COMMUNITY REPORT
3RD QUARTER 2012 | ISSUE 23
WELCOME MESSAGE
These days we are celebrating a decades. The agreement with the Finally I want to applaud another special anniversary. It's the fifteenth owners of Qt to ensure the freedom achievement of the community, the anniversary of KDE e.V., the of the toolkit, running ten global KDE creation of the KDE Manifesto. As the organization behind the KDE conferences, organizing many dozens result of a process over a number of Community. of developer sprints, owning the years to understand the core of the trademark, maintaining an office and community and what defines our On November 26th 1997, Matthias an employee to support the identity as KDE, the KDE Manifesto Ettrich, Kalle Dalheimer and Martin community, all this wouldn't have has been written and is published at Konold got together at Matthias's been possible without KDE e.V. http://manifesto.kde.org. For those student flat to found an association who are familiar with KDE, there are according to German law. This Just recently we saw a demonstration no surprises, but it is a concrete organization would represent and of what's possible in the KDE community artifact that defines who support the community of the small community with the Randa meeting, a we are, and makes it explicit to us but growing software project they had combination of sprints taking place in and everybody else. It's a reminder started a year earlier. They dragged the solitude of the Swiss mountains. and guideline for KDE and also for the in their roommates and girlfriends to Mario Fux, the restless organizer of work we do in KDE e.V. reach the minimum number of seven these meetings, brought together founding members. After some people from the accessibility, On this fifteenth anniversary, we look speeches they formally decided the education, multimedia, and workspace back with pride, celebrating one of first articles of association of KDE e.V. communities to work on their projects the largest and longest-lived Further details about what happened for a week of concentrated communities in the Free Software at this historical event got lost over collaboration. To make this possible, world, and look forward to the future time, but rumors say that it involved KDE e.V. ran a donation campaign; with curiousity and confidence. discussions about C++ and packet the result went beyond our wildest radio. dreams. Our friends and supporters On the next fifteen years of KDE and donated more than €10,000 to KDE e.V.! From today's perspective, it's support volunteer contributors to remarkable the foresight and vision attend this event and spend valuable the founders of KDE e.V. demonstrated face-to-face time working together on Cornelius Schumacher by putting a formal organization free software. You can read more for the KDE e.V. Board of Directors behind the young open source project about the meeting in this quarterly KDE. This certainly wasn't an easy report. I'm humbled to be part of a step, but it proved to be a pivotal community that makes something like element in growing and sustaining the this possible. Thank you so much. community over one and a half
CONTENTS Welcome Message ...... 1 Akademy 2012 ...... 2 - 3 Supported member activities ...... 4 – 8 New Members, Financial Report and KDE e.V. Board ...... 9 AKADEMY 2012
Carl Symons and Kenny Duffus
For most of the year, KDE—one of the largest FOSS took off on Saturday night. A local band provided rock communities in the world—works online by email, music from Estonia, which led naturally into the KDE IRC, forums and mailing lists. But every summer, karaoke tradition. At the end of the party, everyone Akademy, the Community conference, provides all was on stage to sing the final song "Imagine". KDE contributors the opportunity to meet in person to foster social bonds, work on concrete technology The Second Day issues, and reinforce the innovative, dynamic culture of KDE. Sunday, the second day of the conference, started with a keynote by Thiago Macieira about Qt Project This year, nearly 300 hackers grabbed their badges Achievements and How KDE Is Helping. There were at the Estonian IT College in Tallinn and launched talks on the recent developments in KDE Plasma's Akademy 2012 on 30 June. “Freedom of Window Manager (KWin), and the work of KDE e.V. Expression”—the opening keynote by Mathias (the non-profit foundation that supports the KDE Klang—got things going quickly with his urgent call to Community). Other presentations ranged from action for those who stand for freedom, which often promoting an open source project and preserving disappears gradually and in a slow creep. freedom of use to specific applications and topic areas.
