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Kexi is the tool you are looking for then.
There are also some cool screenshots.

Artaxerxes

WineX

Nothing quite matches the power of a direct, pithy answer to whip the carpet out from under a troll's feet... but WineX is only part of the answer. Win4Lin is also only part of the answer. Whole-of-machine emulators like Bochs and VMWare are not the answer. WINE seems to be close to the right the answer, and WineX is an intgeresting side-branch of it.

The real right answer, however, is World Domination for Linux - even if you're a BSD fan.

Why?

Because once your favourite app is ported to Linux, it's ported to anywhere. Linux is a damn sight easier for another Unix (thinking specifically of *BSD here) to emulate even in binary than Windows is.The difference between Linux and, say, NetBSD for most applications is completely buried in automake or any similar portability tool. Of course, wrapping it in something like SDL or Qt wipes out a lot of the interface differences as well. Once an application is portable (OpenOffice.org, Mozilla, Konqueror, The GIMP, KOffice), it can compete on its merits rather than its application burden.

As Bill and his buddies well know, that means `Goodbye, Microsoft'. Which is why they're working their little asses off trying to meld all of their apps into one inscrutible, indivisible, Palladium-wrapped, Microsoft-certified unmanageable blob while they still have the market share to force it down their users' throats.

Rapid World Domination by Libre software is the only way available to us to stop this.

Whatever happened to choice in this debate?

We can choose between various window managers, various linux flavors, and even office suites. Why don't we have a choice with our window system?

Why would it be any different for a fork of X for a choice between client/server and direct rendering, if backwards compatability was kept?
Would that not help the the people who only use Linux on their desktop, while allowing people with networks to use the tool, as it is now, that works for them?

Well I did. here is the link. Ms Office Professional. $519.00 from warehouse.com. It does not include project, nor project server, no visio, no MapPoint, or Publisher. All of those cost extra.

Let's do a quick calculation shall we.

Office Pro $519.00
Visio Professional $439.95
Publisher Deluxe 139.95

And sorry warehouse does not sell mappoint and insight does not publish their prices on it so let's presume that mappoint is actually free. What have totaled so far? Why it's over $1098.00.

I am glad you Mr Anonymous Coward posted that message. I now feel proud to have educated not only you but all other slashdot users on where they can get quality Ms products and how much they should expect to pay for it.

For those users who are interested in getting most of the functionality of Office for free or a fraction of the cost may I reccomend the following links.

Open office
KDE/Koffice
The Kompany
602 Office
IBM/Lotus
Corel

Please people don't get ripped off voluntarily it makes you look stupid. I am sure you can put that thousand dollars to better use right? Don't you kids need dentures or a collage education?

why is it seen as a bad thing to ANYBODY?

Grudges. KDE is based on Qt, which wasn't Software Libre when the first version of KDE was released. (Which is why GNOME was started.)

Also, as an example, I came in on the scene only five years ago, after Trolltech made Qt GPL. Oddly enough, I'm still annoyed at theKompany, because I installed Kivio on my laptop so I could build circuit diagrams on my laptop. Come to find out, I have to buy the electronic schematics before I can use them in Kivio. Granted, they have the right to charge for extraneous material(which these extra stencils are), but I find, as a (P)oor (C)ollege (S)tudent, that free as in Beer is really, really advantageous. So I'm annoyed. I was really looking forward to built-in Python scripting, and, IMO, Dia needs work before I can use it with much comfort.

For the complete set of electronics symbols, at an average of $6 per stencil set, I'd probably be paying out $60 this week. And if I wanted any other users on my laptop to be able to use those stencils, it's another $60 per person.

And, as a final answer to your question, I gaurantee you I'll get at least one down-mod for badmouthing either GNOME or KDE office components. (Though I might not get modded at all as this is a rather old article now.)

In this interview they talk with the authors of the Conectiva Crystal icons, and about using karbon to make them. They link to this screenshot.

Even though this is my first venture into vector art, I must say I like it - it looks like it could even make an artist out of me!

In this interview they talk with the authors of the Conectiva Crystal icons, and about using karbon to make them. They link to this screenshot.

Even though this is my first venture into vector art, I must say I like it - it looks like it could even make an artist out of me!

The makers of Gimp don't seem to be interested in adding this functionality, though, so we'll have to turn to Zope or Kontour for that functionality
--

So if these guys are all for standards...why don't they adopt the XML format used by KOffice? They'd probably want to extend it somewhat, but KOffice seems to Work Here and Now.

Uh, GYVE is probably dead, long live Sketch... (interestingly Sketch is the only Python program I use often and my Perl Coder Karma(tm) won't make it crash horribly...) Sad, really, because I heard some good things about it. Maybe the new programs shadow it, then? The page seems to link to Sodipodi, hope it's less buggy than when I last used it... Never tried Kontour, though, I don't like KDE.

But the good news, in any case, is that vector drawing in OSS world is hardly dead, even if GYVE is =)

Regarding the boxes. They are all donated either to ACCRC in Oakland or FreeGeek in Portland. We spent the last several weeks going through all the old lower end boxes they had and trying to make workable boxes out of them. Because we were getting together 235 computers we lowered our standards from what ACCRC or FreeGeek normally will send out. The boxes range from 100 mhz to 333mhz P I's and II's. Our goal at accrc was to get 64 megs of ram but freegeek doesn't have quite the resources that accrc gets from the bay area so they used 8meg edo simm's which means the box only gets 32megs total. All of the boxes have NIC cards, 1 gig or better hard drives, and a video card. There were sound cards in a bunch of them but we didn't have the time to go through and configure them. The same goes for modems, we actually tried to add modems but if kudzu didn't find it we just left it in there unconfigured and moved on to the next box.

