KDE Blogs 

Aaron's last blog entry was a real eye-opener to me. I didn't know KFlog before. I'll tell a friend of mine about it, who "has to" use Linux at work (and he likes it) but who uses MS Windows at home... guess why? He is a glider/sailplane pilot, and told me there is no feasible software on Linux to use for his hobby. The fact that "KFLog is the only flight analyser program available for Linux to be recognized by the FAI IGC" will surely help to convince him. (FAI is the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, and IGC its International Gliding Commission.) I wonder if KFlog could be useful for paragliding too? I'll find out, sometime.... Read More

I am not always the optimistic kind, but "today was a good day". A lot of code was added to ksvg2 and kdom that I can feel content with. It is never a good feeling to leave code lying there that you know is hacky. So yes, lots of refactoring of views, parts, zoom and pan etc. Then also some fixes for clipping, which seems always tricky. Read More

Well, I decide to give blogging a go ;-) There are so many interesting things going on right now (qt4, kdom stuff) that this may be the best time to start. Hopefully this way we ksvg devs can also improve the external communication, since we unfortunately did not give many updates in a while, while lots of coding did take place. Hopefully we can start by updating svg.kde.org a bit :) Read More

Well, I put an offer on a house today... rather nervous. I expect a counter-offer tomorrow; hopefully by Monday I should know.. In KDE3.5, you will be able to set Konsole's tab text color via the tab menu. I'm thinking about adding the ability to change the color via an ESC code. I'm not sure if I should mimic the ESC[0;#m and/or create a new code say ESC[0;RRGGBBy. It is rather easy to code. Read More

Hey, ruurd, I was going to post this as a comment, but blogger's login crap was giving me problems. Anyway, I have several data aware KDE widgets in DataKiosk I hope to introduce into KDElibs with KDE4. They include some widgets that DataKiosk shares with KDEPIM and some that are entirely new to KDE including one that mimics the MS Access Relation Combo. They are written to be generic enough to use for any QSql driver. Read More

finally, on thursday i've written the last of the 4-day written final exam series. from now on i've a lot more sparetime... i've 5 weeks until the oral part of the exams beginns. however there shouldn't be very much to learn. i'll use the resulting sparetime for continuing diskothek development and maybe with aids (porting, ... ) for kde4 Read More

Those who have been subject to my rants on this topic before are no doubt familiar with my views, but as they've mostly been on IRC and not particularly structured, and there's been some prompting in the KDE community in the last couple of days, so here goes. The "sexualization" of women in our community really has to stop. I really get sick of seeing every time a female contributor comes around, or everytime there's an article on the Dot that refers to our female contributors that it's just a matter of time before some jackass decides that it's the right forum to ask if they're single or make other comments that are just there because they're female. Contributors are important Contributors are important. We need them. We don't need male contributors or female contributors, we need contributors period. Despite their deficit in numbers, some of the most important members of our community are female. And who cares what gender they are, really? They're important contributors, and we as a community need to insure that we're not treating one segment of our community differently just based on their gender. The KDE social landscape In a normalized social environment -- one that's fairly well mixed between males and females -- this isn't much of an issue. In such an environment flirting and such things are a fairly normal, such is afterall our nature. We are sexual beings. However there are a few ways that KDE diverges from this. First, the majority of people in the KDE community are male. This in and of itself is not a problem. Some of the thought on the social foundations of engineering and sciences being largely male driven in western society is in fact interesting, but out of scope for the moment. However, this is coupled with a significant subset of our community being less than great with their social skills. Specifically, a lot of the members of our community simply haven't really interacted all that much in usual social settings with members of the opposite sex and quite frankly haven't got a clue how to go about such. The result of this tends to be anywhere from overt sexual objectification to accidental inappropriateness. At some point we may see things start to level out -- see, that's the interesting bit. If we aren't asses about this stuff, and we treat contributors more or less equally independant of gender, that will actually help things get closer to a balance with time and then we don't have to actively compensate for our present social dispositions. It's all fun and games until somebody loses a contributor And to be clear, while some of the lighter bits of this may seem amusing to some of folks the first go around -- like, I mean, being told you're cute in the right context isn't the worst thing in the world -- it does get old, mostly because of the baggage that comes with it. The problem is that often along with that comes an objectification that obscures what the person is actually part of the community for. Sure, having people think you're cute might be fun, but not if it's getting in the way of being taken seriously (or too seriously as can sometimes be the case) when trying to actually do something important. And I have known people who have actually left the community over this. Let's be pragmatic For those male members of our community that feel the need to try to pick up women via the Dot, well, I hate to break it to you but statistics are not on your side. Here's a little secret -- there are women all around. Many of them are even single. And if you can come up with something a little more subtle than saying as if they weren't there, "She's cute. Is she single?" they'll actually talk to you. No, really. This happens all the time. I've devised a step-by-step plan that may help some of you and I presume is easier to implement than Theobroma's scheming: Read More

I applaud the Turkish KDE community for founding KDE Turkey(cool website btw). All these local groups really do an enormous service to KDE by creating awareness in their own country. I truly hope this inspires more people to form a local KDE group. You really can make a difference! Read More

Hello world, I can't believe it - even I am starting a blog now :-) I'll try to keep you up2date with the kdom/ksvg2/kcanvas development process in future. Stay tuned! Read More

Aaron commented on the interview made by Free Software Magazin with the owner-boss of various IT websites, some of which had been the platform for a poisonous pro-SCO/anti-Groklaw propaganda campaign, culminating in personal attacks against Pamela Jones, the brain and heart behind Groklaw, orchestrated by one (now infamous) Maureen O'Gara. After senior editors of the "Linux World Magazine" threatened to resign over the scandal, O'Gara was ditched. I hadnt seen the interview Aaron mentioned. But I had read the "Letter to Our Readers", signed by Mark R. Hinkle (Editor-in-Chief), who also happens to be the COO of Win4Lin/NeTraverse. This piece prompted very mixed feeling during reading. It more sounds like marketing speak than anything else. It prays the prayer of "we are good, we do good, we do not harm anyone and we wish Pamela Jones all the best". I just couldnt take it for its face value. I rather felt annoyed by reading through it. Now Dee-Ann LeBlanc and James Turner, the two Senior Editors of Linux World Magazine have in fact resigned, refering to the interview Aaron also took issues with. (BTW, I'd not wonder if the links should soon be dangling, because their former bosses pullled their accounts.) I just wonder, if Sys-Con has any business connections with LinuxWorldExpo too? I'll look that up later. Just now, I dont want to know more details about that felt. I just feel too pissed off already... Read More