The second Sunday keynote was Will Schroeder’s talk about Open Science and Research. He suggested that open source is the most effective way to get things done through agile, collaborative innovation. In the past, science was open, critically reviewed and widely available. Results were shared and new innovations could build on previous discoveries. It is now largely closed and restricted by patents. Free and open access to information has benefits in all fields, not just software. In science, being open was once standard practice. Schroeder suggested that it's time to return to sharing information openly. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Riddell On Sunday afternoon, the traditional Akademy The First Day awards were presented to people whose work and dedication were especially important to KDE over the During the first day of Akademy, there were sessions past year. The organization award went to Laur Mõtus on release management, Plasma Active, and the and the entire volunteer team for organizing a future of KDE and Qt technologies. Highlights were talks about the Frameworks 5 efforts and Aaron Seigo painting the possibilities of A New Hope for Open Devices: the awesome Vivaldi tablet and what's to come.
Several KDE GSoC students attended Akademy; 7 of these students presented their projects in lightning talks in the main conference track. The projects included work on the Plasma Media Center, the astronomy software KStars, and the speech recognition project Simon.
During the first day, people got in some hacking and socializing, and the social part of Akademy really
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Riddell
2 wonderful Akademy. The non-application award went intensive working sessions. "We did some major work to Lydia Pintscher for the unbelievable amount of discussing and defining the fundamental issues of the work she puts into KDE, especially the effort and care KDE Community. We simply could not have done this she lavishes on the Google Summer of Code and the without being together in person." said one attendee. Season of KDE, in addition to being an active KDE e.V. The results of the hands-on BoF sessions will appear Board member. Kévin Ottens and Nicolás Alvarez in a variety of ways—application improvements, new received the Jury award together. Their work on the and invigorated contributors, new initiatives and more, future of KDE has long term value and importance. limited only by people’s imaginations. Nicolás received the award for his work on the conversion of KDE projects to git, Kévin was About Akademy recognized for his work on KDE Frameworks 5, giving a new lease of life to KDE applications and desktop. Almost all communication between KDE community Camilla Boeman received the Application Award in members happens online, and includes people from recognition of her work on Calligra Words. In the past all around the world. At Akademy, KDE people meet two years, she has brought together a team of each other and work together in person. Virtual developers spread from Europe to India who are communication is necessary and valuable for day-to- dedicated to Calligra Words, and the team delivered day work; working face-to-face is much more the first release. effective. And Akademy provides much more than that. Strong, lasting friendships developed here make it easier to work together online in the future. One person's strongest impression came from the Friday pre-registration event "seeing people again. And watching new friendships being made." Another person said, "Until now I only knew people by their IRC nicknames. Now I've met them and also became known to them for what I'm contributing."
Akademy is fun; it's a pleasure working hard with other committed people. People also enjoyed meeting over lunch or dinner away from Akademy to discuss and plan, or just to get better acquainted. Some people took a break from computers and made Geary plush toys based on the Akademy 2012 Photo courtesy of Jonathan Riddell mascot. Being around other committed KDE people helps recharge energy and rediscover inspiration. That’s why Akademy is such an important event for Workshops and BoFs the whole KDE community. From Monday onwards, it was time for the community to focus in smaller teams on specific topics during the informal Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions, workshops and courses. The legal organization behind the KDE Community held a meeting. A comprehensive Qt training session and a "PR for Free Software Projects" workshop took place on Monday.