The final setup we used was based on a netinstall / net boot system that the freegeek folks have put together called lessdisks. After a little pain recompiling the kernels to make sure we had support for all the random ethernet cards we got the install process really streamlined. We'd make sure the box had a hard drive, ram, video, and ethernet. Then we'd pop in the netinstall disk. It boot up using grub and our kernel would just nfs mount from a local server. Everything else was pulled over the network. We had scripts for formatting the hard drives which just set everything up with boot, swap, and one big main partition. On the server we had a clone of a server which was used as the base for each install. After everything was copied over we ran a bunch of scripts which tried to detect all the hardware. We then had like 4 questions which we need to answer on each box to detect the sound card, video for x, and mouse. This process made doing a couple hundred installs MUCH easier. Because we were finishing up the software configuration at the same time as we were rolling out boxes we have another option in the lessdisks install to do an rsync update. This let us fiddle with the spanish configuration and setup until two days before we packed everything up on palettes.

We used ICE for the window manager, Rox as a desktop, and KOffice for the basic apps. KDE, Gnome, StarOffice, and Mozilla were all way to bloated for this class of machine.

If you're in the Bay Area or Portland and are interested we will be working on sending more shipments of computers to south america in a few months. Please send me an email, evan at indymedia.org if you want to be notified when we start.

You're out-of-date. kword does support RTF in KOffice 1.2

Shrug, keep sending your .doc format. You're missing out on the input of hundreds of very, very talented SUN and other UNIX software engineers.

If only those very talented Sun engineers had access to some product that could enable them to read MS Word. The other Unix engineers would still be out of luck, unless they too had access to some kind of product that could do the same.

Alas, I fear this will never come to pass... ;-)

1. add AutoDia/Dia2Code/Dia2SQL/DiaCanvas etc, daVinci Presenter (nonfree), JGraphPad, ObjectArtist, ...
2. Add JProjectTimer, Ma href="http://www.logilab.org/pygantt/">PyGANTT, jgantt/DayOrganiser, Narval::ProjMan, QtGantt, ...
3. Add KOffice, SIAG Office, gobeProductive (nonfree today, being groomed for GPLing as you read this, ...
4. One thing missing so far is a PDF editor; there is no problem with tools for making, viewing and converting PDFs.
5. Can't go past PuTTY for making Windows useful! (-: Try also WinSCP, and there are many GUI ssh managers available for Linux.
6. Mozilla's great. There are also `lite' versions (SkipStone, Galeon etc) and alternatives like Konqueror.
7. What can I say?
8. That's as bad as using an autodialler (the best way of forgetting numbers that I know of): what do you do when Password Safe or the system it runs on gronks and you need one of the passwords in it to restore a backup of it? Nevertheless, Free equivalents abound.
9. sorry, afk for now.

...I don't know koffice well, but since most apps/components in KDE are accessible via dcop interfaces, I'd be lead believe that this specific office suite does, indeed, provide automation.

Anyone care to confirm this ?

What this does is allow them to actually sue for the money the lost.

How do you figure that? You just ASSUME that someone who bought a pirate copy of Win2K Advanced Server would buy the "real thing" in the absence of pirate availability? There ARE alternatives, alternatives, and (one more time) alternatives.

The problem is that if they sell the pirated software cheaply, the damages will be relatively small, ...

The measure of damages for copyright infringement is disgorgement of the revenue (not profit) wrongfully gained for a reason. It's the same reason that pirated software is cheaper than the "genuine article." The pirated product is regarded (with good reason) as what economists call an "inferior good."

When you install that "\/\/4r3z" copy of a program, you have no idea what ELSE you are getting (viruses, trojans, spyware).

Another reason that disgorgement is the remedy is because there is no way that a copyright holder can PROVE that the purchasers of "\/\/4r3z" would have bought the real "thing." After all, there ARE alternatives, alternatives, and (need I say it again?) alternatives.

even though it may have cost the company a much larger amount of money.

The bigger issue here is one of the cost of enforcing the copyrights. It is a law of economics that sellers will seek to externalize all of their costs that they possibly can. By criminalizing technologies that CAN be used to infringe copyrights, they push the cost of protecting their property onto the (vastly non-infringing) public. Frankly, I do NOT own or use pirated software. Hell, I RARELY use non-OSS software at ALL. Microsoft, et al, forcing me to pay taxes so the government will shield them from the cost of protecting their software from piracy is, in my case, nothing less than a transfer payment to a company I have chosen NOT to do business with since about 1998.

It also takes into account P2P system, where people aren't making money off of it, but they are still breaking the copyright.

If Microsoft, the MPAA and the RIAA want to shut down P2P, let them. Let them pursue every little pissant pirate they want to on their OWN nickel. I have (largely) opted out of their system. Let them stay the HELL out of my pocket and out of my PC.

KWord - A frame-based word processor

KSpread - spreadsheet application.

KPresenter - full-featured presentation program.

Kivio - Visio®-style flowcharting application.

Kontour - vector drawing application.

Krita - raster-based image manipulation program

Kugar - tool for generating business quality reports.

Kchart - ntegrated graph and chart drawing tool. Sorry I am also one of those who thinks "screw diversity". Linux should rally behind a few key projects, instead of several projects trying to re-invent the wheel

If you are looking for cheap, maintainable, stable software to replace your current Windows environment, then look into this :

Slackware Linux.
KDE.
OpenOffice (maybe StarOffice or Hancom Office or KOffice).
Mozilla (or maybe Netscape 6 or Opera).
The GIMP.
XMMS.
MPlayer.
GNUCash (or maybe Kapital).
Evolution.
NEdit.

Or if you need anything else, check out Freshmeat.

I think we have to build this middle layer, this XML layer, and everybody exports to that and imports from that. In the short term it always feels good to keep making your current filters just a little bit better, but I think if you take like a three-year view, then I think StarOffice and us and KOffice and GNOME Office, if we all worked on the same thing, then we'd all be much better off in a couple years.

