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<img src="http://www.calligra.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/calligra-logo-transparent-for-light-600.png" width="600" height="425" After about 2 years of development and 1½ year since we officially formed the Calligra project I'm happy that Calligra 2.4 is being released later today. In my vision Calligra becomes a ground breaking fresh alternative to the established free and proprietary players. Calligra should create history and revolutionize it. We are not there yet, but we have great plans and are very much still evolving. Read More

A while ago I had to announce that Canonical weren't going to sponsor Kubuntu any more. 'Fair enough' I thought, Canonical needs to make money and after dropping support for Gnome support for KDE couldn't be far behind. Then I got e-mails from companies, governments and individuals saying they depend on it, use it every day for themselves, their clients and their families. It turns out Kubuntu is very popular and important, people really use this KDE stuff I've been working on for the last decade. Blue Systems took the plunge first and said they'd sponsor the project so Kubuntu will continue as a community led, KDE focused Ubuntu flavour and will branch out into new areas like the tablet and ARM. Maybe even server? (KDE has nice apps in OwnCloud and Kolab, these should be better integrated into Ubuntu.) So an exciting future, want to join us? Read More

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Google Summer of Code application deadline is just a bit more than 24 hours away and we are still looking for highly motivated students to work on a Marble Virtual Globe project this summer. Tomorrow is a holiday in many countries, so you might still have some time for the application. Make sure you file your application not later than tomorrow at 19:00 UTC. The last project topic for GSoC that I'll cover is "OpenGL support for Marble": You might ask: Why OpenGL? Doesn't Marble make use of OpenGL already? No it doesn't. Marble currently uses it's own software rendering to provide the different projections. Both texture and vector data are fully rendered in software by default. This works reasonably fast on most devices, but compromises must be made with respect to the map quality. OpenGL, however, offers higher-quality results, is more state-of-the-art and perhaps helps to reduce power consumption on mobile devices. It therefore makes sense to introduce an OpenGL mode in addition to the sotware rendering mode in Marble (the user should be able to choose between software rendering or OpenGL). The main task is to refactor the Marble codebase such that both the software rendering and the future OpenGL code share as much code as possible. In particular, visibility control (which objects should be rendered according to the current view parameters) should be factored out into separate classes, such that they can be reused in the OpenGL mode. Initially the primary focus will be about replicating the current feature set and behavior of Marble. So the globe would still be browsed in looking top-down. Later on one could extend Marble and introduce bird-view, camera flights and "real" mountains and "real" 3D buildings. Bernhard Beschow created an initial prototype of the OpenGL mode in an experimental branch already. You can look up more details about this prototype in his blog. Here is the video and a screenshot: Marble - OpenGL Prototype Since then Bernhard has partially prepared the current Marble master branch for inclusion of OpenGL. But there are still lots of missing bits and pieces in order to have the actual introduction of OpenGL inside Marble. Expected Results for this project: duty: refactored code that separates rendering from visibility management "icing": an OpenGL mode If you are interested in this wonderful project then you should act quickly: Deadline for applications is on Friday, April 6th, 2012m 19:00 UTC. Apart from the usual GSoC student application guidelines your application should: describe the benefit of the feature from a user's perspective (including self-created mock-ups and screenshots) provide a rough technical explanation in your own words what the project will be about. state why you are the best person to master this project. So if you are a student then we are looking forward to your application! Don't hesitate to ask us any questions.

Google Summer of Code application deadline is near and we are still looking for highly motivated students to work on a Marble Virtual Globe project this summer. This is a follow-up of yesterday's blog about OpenStreetMap vector rendering with tiling support. Today I'd like to describe another important feature that we'd like to see covered as a GSoC project. In terms of technology this project is very similar to the "OpenStreetMap vector rendering with tiling support" topic. In fact if you applied for that project already then you might want to apply for this one as well if you want to increase your chances: The topographic "Atlas" map is the oldest map theme featured by our Marble Virtual Globe. The original aim behind the Atlas map was to create a quite detailed map from very little data. The data would get shipped together with the Marble application for offline usage. Read More

Lots of KDE SC 4.8.2 packaging and testing today. But some folks can't test it easily because they have small bandwidth or they don't want to install experimental packages on their local computer. I've been using EC2 machines for a while, which you hire by the hour from Amazon Web Services. Whenever someone in Kubuntu needs a machine to compile or test and install on I run my script to get one going and give them access. They're also handy for showing people how to do e.g. packaging, you can log into the same machine and share a screen session to see what the other person is doing. Read More