The Akademy environment supports getting things done. It's possible to condense weeks or even months of work into a few days. The wide range of BoF sessions were especially productive. Topics ranged from “R&D projects in KDE” to “Plasma Active application writing” and “KDE Frameworks”. Some BoFs introduced new opportunities; others were Photo courtesy of Matthias Welwarsky
3 SUPPORTED MEMBER ACTIVITIES
style dinner that was sponsored accomplishments below. The Developer by KO GmbH. This evening was actual results of their work will somewhat of a social event; we appear in future versions of KDE Sprints planned it to be a release software. party—even before the KDE 4.9.0 KDE ON WINDOWS release ;-) And as could be Accessibility expected from hackers, we OSNABRÜCK, GERMANY couldn't resist going back to work This was the first big KDE meeting August after that, and some people for the KDE Accessibility Team. stayed late into the night. This face-to-face meeting helped Patrick Spendrin team members discuss and On Sunday, we started an hour understand many complex issues The meeting started on Thursday later with presentations from such as the inter-process evening when the Patricks Fabian (lots of cool features for the communication and protocols. We (Spendrin and von Reth) arrived in KDE start menu and the file open were happy to have a guest, Osnabrück. On Friday morning, menu in Dolphin); Dominik showed Alejandro Piñeiro from the GNOME the others arrived and we us how to cross compile Accessibility team. continued to discuss and hack. In Tomahawk on Linux. After more the evening, KDAB sponsored a hacking, Fabian left first because Peter Grasch and Yash Shah dinner in a Bavarian-style he had one of the longer journeys, focused on Simon, Amandeep restaurant. After dinner we went and then one by one all the Singh continued polishing his back to the Intevation office and participants had to leave. Google Summer of Code hacked a bit more. project—Focus Tracking in KWin / Thank you to Andre Heinecke and KMagnifier—and helped out in This time we had 7 participants Intevation for organizing a really other areas. José Millán Soto with a lot of different interests and nice sprint and giving us a place worked on several things to backgrounds. Andre Heinecke to hack and discuss. Thanks also improve the screen-reader maintains the Kontact builds for to KDE e.V., KO and KDAB for experience. Frederik Gladhorn Windows, Boudewijn Rempt covering the trip and the hotel created a new library attended to improve Calligra and costs. (QAccessibilityClient) and Krita, Fabian Aichele showed us his contributed on several other things work on integrating Windows RANDA MEETING as well. menus and shell actions with KDE, Andy Holzammer worked on RANDA, SWITZERLAND Most of the time was spent fixing several tasks related to Qt5 on 21-27 September 2012 issues so that applications work Windows, Patrick von Reth set up better with the Orca screen reader the new buildserver and got Carl Symons and KMag. We fixed several MySQL building with mingw-w64, crashes and made many small Dominik Schmidt worked on cross In September, several teams met in things run smoother. Albert Astals compiling Windows applications Randa, Switzerland for the fourth Cid helped make it possible to under Linux with the help of OBS such Sprint Intensive. As expected, have translations for qt-at-spi, and I "have been slacking" (I there was substantial progress as which will make things a lot better worked to get emerge into better the teams worked on their for screen reader users. This also shape). individual projects and across makes adding accessibility projects. The work done at the features easier for application On Saturday we had a nice Randa meetings involves both developers. introduction to Qt5 and its future-oriented discussions and development process by Andy. I detailed bug fixing and coding, all In Simon, the AT-SPI (Assistive spoke about KDE Frameworks and done ultimately to delight KDE Technology Service Provider how this will affect KDE on users. Interface) plugin prototype was Windows. In the afternoon, we had completely rewritten using the new a Google Hangout with Andrius Each of the project teams - QAccessibilityClient library. To Ribas who is based in Brazil and Accessibility (a11y), Plasma, KDE keep up with elements on the couldn't attend in person. In the Edu and Multimedia - have screen that change rapidly, evening, we enjoyed an Arabian- provided a synopsis of their performance issues across all of
