Does the End of KOffice Mean the End of KDE?

jfruhlinger writes "Venerable Linux office suite KOffice has been reborn as "Calligra," a name meant to evoke calligraphy but perhaps a bit too close to the neme of a deranged Roman emperor. Perhaps more importantly, Calligra seems to be cooperating with the future MeeGo mobile Linux distro. Could this be the beginning of the end of the KDE desktop, at least under its current branding?"

Comments

Re:Kalligra

[Kjella]

The real hint is this:

Currently all applications except Calligra Words will be maintained by their respective KOffice developers.

It's more than a renaming, they split. However, when the dust cleared only the KWord developers went with the other group, the rest of the KOffice projects joined what's now Calligra. As far as I can tell the KWord guys wanted to focus on competing with MS Office and OpenOffice for the desktop, while the Calligra Words guys wanted to focus more on mobile. With enough different agendas going on in the same project they had conflict and eventually split. That's at least as far as I've caught the story.

Rebranding

[Enderandrew]

KDE has been rebranding, and not just in removing the K from all their applications. KDE is a project, and a non-profit entity (KDE e.V.). The software compilation they release is now known as KDE SC.

I don't see any reason for alarm over rebranding. KDE is getting more contributers and developers every year. Even many of the die-hard haters who railed against the 4.0 release have come back into the fold loving the current KDE releases. And for all the hate about Plasma, the Plasma framework makes it quite easy to create new activities and shells, making KDE on netbooks, tablets and phones considerably more viable.

I find it interesting that Ubuntu is trying to find a way to create one interface/shell on every device, and yet they pay so little attention to KDE, Plasma and Qt. With KDE activities, I can switch instantly between a netbook activity (which I may prefer on the tiny resolution netbook screen) and a more standard desktop activity/shell when I use the video output to use a larger display.

I can keep many of the same apps, conventions, etc. across multiple devices while still focusing on a activity/shell that is best suited to that size/resolution/device.

I'm actually really excited about the future of KDE.

Indeed and it misses the point in so many ways

[ingwa]

* KDE was rebranded a year ago. It's now the name of the community, not the desktop.
* KDE, the community, is stronger than ever with more contributors than ever and more commits than ever.
* Calligra does not switch focus to mobile, but it *extends* the focus to mobile... and tablets... and so on.

Re:Kalligra

[JackieBrown]

Here is some more background on the split

http://lists.kde.org/?l=koffice-devel&m=128782551919625&w=2

If only there was a way to find out!

[Zero__Kelvin]

Never ask a question inspired by itworld that can be answered by simply going straight to the source.

Re:Typo in summary

[SteveFoerster]

Here!

Re:Kalligra

[jbolden]

As I'm reading this thread I'd suggest this link instead:
http://lists.kde.org/?l=koffice-devel&m=128812911619277&w=2