. The point is, you've got 4 main groups (Star/OpenOffice, Hancom, KDE, GNOME) all developing filters for e.g. MS Office, RTF, Lotus 123, WordPerfect etc. And then each group has its own native format as well, so for full interoperability, you've got a lot of filters. It would make more sense in the longer term to have a common intermediate format. Maybe we should just use OpenOffice as the standard format(s), and turn the OpenOffice filters into a library. Then if Kword wants to read MS Word it just uses the OpenOffice filters. Of course there are some plans along these lines already - just look at the DTD - 200K! There are also a lot of good links on this page (scroll down)

• Myth: KDE is more integrated than GNOME
  
  Reality: The oft-heard cry of the noisiest KDE advocates. No explanation is given - the reader is expected to simply grok the wholesomeness of KDE, and the lack of this mystical quality in GNOME. It's nonsense of course. Neither desktop is particularly "integrated" compared to Windows XP, and certainly not compared any version of the Apple Mac.

• Myth: KDE is easier to use
  
  Reality: Again, such nebulous arguments are never explained, and the reader is expected to simply understand the truth. Both KDE and GNOME have user-interface irritations (indeed, all systems do) - but "ease of use" is not a simple thing to measure. What about application (see GNOME apps later) installation and removal: GNOME has the excellent RedCarpet by Ximian , which makes the installation, removal and updating of applications trivial. KDE users are expected to fend for themselves with brutal command line driven systems. GNOME also has the excellent Ximian setup tools to handle various very tricky cross-platform and potentially risky system configuration operations - KDE offers a few small half-assed Linux-only tools, which make no attempt at check-pointing to return to known working configurations.

• Myth: KDE is more popular
  
  Reality: In what sense? Arguably more people use KDE - but it is a close run thing. Most KDE zealots claim the results of online polls as proof of their superior userbase... which is, quite frankly, complete and utter nonsense. Online polls are the joke of the century; it doesn't even require a motivated script kiddie to render then worthless. A single post on a zealot-ridden site can reduce the result to a running joke. Popularity is also difficult to measure when both GNOME and KDE are frequently installed on the same system - and indeed, can co-exist except for certain applications such as panels. Many KDE users actually run GNOME applications for their superior features and stability.

  One of the few solid measures of popularity is the adoption in commercial use - and here, GNOME is far ahead. Both Hewlett- Packard and Sun Microsystems have committed to using GNOME as the desktop for their Unix systems. This ties in with the previously mentioned ease of use - Sun's major contribution to the GNOME effort is in the areas of user/developer documentation, testing, accessiblity and user-testing. Three of the less glamourous parts of desktop development. The arrival of the GNOME 2.x series will see these contributions reach fruitition and allow GNOME to make a quantum leap ahead of KDE in most of the basic computer/user issues.

• Myth: Konqueror is the best Linux browser
  
  Reality: Oh for a penny every time this lie is told in any KDE story! Konqueror is a fine piece of software - it's authors deserve plently of praise - it is, however, quite unreliable and lax in its support of basic web standards compared to either Mozilla or Opera . It is also extremely slow - slower than the latest incarnations of the GNOME Nautilus filemanager/browser.

• Myth: KDE applications are better/more advanced than GNOME ones due to the ease of developing in C++ using the Qt toolkit
  
  Reality: See also: Qt/TrollTech. Easily the most common wail heard by KDE developers - and yet it is easily disproved by looking at the actual applications for GNOME/GTK and KDE/Qt . KDE applications often have larger version numbers than GNOME ones... an old trick played by commerical software developers. Most KDE apps seem to jump for 1.x releases long before they are ready - KOffice being the best example. None of the components in Koffice are worthy of a 1.0 release, let alone 1.1 or 1.2. GNOME applications wait longer and get more testing in their 0.x stages and despite shorter development phases mature more quickly and reach stable featureful release states more quickly: the superb Evolution (groupware/email), Gnumeric (spreadsheet), Pan (newsreader), The GIMP (image manipulation), Abiword (word processing), RedCarpet ,X-Chat (IRC client), XMMS (media player), Galeon (web browser), and for developers: Glade , Anjuta . All of these packages ooze quality, far outclass and are, at least, 18 months ahead of their KDE/Qt counterparts. It's not only in the area of user applications that GNOME is lightyears ahead, with the forthcoming 2.x a number of impressive behind the scenes technology will finally mature: component technology (bonobo ), media (Gstreamer ), internationalisation (pango ). As a developement platform, GNOME 2.x is, frankly, years ahead of KDE. And what's more, it is not tied to a lowest common denominator cross-platform bloat-fest like Qt. Yet despite all this, we are still fed the lie that Qt and C++ makes development easier. Judge for yourself.

• Myth: KDE is faster and/or takes less memory than GNOME
  
  Reality: KDE is written in C++. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it is when the programmers do not know enough to avoid certain pitfalls that can plague software projects. Stupid use of ++/-- with C++ objects; masses of unnecessary allocations and deallocations of memory, and the most cretinous of all, blaming the extremely slow startup times of KDE apps on GCC. The GNOME 1.x releases were hardly svelt (2.x fixes many of these issues), but GNOME is a fashion cat-walk superwaif when compared to KDE's 500lb fat-momma cheese-burger scoffing trailer trash. One need only look at the recent fuss over ugly KDE hacks (such as prelinking) to see the problem inherent in the KDE architecture and basic design.

• Myth: GNOME development is slower. KDE releases faster.
  
  Reality: Fundamental misunderstanding. KDE releases as one big lump of code due to its use of C++ and the consequent problems with libraries. It bumps the version number of the entire KDE system for the smallest modifications. GNOME, on the other hand is componentized and each component releases on a (almost) separate schedule, bumping it's own version number but not the main GNOME version. Occasional releases of the entire GNOME system are done, and that's when the GNOME version number is bumped (currently it is 1.4). To see this in action, use RedCarpet and you will regular updates to GNOME components. GNOME development is not slower, it is in fact faster and more advanced. Lamers and newbies, however, fail to understand the advantages and just see KDE 1.1.1 followed a few weeks later by KDE 1.1.2. Wow! KDE roolz.

• Myth: TrollTech is a friend of Free software.
  
  Reality: Qt started out as non-Free. KDE developers knew this violated the GPL and are therefore untrustworthy. KDE core developers work for TrollTech. Expensive per developer licensing for writing closed-source with Qt. Labyrinthine licensing nightmare.

• Myth: Most good GNOME apps are actually GTK applications.
  
