and can run on Unix and Unix-like operating systems, Microsoft Windows, and Android.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Konqueror</span> Web browser and file manager

Konqueror is a free and open-source web browser and file manager that provides web access and file-viewer functionality for file systems. It forms a core part of the KDE Software Compilation. Developed by volunteers, Konqueror can run on most Unix-like operating systems. The KDE community licenses and distributes Konqueror under GNU GPL-2.0-or-later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qt (software)</span> Object-oriented framework for software development

Qt is a cross-platform application development framework for creating graphical user interfaces as well as cross-platform applications that run on various software and hardware platforms such as Linux, Windows, macOS, Android or embedded systems with little or no change in the underlying codebase while still being a native application with native capabilities and speed.

The Q Public License (QPL) is a non-copyleft license, created by the company Trolltech for its free software edition of the Qt toolkit and framework. It was used until Qt 3.0, until version 4.0 was released under the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.

The Harmony toolkit is a free software widget toolkit that aimed to be API compatible with the then non-GPL licensed Qt widget toolkit. The QPL license that Qt used was free only if the program was not sold for profit and if its source code was freely available. It was later released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KDevelop</span> Integrated development environment

KDevelop is a free and open-source integrated development environment (IDE) for Unix-like computer operating systems and Windows. It provides editing, navigation and debugging features for several programming languages, and integration with build automation and version-control systems, using a plugin-based architecture.

wxWidgets Widget toolkit

wxWidgets is a widget toolkit and tools library for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for cross-platform applications. wxWidgets enables a program's GUI code to compile and run on several computer platforms with no significant code changes. A wide choice of compilers and other tools to use with wxWidgets facilitates development of sophisticated applications. wxWidgets supports a comprehensive range of popular operating systems and graphical libraries, both proprietary and free.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GNU Project</span> Free software project

The GNU Project is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and computing devices by collaboratively developing and publishing software that gives everyone the rights to freely run the software, copy and distribute it, study it, and modify it. GNU software grants these rights in its license.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Konsole</span> Terminal emulator

Konsole is a free and open-source terminal emulator graphical application which is part of KDE Applications and ships with the KDE desktop environment. Konsole was originally written by Lars Doelle. It ls licensed under the GPL-2.0-or-later and the GNU Free Documentation License.

Qt Extended is an application platform for embedded Linux-based mobile computing devices such as personal digital assistants, video projectors and mobile phones. It was initially developed by The Qt Company, at the time known as Qt Software and a subsidiary of Nokia. When they cancelled the project the free software portion of it was forked by the community and given the name Qt Extended Improved. The QtMoko Debian-based distribution is the natural successor to these projects as continued by the efforts of the Openmoko community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PyQt</span> Python GUI library

PyQt is a Python binding of the cross-platform GUI toolkit Qt, implemented as a Python plug-in. PyQt is free software developed by the British firm Riverbank Computing. It is available under similar terms to Qt versions older than 4.5; this means a variety of licenses including GNU General Public License (GPL) and commercial license, but not the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). PyQt supports Microsoft Windows as well as various kinds of UNIX, including Linux and MacOS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KDE Software Compilation 4</span> Software

KDE Software Compilation 4 was the only series of the so-called KDE Software Compilation, first released in January 2008 and the last release being 4.14.3 released in November 2014. It was the follow-up to K Desktop Environment 3. Following KDE SC 4, the compilation was broken up into basic framework libraries, desktop environment and applications, which are termed KDE Frameworks 5, KDE Plasma 5 and KDE Applications, respectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KDE Platform 4</span> Collection of software libraries and frameworks

KDE Platform 4 was a collection of libraries and software frameworks by KDE that served as technological foundation for KDE Software Compilation 4 distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). KDE Platform 4 was the successor to KDElibs and the predecessor of KDE Frameworks. KDE Platform 4 is the only version of KDE Platform, and in 2013 it was replaced by KDE Frameworks 5.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">K Desktop Environment 1</span> Free software

K Desktop Environment 1 was the inaugural series of releases of the K Desktop Environment. There were two major releases in this series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KDE Software Compilation</span> Desktop environment and an associated range of KDE Applications produced by KDE

The KDE Software Compilation was an umbrella term for the desktop environment plus a range of included applications produced by KDE. From its 1.0 release in July 1998 until the release of version 4.4 in February 2010, the Software Compilation was simply known as KDE, which stood for K Desktop Environment until the rebrand. The then called KDE SC was used from 4.4 onward until the final release 4.14 in July 2014. It consisted of the KDE Plasma 4 desktop and those KDE applications, whose development teams chose to follow the Software Compilation's release schedule. After that, the KDE SC was split into three separate product entities: KDE Plasma, KDE Frameworks and KDE Applications, each with their own independent release schedules.

The Qt Project is an open collaboration effort to coordinate the development of the Qt software framework. Initially founded by Nokia in 2011, the project is now led by The Qt Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KDE Frameworks</span> Collection of libraries and software frameworks for the Qt framework

KDE Frameworks is a collection of libraries and software frameworks readily available to any Qt-based software stacks or applications on multiple operating systems. Featuring frequently needed functionality solutions like hardware integration, file format support, additional graphical control elements, plotting functions, and spell checking, the collection serves as the technological foundation for KDE Plasma and KDE Gear. It is distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KDE Gear</span> Set of applications and supporting libraries

The KDE Gear is a set of applications and supporting libraries that are developed by the KDE community, primarily used on Linux-based operating systems but mostly multiplatform, and released on a common release schedule.

References

  1. ↑ "KDE Licensing Policy" . Retrieved 2010-11-06.
  2. ↑ Dragon Player website Archived 2009-05-27 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ↑ "KDE Software Compilation" . Retrieved 2010-11-20.
  4. ↑ "liquidshell". KDE Applications. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  5. ↑ "KDE Projects". Archived from the original on 2017-01-24. Retrieved 2010-12-31.
  6. ↑ "KDE stable release ftp server".
  7. ↑ Troy Unrau (2007-02-22). "The Road to KDE 4: CMake, a New Build System for KDE". KDE. KDE.NEWS. Archived from the original on 2010-07-01. Retrieved 2010-11-13.
  8. ↑ "Software Engineering Framework". 29 October 2010. Archived from the original on 2011-05-19. Retrieved 2010-11-28.
  9. ↑ "KDE Free Qt Foundation". KDE. Retrieved 2010-11-13.
  10. ↑ "Trolltech offers a choice in licensing with the addition of GPL licensing for the upcoming release of Qt". 2000-09-05. Archived from the original on 2012-03-13. Retrieved 2010-11-28.
  11. ↑ Ryan Paul. "LGPL License Option Added to Qt". Nokia. Archived from the original on 2011-05-19. Retrieved 2010-11-13.
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