4 Photo courtesy of Lucas Lira Gomes Simon’s core infrastructure were entirely in graphics hardware. Interactions with other teams were addressed, including further Compared to the current helpful, such as the discussions optimizing the model caching framework, this will provide about Plasma Active and other layer and introducing a more smoother visuals and significantly mobile platforms. Work started on efficient synchronization protocol. less CPU usage. Libplasma2 will an installer for KDE Edu on also be a lot leaner than its Windows. Dozens of bugfixes, a new DBus predecessor, resulting in decreased context condition and more work library size on disk and in Multimedia Team on face-detection rounded out a memory. This will be useful, along very productive week. with KDE Frameworks 5, in The KDE Multimedia team took contexts where not all of the KDE stock of progress and planned for Plasma Platform is required, making the year ahead. Lots of bug- possible wider adoption of KDE squashing was done in Phonon- The Plasma team worked to reach technology. GStreamer—open bugs went from critical mass for creating Plasma2, over 45 to less than 8! The the successor to the current KDE Edu Phonon 5 API was designed along Plasma framework that builds with implementation of Qt Quick KDE's Workspaces. The team In preparation for the Randa sprint, support for the upcoming release started by making a list of tasks some topics for discussion were of Phonon 4 and its backends. The that ranged from minor issues in defined ahead of time. To begin at KMix 3 rewrite is in progress, and the API to design issues that affect Randa, the KDE Edu team the new Sound Menu will be almost all Plasma classes. They discussed questions and issues released in the next major KDE then got to work, quickly making a that will guide the path of the software release. big dent in the list, knocking off project. Face-to-face discussions one task after another. Patches with other developers were helpful The Amarok team designed the were written, reviewed, revised for proposing new features and 2.7+ architecture, which will guide and committed. Bugs were fixed getting good feedback on them. the team into the next big leap left and right. Several KDE Edu applications got into the future—Amarok 3. Now new features. And there were the roadmap is no longer just Plasma2 is the next version of the many bug fixes and good ideas, but rather real plans Plasma framework. It employs documentation enhancements. with developers committed to their QML for its user interface (thus Developers also presented their own timelines. The team put simplifying development) and will plans for future versions of their together a fundraising appeal, and be extendable through C++, applications. The team worked on updated the Amarok Handbook to Python, Ruby and other languages plans for how the overall KDE Edu 2.6. For more information on that provide Qt bindings. Plasma2 project will go forward under full Randa Multimedia, see the KDE makes it possible to move to steam. Community Wiki. OpenGL-based scenegraph (http://community.kde.org/Sprints/ rendering, which can be done Randa/2012/Multimedia)
5 SYSADMIN MINI-SPRINT choice for each of those categories. We decided to create a ESSEN, GERMANY planning document for the future 28-30 September of bugs.kde.org.
Tom Albers Another big item for discussion was the future of subversion. Or At the end of September, two rather, the lack of future for members of the KDE sysadmin subversion. The sysadmin team and webteam, Tom Albers and currently maintains complete Ingo Malchow met up at the infrastructures for both subversion Linuxhotel in Essen, Germany for a and for git, which is a waste of mini-sprint. resources even though KDE is a big project. At this time, a single On the first day, we started a server is divided in two, one Google Hangout with Ben reviewboard for svn; one for git, Cooksley and spent the morning anonsvn and anongit servers. working together. The first matter Commit hooks for svn and for git we needed to address was the are written in completely different start of the User Working Group languages. Subversion needs to be (UWG). We had set up the site a shut down at some point. It does month previously and it was ready not need to be done immediately, for prime time. You can read about but there should be a definite date it on the UWG website, for it to happen. We will draft a http://ev.kde.org/workinggroups/u proposal and present it for wg.php. There is also a forum. feedback. Next, Ingo and I caught up on In the afternoon we settled in the On Day 2 over breakfast, Ingo garden. Though it was a bit cold, it some work within the sysadmin reported that identity.kde.org and web teams. We started by was very pleasant. We worked on suffers from an enormous amount setting up the Drupal instance for evaluating the main site. Last year of spam sign-ups. These can be at the WebWorld meeting, we the main site. Ingo explained the split into two groups. One has structure we should use for the decided that the new site should sign-ups that are done by bots. be revamped and we choose website. I started and will continue Most web sites implement a to work