  Reality: Most KDE apps, such as those from The Kompany are actually Qt apps because they want to port to the more lucrative Windows/Qt market.

• Myth: KDE is attractive/GNOME/GTK is ugly
  
  Reality: Mosfet liquid theme is an ugly and unstable hack. GNOME GTk icons are of a far higher quality than the cartoonish and confusing KDE ones. Qt is basically a Windows-look on a Unix platform.

• Myth: KDE is more integrated than GNOME
  Reality: The oft-heard cry of the noisiest KDE advocates. No explanation is given - the reader is expected to simply grok the wholesomeness of KDE, and the lack of this mystical quality in GNOME. It's nonsense of course. Neither desktop is particularly "integrated" compared to Windows XP, and certainly not compared to any version of the Apple Mac. Whatever "integrated" really means.

• Myth: KDE is easier to use
  Reality: Again, such nebulous arguments are never explained, and the reader is expected to simply understand the truth of the zealots statement. Both KDE and GNOME have user-interface irritations (indeed, all systems do) - but "ease of use" is not a simple thing to measure. KDE has never been subjected to detailed user testing, unlike GNOME [gnome.org], and the claims of user-friendliness are from crazed supporters and not average users. Furthermore, the KDE faithful rarely look beyond simple-minded copying of Windows, and forget that administering a desktop system is just as important as having widgets in the correct place on the toolbar. For example: What about application installation and removal? GNOME has the excellent RedCarpet [ximian.com] by Ximian [ximian.com], which makes the installation, removal and updating of applications trivial. KDE users are expected to fend for themselves with brutal command line driven systems. GNOME also has the excellent Ximian setup tools to handle various very tricky cross-platform and potentially risky system configuration operations - KDE offers none of this, only a few small half-assed Linux-only tools, which make no attempt at check-pointing to return to known working configurations.

• Myth: KDE is more popular
  Reality: In what sense? Arguably more people use KDE - but it is a close run thing. Most KDE zealots claim the results of online polls as proof of their superior userbase - which is, quite frankly, complete and utter nonsense. Online polls are the joke of the century; it doesn't even require a motivated script kiddie to render then worthless. A single post alerting the faithful on a zealot-ridden site can skew the result so much it makes American presidential elections look fair and well organised. Popularity is also difficult to measure when both GNOME and KDE are frequently installed on the same system. Indeed, the systems can co-exist and even run at the same time, except for certain applications such as panels. Many KDE users actually run GNOME applications for their superior features and stability, not realising that by doing so they are barely running KDE at all.

  One of the few solid measures of popularity is the adoption in commercial use - and here, GNOME is far ahead, with both Hewlett-Packard [hp.com] and Sun Microsystems [sun.com] committing to using GNOME as the desktop for their Unix systems. This also ties in with the previously mentioned ease of use - Sun's major contribution to the GNOME project is in the areas of user/developer documentation, testing, accessiblity and user-testing. Three of the less glamourous parts of desktop development. The arrival of the GNOME 2.x series will see these contributions reach fruitition and allow GNOME to make a quantum leap ahead of KDE in most of the basic computer/user issues.

• Myth: Konqueror is the best Linux browser
  Reality: Oh for a penny every time this lie is told in any KDE story! Konqueror [konqueror.org] is not a bad piece of software - its authors deserve praise for the work done in it. However, the sheer amount of orgasmic praise lavished by the KDE faithful is completely out of proportion to its actual quality. It is quite unreliable and even simple standards compliant pages can crash it quite comprehensively. It is also lax in its support of basic web standards compared to either Mozilla [mozilla.org] or Opera [opera.com]. It is also extremely slow - much slower than the latest incarnations of the GNOME Nautilus [eazel.com] filemanager/browser (a target of much KDE FUD during its development).
  .

• Myth: KDE applications are better/more advanced than GNOME ones due to the ease of developing in C++ using the Qt toolkit
  Reality: Easily the most common wail heard by KDE developers, and yet it is easily disproved by looking at the actual applications for GNOME/GTK [gtk.org] and KDE/Qt [trolltech.com]. KDE applications often have larger version numbers than GNOME ones... an old trick played by commerical software developers. Most KDE apps seem to jump for 1.x releases long before they are ready - KOffice [koffice.org] being the best example. None of the components in Koffice are worthy of a 1.0 release, let alone 1.1 or 1.2.

  GNOME applications [gnome.org] wait longer and get more testing in their 0.x stages and despite shorter development phases mature more quickly and reach stable featureful release states more quickly. Some examples of this are the superb Evolution [ximian.com] (groupware/email), Gnumeric [gnome.org] (spreadsheet), Pan [rebelbase.com] (newsreader), The GIMP [gimp.org] (image manipulation), Abiword [abisource.com] (word processing), RedCarpet [ximian.com], X-Chat [xchat.org] (IRC client), XMMS [xmms.org] (media player), Galeon [sourceforge.net] (web browser), and for developers: Glade [gnome.org] and Anjuta [sourceforge.net]. All of these packages ooze quality, and far outclass the KDE counterparts. It is no understatement to say that GNOME is at least 18 months ahead of KDE in applications, and pulling still further ahead.

  It's not only in the area of user applications that GNOME is lightyears ahead. With the forthcoming 2.x a number of impressive behind the scenes technology will finally mature: component technology (bonobo [gnome.org]), media (Gstreamer [gstreamer.net]), internationalisation (pango [pango.org]). As a developement platform, GNOME 2.x is, conservatively, 2-3 years ahead of KDE. And what's more, because it is not tied to a lowest common denominator cross-platform bloat-fest like the Qt toolkit, the lead (as with applications) can only increase further.

  Yet despite all this, we are still regularly fed the lie that Qt and C++ makes application and desktop development easier. Judge for yourself.

• Myth: KDE is faster and takes less memory than GNOME
  Reality: KDE is written in C++. While this is not necessarily a problem, it can be when Visual Basic reject programmers (which the KDE project is overrun with) do not know enough to avoid important pitfalls that plague C++ software projects. Stupid use of autoincrementing operators and iteration with C++ objects, and masses of unnecessary allocations and deallocations of memory, are two of the most common. KDE suffers badly from both problems.

  Perhaps the most cretinous of all problems is blaming the extremely slow startup times of KDE apps on GCC. The GNOME 1.x releases were hardly svelt (2.x fixes many of these issues), but GNOME is a fashion cat-walk superwaif when compared to KDE's 500lb fat-momma cheese-burger scoffing trailer trash. One need only look at the recent fuss over ugly KDE hacks (such as prelinking) to see the problem inherent in the poor KDE architecture and basic design flaws.

• Myth: GNOME development is slower. KDE releases faster.
  Reality: Fundamental misunderstanding. KDE releases as one big lump of code due to its use of C++ and the many problems this causes with libraries. The project bumps the version number of the entire KDE system for the smallest modifications. GNOME, on the other hand is componentized and each component releases on a (almost) separate schedule, bumping it's own version number but not the main GNOME version (1.4, for example). Occasional releases of the entire GNOME system happen, and that's when the GNOME version number is bumped (currently it is at 1.4). To see this in action, use RedCarpet and you will see regular updates to GNOME components. GNOME development is not slower, it is in fact faster and more advanced. Lamers and newbies, however, fail to understand the advantages of this method and just see KDE 1.1.1 followed a few weeks later by KDE 1.1.2. Wow! KDE roolz.

• Myth: TrollTech is a friend of Free software.
  Reality: TO BE WROTE -- IDEAS Qt started out as non-Free. KDE developers knew this violated the GPL, didn't care, stole others' GPL code by porting it to link (in violation of the license) with Qt and are therefore untrustworthy. KDE core developers work for TrollTech. Expensive per developer licensing for writing closed-source with Qt. Trolltech only moved towards the GPL because of the success of GNOME. Labyrinthine licensing nightmare. Gradual migration of features into Qt (and so into TrollTech's IP portfolio), allowing easy porting of apps to the revenue generating Windows world (see TheKompany for a perfect example), thereby making KDE irrelevant.

• Myth: Most good GNOME apps are actually GTK applications.
  Reality: TO BE WROTE -- IDEAS Most KDE apps, such as those from The Kompany [thekompany.com] are actually Qt apps because they want to port to the more lucrative Windows/Qt market.

  Myth: KDE is more than attractive - GNOME/GTK is ugly
  Reality: Mosfet liquid theme is an ugly and unstable hack. GNOME GTk icons are of a far higher quality than the cartoonish and confusing KDE ones. Qt is basically a Windows-look on a Unix platform.

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Does HancomOffice have open file formats, so that other office suites (e.g. Star/Open Office, KOffice, GNOME Office) can easily create import/export filters? As a completely side note, it would be nice if the above office-suite projects would get together and form a unified file format spec. That way there would only be one format each suite would be targeting for word-processors, for example. Just a thought...

Incidently, as the article says, Krayon is not even included in SuSE 7.3, apart from a KDE-Menu entry. Krayon is unmaintained upstream and so not longer part of Koffice.

The article finishes with the question whether Distributors will have to scan their packages for possible namespace clashes and in doing so, might abandon a loarge portion of free software that's not cleared.

In a land where you can get sued for using the colour Magenta anything can happen, I guess.

Michael

This is nothing to do with the commercial software SuSE includes, Krayon is free software, part of koffice (info on it here)

You can lose yourself in Linux for hours, tweaking here, updating there. It's great fun if you like that sort of thing. But if you need to produce a document, spreadsheet or presentation

Don't get me started.

No one force you to tweak it if you don't want to. There's always stable version of Linux for production use. The fact that people don't like doing document, spreadsheet or presentation in Linux is the reluctance to learn different ways of doing same things. A Mac user wouldn't like do that in Windows, for example. Your arguement is very misleading.

I must admit MS offers best of the line office suite, but it doesn't mean other office suite is too inferior in comparison.

If you say it's a massive multi-players game, many people are doing serious game playing here.

Sometime I really feel like there's a need to mod some posters as troll or flamebait.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KDE Ships Alpha of Third Generation of the Leading Linux Desktop for Developers

October 5, 2001 (The INTERNET). The KDE Project today announced the immediate release of KDE 3.0alpha1, the third generation of KDE's free, powerful and easy-to-use free Internet-enabled desktop for Linux and other UNIXes. KDE 3.0 is scheduled for its first beta release this December and for final release in late February 2001.

This inaugural release of the KDE 3, which follows two weeks after the stable release of KDE 2.2.1 series, is based on TrollTech's Qt 3.0.0beta6. It ships with the core KDE libraries, the core desktop environment, and over 100 applications from the other base KDE packages (administration, multimedia, network, PIM, utilities, etc.).

The primary goal of the 3.0alpha1 release is to provide a framework for developers to start porting their KDE 2 applications to KDE 3 and to solicit developer feature contributions and feature requests before the KDE 3 API is frozen for binary compatibility. In addition, experimental KDE users who would like to try this release can set up a KDE 3 system side-by-site with a KDE 2 system. Instructions for doing so are available here.

Additional information about KDE 3 is available at the KDE website, including a tentative release plan, a KDE 3 info page, and a list of planned features.

For both developers and users, KDE 3 offers substantial improvements and additions compared to KDE 2 (the great bulk of which are, at this juncture, due to the switch to Qt 3):

For the developer:

For everyone:

Most of these improvements result directly from the switch to Qt 3, which has been the focus of KDE 3 code development so far. Improvements to the KDE libraries and applications themselves are planned for the successive beta releases leading to the first stable KDE 3. A list of these planned features is available here.

Since KDE 3 is mostly source compatible with KDE 2, porting applications from KDE 2 to KDE 3 can usually be done surprisingly quickly. The process is substantially easier than it was for porting from KDE 1 to KDE 2, and even very complicated applications can be ported in a matter of a few hours.

Instructions for porting KDE 2 applications to KDE 3 are available separately for the KDE libraries and the Qt libraries. Most of the changes required for the port applications pertain to changes in the Qt API. Although neither the KDE 3 nor the Qt 3 APIs are frozen, few changes are anticipated for the final releases of KDE 3.0 and Qt 3.0.0, respectively.