on it. WordPress as the Content CAPTCHA to thwart them, there is Management System. Now, a year also a service called This was a productive meeting. later, that site is still not live. Since stopforumspam.com. Directly after Though it was a mini-sprint, it resources are lacking, we breakfast, I looked at the API, produced great results. I regained discussed switching from wrote some code and Ben some motivation, had a great time WordPress to Drupal. Changing the Cooksley merged it into and have a reasonable idea about tool does not magically make the identity.kde.org. We will monitor what we should focus on. Many site, but it does make it the site to see if that will help. thanks to Ingo for hanging out maintainable. Several other KDE with me for 2 days, to the sites (e.g. dot.kde.org and The second group is not really Linuxhotel for providing the best behindkde.org) are already based spam sign-ups. They are done by possible environment to work in on Drupal. So a theme is ready, people who want to post and to KDE e.V. for making it and the focus can be on getting something on forum.kde.org, but possible! the content right. they are not interested in any other services and use a Over dinner, we continued to nickname as full name. It is hard brainstorm and discussed to distinguish between these two bugs.kde.org. Basically it needs to groups. We brainstormed a bit be split up into crashes, wishes about how to solve this, but didn't and bugs. Then it needs to be come up with a workable solution. decided if bugzilla is the right
6 "Akademy", which took place as Working Group and an increase in Trade Shows and part of the Desktop Summit in the number of supporting Berlin in 2011 and in Tallinn this members. Community Events year, there were 12 contributor/developer sprints that After the Treasurer's report the happened over the past 12 auditors of accounting—Mirko months. In addition, the first Böhm and Alexandra KDE E.V. ANNUAL GENERAL LaKademy—a meeting of the Latin Leisse—informed the assembly ASSEMBLY American KDE community—took that they found no irregularities in place in April 2012 in Brazil, and the accounting and that the board TALLIN, ESTONIA was financially supported by KDE had done their work correctly. 3 July 2012 e.V.. Mirko then asked the assembly to discharge the Board of their responsibilities which passed with a vote of 81 in favor and 12 Every year, the members of KDE abstentions (including the board e.V. meet for the Annual General members). Assembly (AGM) of the Association. Traditionally, this The stage then belonged to the happens during Akademy and working groups within KDE e.V.: 2012 was no exception. The AGM the Marketing Working group, the is one of the key aspects of the Sysadmin team, the Community Association and is the highest Working Group, and the KDE e.V. decision-making body of KDE e.V. Other KDE e.V. activities include delegates to the KDE Free Qt The meeting also serves as an handling of the KDE domains Foundation. opportunity to look back on what together with the KDE Sysadmin KDE e.V. has achieved during the team, membership in other Elections past 12 months and to discuss organizations like the OASIS future plans and challenges for the Consortium or the Open Source Every KDE e.V. board member is organization. Initiative. The Board, the KDE e.V. elected for three years. This year, Business Manager and KDE e.V. the term of board member Celeste Reports members raise funds for the Lyn Paul came to an end. Thus, organization to be able to sustain her seat and the seat of Frank First on the agenda, after the its activities. Karlitschek who stepped down at election of a chairman for the the beginning of 2012 were up for meeting (Frederik Gladhorn), were Next up was a report by the election. There were three the reports from the Board and the interim Treasurer Agustín Benito candidates: Albert Astals Cid, Treasurer of the Association. The Bethencourt. He presented the Agustín Benito Bethencourt, and President of KDE e.V., Cornelius annual results for 2011. The total Pradeepto Bhattacharya. Schumacher spoke about the assets on 31 December 2011 responsibilities of the Board amounted to €157,749. For 2012, In a secret ballot, Agustín and members. They manage the the Board projects a budget of Pradeepto received the most votes business for KDE e.V. and decide €164,000 in income and the same and are now members of the KDE about the budget. Each Board amount in expenses. e.V. Board of Directors. member is individually entitled to represent the e.V. legally. The Board projects less income for The assembly also re-elected 2012 than there was in previous Mirko Böhm and Alexandra Leisse Cornelius then gave an overview years. Consequently, expenses as auditors of accounting, and of all of the activities that have have already been reduced and Martin Konold and Olaf Schmidt- happened between August 2011 will be reduced further over the Wischhöfer were re-elected to and July 2012. KDE e.V. organizes upcoming months. The Board and represent KDE e.V. in the KDE Free and supports many events every community members are also Qt Foundation. year. In addition to the KDE working to increase revenue, with Community conference called measures such as an Economic