KDE and all its components (including KDevelop and KOffice) are available for free under Open Source licenses from the KDE ftp server and its mirrors and can also be obtained on CD-ROM.

Library Requirements. KDE 3.0alpha1 requires qt-3.0.0beta6, which is available in source code from Trolltech as qt-x11-3.0.0-beta6.tar.gz, as well as libxml2 >= 2.3.13, available here.

Compiler Requirements. Please note that some components of KDE 3.0alpha1 will not compile with older versions of gcc/egcs, such as egcs-1.1.2 or gcc-2.7.2. At a minimum gcc-2.95-* is required. In addition, some components of KDE 3.0alpha1 (such as the multimedia backbone of KDE, aRts) will not compile with gcc 3.0 or 3.0.1, though the forthcoming gcc 3.0.2 release will most likely work.

Source Code. The complete source code for KDE 3.0alpha1 is available for free download at http://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/kde-3.0-alpha1 /src/ http://master.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/kde-3.0-alp ha1/src/ or in the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp server mirrors.

Further Information. For further instructions on compiling and installing KDE 3.0alpha1, please consult the installation instructions and, if you should encounter problems, the compilation FAQ.

KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of developers worldwide working over the Internet to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop environment employing a component-based, network-transparent architecture. KDE provides a stable, mature desktop, an office suite (KOffice), a large set of networking and administration tools, and an efficient and intuitive development environment, including an excellent IDE (KDevelop). 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 and developer information. Much more information about KDE is available from KDE's family of web sites.

Besides the valuable and excellent efforts by the KDE developers themselves, significant support for KDE development has been provided by MandrakeSoft and SuSE. Thanks!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KDE Ships Alpha of Third Generation of the Leading Linux Desktop for Developers

October 5, 2001 (The INTERNET). The KDE Project today announced the immediate release of KDE 3.0alpha1, the third generation of KDE's free, powerful and easy-to-use free Internet-enabled desktop for Linux and other UNIXes. KDE 3.0 is scheduled for its first beta release this December and for final release in late February 2001.

This inaugural release of the KDE 3, which follows two weeks after the stable release of KDE 2.2.1 series, is based on TrollTech's Qt 3.0.0beta6. It ships with the core KDE libraries, the core desktop environment, and over 100 applications from the other base KDE packages (administration, multimedia, network, PIM, utilities, etc.).

The primary goal of the 3.0alpha1 release is to provide a framework for developers to start porting their KDE 2 applications to KDE 3 and to solicit developer feature contributions and feature requests before the KDE 3 API is frozen for binary compatibility. In addition, experimental KDE users who would like to try this release can set up a KDE 3 system side-by-site with a KDE 2 system. Instructions for doing so are available here.

Additional information about KDE 3 is available at the KDE website, including a tentative release plan, a KDE 3 info page, and a list of planned features.

For both developers and users, KDE 3 offers substantial improvements and additions compared to KDE 2 (the great bulk of which are, at this juncture, due to the switch to Qt 3):

For the developer:

For everyone:

Most of these improvements result directly from the switch to Qt 3, which has been the focus of KDE 3 code development so far. Improvements to the KDE libraries and applications themselves are planned for the successive beta releases leading to the first stable KDE 3. A list of these planned features is available here.

Since KDE 3 is mostly source compatible with KDE 2, porting applications from KDE 2 to KDE 3 can usually be done surprisingly quickly. The process is substantially easier than it was for porting from KDE 1 to KDE 2, and even very complicated applications can be ported in a matter of a few hours.

Instructions for porting KDE 2 applications to KDE 3 are available separately for the KDE libraries and the Qt libraries. Most of the changes required for the port applications pertain to changes in the Qt API. Although neither the KDE 3 nor the Qt 3 APIs are frozen, few changes are anticipated for the final releases of KDE 3.0 and Qt 3.0.0, respectively.

KDE and all its components (including KDevelop and KOffice) are available for free under Open Source licenses from the KDE ftp server and its mirrors and can also be obtained on CD-ROM.

Library Requirements. KDE 3.0alpha1 requires qt-3.0.0beta6, which is available in source code from Trolltech as qt-x11-3.0.0-beta6.tar.gz, as well as libxml2 >= 2.3.13, available here.

Compiler Requirements. Please note that some components of KDE 3.0alpha1 will not compile with older versions of gcc/egcs, such as egcs-1.1.2 or gcc-2.7.2. At a minimum gcc-2.95-* is required. In addition, some components of KDE 3.0alpha1 (such as the multimedia backbone of KDE, aRts) will not compile with gcc 3.0 or 3.0.1, though the forthcoming gcc 3.0.2 release will most likely work.

Source Code. The complete source code for KDE 3.0alpha1 is available for free download at http://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/kde-3.0-alpha1 /src/ http://master.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/kde-3.0-alp ha1/src/ or in the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp server mirrors.

Further Information. For further instructions on compiling and installing KDE 3.0alpha1, please consult the installation instructions and, if you should encounter problems, the compilation FAQ.

KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of developers worldwide working over the Internet to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop environment employing a component-based, network-transparent architecture. KDE provides a stable, mature desktop, an office suite (KOffice), a large set of networking and administration tools, and an efficient and intuitive development environment, including an excellent IDE (KDevelop). 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 and developer information. Much more information about KDE is available from KDE's family of web sites.

Besides the valuable and excellent efforts by the KDE developers themselves, significant support for KDE development has been provided by MandrakeSoft and SuSE. Thanks!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KDE Ships Alpha of Third Generation of the Leading Linux Desktop for Developers

October 5, 2001 (The INTERNET). The KDE Project today announced the immediate release of KDE 3.0alpha1, the third generation of KDE's free, powerful and easy-to-use free Internet-enabled desktop for Linux and other UNIXes. KDE 3.0 is scheduled for its first beta release this December and for final release in late February 2001.

This inaugural release of the KDE 3, which follows two weeks after the stable release of KDE 2.2.1 series, is based on TrollTech's Qt 3.0.0beta6. It ships with the core KDE libraries, the core desktop environment, and over 100 applications from the other base KDE packages (administration, multimedia, network, PIM, utilities, etc.).

The primary goal of the 3.0alpha1 release is to provide a framework for developers to start porting their KDE 2 applications to KDE 3 and to solicit developer feature contributions and feature requests before the KDE 3 API is frozen for binary compatibility. In addition, experimental KDE users who would like to try this release can set up a KDE 3 system side-by-site with a KDE 2 system. Instructions for doing so are available here.

Additional information about KDE 3 is available at the KDE website, including a tentative release plan, a KDE 3 info page, and a list of planned features.

For both developers and users, KDE 3 offers substantial improvements and additions compared to KDE 2 (the great bulk of which are, at this juncture, due to the switch to Qt 3):

For the developer:

For everyone:

Most of these improvements result directly from the switch to Qt 3, which has been the focus of KDE 3 code development so far. Improvements to the KDE libraries and applications themselves are planned for the successive beta releases leading to the first stable KDE 3. A list of these planned features is available here.

Since KDE 3 is mostly source compatible with KDE 2, porting applications from KDE 2 to KDE 3 can usually be done surprisingly quickly. The process is substantially easier than it was for porting from KDE 1 to KDE 2, and even very complicated applications can be ported in a matter of a few hours.

Instructions for porting KDE 2 applications to KDE 3 are available separately for the KDE libraries and the Qt libraries. Most of the changes required for the port applications pertain to changes in the Qt API. Although neither the KDE 3 nor the Qt 3 APIs are frozen, few changes are anticipated for the final releases of KDE 3.0 and Qt 3.0.0, respectively.

KDE and all its components (including KDevelop and KOffice) are available for free under Open Source licenses from the KDE ftp server and its mirrors and can also be obtained on CD-ROM.

Library Requirements. KDE 3.0alpha1 requires qt-3.0.0beta6, which is available in source code from Trolltech as qt-x11-3.0.0-beta6.tar.gz, as well as libxml2 >= 2.3.13, available here.

Compiler Requirements. Please note that some components of KDE 3.0alpha1 will not compile with older versions of gcc/egcs, such as egcs-1.1.2 or gcc-2.7.2. At a minimum gcc-2.95-* is required. In addition, some components of KDE 3.0alpha1 (such as the multimedia backbone of KDE, aRts) will not compile with gcc 3.0 or 3.0.1, though the forthcoming gcc 3.0.2 release will most likely work.

Source Code. The complete source code for KDE 3.0alpha1 is available for free download at http://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/kde-3.0-alpha1 /src/ http://master.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/kde-3.0-alp ha1/src/ or in the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp server mirrors.

Further Information. For further instructions on compiling and installing KDE 3.0alpha1, please consult the installation instructions and, if you should encounter problems, the compilation FAQ.

KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of developers worldwide working over the Internet to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop environment employing a component-based, network-transparent architecture. KDE provides a stable, mature desktop, an office suite (KOffice), a large set of networking and administration tools, and an efficient and intuitive development environment, including an excellent IDE (KDevelop). 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 and developer information. Much more information about KDE is available from KDE's family of web sites.

Besides the valuable and excellent efforts by the KDE developers themselves, significant support for KDE development has been provided by MandrakeSoft and SuSE. Thanks!

1) please don't say star office. just don't. this whole shell thing that takes over my desktop just to view a document. t-h-e v-e-r-y s-l-o-w i-n-t-e-r-f-a-c-e.

If you want lightweight, try AbiWord. It's fast, reliable and easy to use. Come to think of it, it's alot easier than Word (which in my opinion is one of the most difficult programs ever invented).
And the KOffice package is quite cool, and after a few versions it might become excellent. If you think StarOffice is slow, you might want to try out OpenOffice.org, which is the new open source version of StarOffice (might be faster, haven't tried it out yet).

...i can schedule a meeting with 8 people all ot once by just checking their diary availability...

Ever heard of Netscape Calendar? That's the same thing, you can schedule meeting in others calendars, etc.

And the most beautiful thing is that if you don't like something in a product, you can always edit the code and recompile. Think about how many lives (or nerves) one could have saved if Outlook was open source. You don't like viruses? Here's a nice little patch that disables all the nasty security holes in your Outlook.

If you are looking at what the current API resources are for KOffice, click here.

FREEDOM.

Freedom is the reason you should check out OpenOffice, K Office, Evolution, Gnumeric etc.. Remember: Sun has GPL'd Star Office's source code. That means that everyone can peek at it and change it -- that means you don't have to worry that the next version of the product will fuck with you because if it will, enough developers will be pissed off enough to fork and fix it. You don't have to worry about Passport, .NET, talking paperclips, proprietary file formats or "Smart Tags", or whatever Microsoft's current strategy of becoming Big Brother is.

This is relevant not only for individuals and for corporations. Choosing OpenOffice now is reasonable long term thinking, something most individuals seem incapable of. Yes, Sun would behave just as badly as Microsoft in Microsoft's shoes, but with OpenOffice under the GPL, there's not really much that can go wrong. The file format is also open, XML-based and documented and can be legally implemented by anyone.

Freedom is not just an ideological point. If you trust all your critical documents to a closed source software corporation, you are dependent on them and on their decisions, which will hurt your bottom line -- and, in the long term, hurt you much more than training your personnel to use an alternative.

The bottom line is that if you care about freedom, you shouldn't have to go to China -- you have to look at the alternatives. If you don't do that, you have no right whatsoever to complain that you have none later.

Microsoft's best product is Excel. Why? Because, unlike NT or Word or whatever, it's the main application used by the people who sign the cheques.

The Free Software Foundation's best product is Gnumeric. Why? Because, unlike GNU/Linux or GNOME or AbiWord or whatever, it's the main application used by the people who sign the cheques.

The KDE Team's best product is KSpread. Why? Because, unlike KDE or KWord or whatever, it's the main application used by the people who sign the cheques.