7 FISL 13 Brazilian regional representations became a focal point for children of Konqi and a banner who looked admiringly at our PORTO ALEGRE, BRAZIL commemorating the 15th dragon. They got presents of 25-29 July anniversary of KDE. We also had chocolate and blue and white some computers with KDE for balloons. Filipe Saraiva people to see and experience our software. We were on the event schedule with an extensive program of But what really drew attention was lectures and courses, plus “special Konqi in a fantasy costume guests”, especially with activities commissioned by Tomaz of Free Software and Education Canabrava. It is huge with a groups. Some of our highlights charismatic and good-natured were the lecture and workshop of face. Wearing it is quite a sebas (Sebastian Kügler). Sebas, challenge, and two people are together with Daker Pinheiro, held required to assist the “pilot” put it a workshop on developing on. Inside is very hot, it's almost applications for multiple devices impossible to see, and moving is using KDE Plasma technology. Two FISL 13 is the biggest event related also not that easy. But it is fun for days later, he presented Plasma to Free Software and Free Culture people to see a huge green Active, the KDE Workspace for in Brazil. In fact, it is one of the dragon dancing and walking the tablets, and talked about the biggest events of its kind in the halls. And it makes a geat platform. There were several world. FISL has thousands of impression of KDE. questions including KDE's plans for participants (7709), hundreds of the future of free software in the The main Konqi pilot was Tomaz lectures (584), community events, growing environment of mobile Canabrava, but many people took workshops, community booths, computing. turns giving life to our mascot, like speeches, and widespread Wagner, me and a couple of other We also organized a pre-KDE 4.9 hacking. people who appeared out of Release Party at the Penguin’s Bar Of course, the KDE community nowhere asking if they could be a =D where we had a few drinks, was present with an interesting big, charismatic, green dragon for relaxed and chatted. program. Our booth drew much a while. In retrospect, FISL 13 was very attention and stood out in the area When he was not walking and good for KDE Brazil. We gave KDE targeting user/developer groups. dancing around, Konqi sat on two good visibility, set up a really cool We had KDE souvenirs like T-shirts, chairs in our booth. People took booth, presented an excellent stickers, and pins, with special pictures with him for a reminder program. emphasis on brooches with of KDE and FISL. Our stand
Photo courtesy of Filipe Saraiva
8 Sysadmin Report Finances Q3 2012
INCOME (€): Created 27 subversion accounts Disabled 2 subversion accounts Donations: 47,395 Created 1 kdemail.net alias Corporate Supporters: 37,518
Created 10 kde.org aliases Individual Supportive Membership Program: 17,455 Disabled 2 kde.org aliases Akademy Sponsorship: 64,977 Modified 2 kde.org aliases Created 3 kde.org mailing-lists: Others: 1,103 - calligra-author Total: 168,448 - nepomuk-bugs - kde-uwg EXPENSES (€): Personnel/administration/office: 49,756 Sponsorships for flights/accomodation for Akademy/sprints/events/meetings: 46,937 Akademy organization: 8,170 Other expenses: 8,564 New Members Total: 113,427
KDE e.V. is happy to welcome QUARTERLY RESULT (3Q2012) 55,021 € the following new members:
- Eli MacKenzie AT THE END OF THE THIRD QUARTER OF 2012, KDE E.V. HAD A POSITIVE BALANCE OF 268,028 € - Georg Greve Note: The rounded financial numbers are for information only. The lists do not include all income and expenses and don't - Gilles Caulier constitute an accurate accounting statement. - Jure Repinc - Kåre Alexander Särs - Kevin Scannel Financial support - Laszlo Papp - Ludovic Grossard If your company is interested in providing financial support to the KDE - Marek Laane community on a continuing basis, please visit the Supporting Members page - Rohan Garg on the KDE e.V. website, http://ev.kde.org/getinvolved/supporting-members.php - Shantanu Tushar Jha - Trever Fischer - Vishesh Handa If you would like to support KDE financially as an individual, please visit the individual supporting membership program site at http://jointhegame.kde.org. - Yuri Chornoivan
KDE E.V. BOARD Report prepared by: New patron Cornelius Schumacher - President Carl Symons
Pradeepto Bhattacharya - Board Member This report is published by KDE e.V., Blue Systems GmbH