I knew something this would happen. Y'all can bitch about Dell all you want (no, I didn't know that you could get Red Hat desktops or laptops, either), or about people being able to install it themselves, or whatever, but the fact is that this is a minor PR disaster for Linux and for Open Source.

I think the worse part is that the comments from Dell ("the productivity suites just aren't there"..."the biggest growth is on the server") are totally true. Sure, we all think that KOffice and Star Office are just grand, but the average consumer sure doesn't think so.

Hooray to Sun for their recent Gnome recent UI testing, and kudos to KDE and Jono Bacon for their new (less-formalized) UI testing via the KDE Usability Project. Let's hope that the result of this is Dell picking up Linux again in six months.

But in the meantime, let's not fool ourselves: this is bad.

-Waldo

Was KDE. Eazel may be dead, but KDE continues to get better and better. Konqueror is arguably the best browser on any platform (and is at least as good as MSIE), and yet is still a relativly new project. KOffice is coming along in leaps and bounds, and given that the KDE team were able to make a Mozilla-beater in far less time, *from scratch* (Mozilla is based on pre-existing NS code remember), I have high hopes. It's already extremely useable for day-to-day tasks, and above all is quick.
I continue to use AbiWord for its MS Word importing features.
Linux isn't dead on the desktop, you just need to look in the right places.

--

Background: I'm a middle aged CTO of a small software company. A year and a half ago we open sourced (BSD license) some of our core components, partly because we thought we might get some more exposure that way, and partly because we use a lot of open source stuff and it felt like time to give some back.

Recently I needed a basic component. I could get it, but it was proprietary, so we couldn't distribute it with the open source stuff we'd already put out. So I developed it from the start as an open source component, and already I've had patches contributed by half a dozen different people who are using it and finding it useful. By making it open, by inviting collaboration, I've had a lot of the work done for me.

And what that made me think about was artificial scarcity.

During the Irish potato famine, Ireland exported record quantities of wheat. During the Ethiopian famine in the Eighties, Ethiopia was exporting water melons to Europe - you could by them in the supermarkets. Food was not scarce, people just couldn't afford to buy it. The scarcity wasn't real. It was artificial scarcity created by 'market economics'. What's this got to do with software? Hang on...

Glaxo (and other pharmacutical companies) are trying to prevent the South African government from allowing cheaper, 'generic', anti-AIDS drugs. 10% of the population of South Africa is HIV positive. In other African states the figures are worse. Over one hundred million africans have HIV or AIDS. They don't have drugs to ease their suffering, because they can't afford them. But the drugs are cheap to make. They're only expensive to buy because the industry is using its patents to create an artificial scarcity. A hundred million people are suffering and dying to enhance the profits of the drug companies. What has this to do with software? Hang on...

Classical economic theory says that the price of a good varies inversely with it's scarcity. Goods which are extremely rare - like caviar, or diamonds - are expensive. Goods which are extremely abundant - like farmed salmon, or sand - are cheap. But digital information goods - computer programs, or digital recordings of music or movies - cost nothing to reproduce. Inherently, they are infinitely abundant.

I can make one copy of Apache for every person on the planet, and it costs (almost) nothing.

I can make one copy of Microsoft Office for every person on the planet, and the copying costs (almost) nothing.

The natural price of software goods, according to classical economics, is near zero.

Just now, people pay a lot of money for a copy of Microsoft Office. Microsoft are able to charge that money because of artificial scarcity, just like Glaxo can charge for their AIDS drugs. But Microsoft can't sell IIS for lots of money, because there isn't artificial scaricty in high-quality Web servers.

As projects like KOffice get better, so there won't be artificial scarcity in quality office software, and Microsoft won't be able to charge so much.

There are real costs in developing software, but the generosity of a community acting together can absorb the costs, and publich the source code for free. Similarly there are real (and larger) costs in developing new drugs. But the principles of common community action and common generosity can, taken over the community with an interest in the cure of diseases, absorb those costs too.

Open Source does not only have to apply to software. It can apply to every product where commercial interests try to create artificial scarcities by controlling access to information. The next revolution may well be open source medicines. Chemists, clinicians and health administrators could collaborate over the net to develop new medicines which anyone could make for no more than the cost of the ingredients.

The point is that many - perhaps most - people are creative. We like to see the things we create being used to help other people. No one individual can afford the time to invent a cure for cancer, any more than any one person can afford the time to create a new operating system. But the net allows people to collaborate and contribute the quanta of time, energy and talent that they can afford to give, and now we've got a free operating system.

Software is an almost pure case of the sorts of things that can be developed by co-operative generosity. It costs relatively little to acquire the tools to co-operate in a software development project. It costs a little more to get into co-operative development of hardware, or medicines, or some kinds of engineering, and so these things will follow more slowly. But the example has been given, and I'm convinced these things will be given.

Taken together, open collaborative projects in different economic areas will inevitably challenge the morality under which it is ethically acceptable to create artificial scarcities which cause suffering. The world will change as a result of what we, as hackers, are doing now, and it will change for the better. We are talking about a revolution here.

According to the unnervingly slow KOffice site, KOffice is still in beta stage. At least it says that KWord etc. are still in beta stage, which does lead to the conclusion that the whole thing is still beta. It's rather useable at the moment, better than AbiWord and to some extent better than StarOffice or WordPerfect [at least on my BSD], but it's beta nonetheless.

Another thing they ignore is that computers are not only used for productive work. This was to be expected from Gartner, them being analysts, but still the fact remains that Windows is a better platform for games and will be, especially with the anticipated rise of technologies like the X-Box.

A final thing they ignore is that OS choice appears to be less deterministic than one thinks it should be - while a number of people know that non-MS platforms are better for some applications, they still use Windows, and Windows does have its advantages, some geeks would rather be hanged than use it and stick to sometimes less comfortable and/or less powerful solutions.

Evolution : (magellan)
Gnumeric : (kspread)
Nautilus : (konqueror)

We all make mistakes sometimes. oh, and if you wanted to point out the great and innovative Bonobo technology (which KDE "doesn't have!") then take a look.