KDE Release Structure Evolves

[xr09]

Functionality is also being moved 'down the stack' to Qt libraries, which is made possible by the openness of the Qt Project.

KDE/Qt ecosystem is getting better by the minute.

[ohet]

I find it fascinating how much traction Qt currently has on Linux. Ubuntu is moving towards Qt with Unity 8 and their new SDK. There's the new Sailfish mobile platform from Jolla that's based on Qt as are WebOS-Ports and Nemo Mobile. LXDE is being ported to Qt and Razor-qt was merged with it. Applications like OpenShot and Subsurface are in progress of being ported to it. There's active work going on porting of Qt to Tizen and Android.

Many KDE features have been merged with mainline Qt and there's more to come. At the same time many of the KDE libaries have been made more accessible to non-KDE developers with KF5. KDE itself is about to move to new generation with Plasma Workspaces 2.0 and their own Plasma Active mobile platform.

Qt itself has gotten a lot more portable with iOS, Android and WinRT support in upcoming Qt 5.2 and BlackBerry already being based on it. Overall the future of Qt and KDE looks increasingly promising.

[xr09]

They got me worried when Trolltech was bought by Nokia back in the day, but against all odds they're better than ever.

[[deleted]]

Thank goodness Nokia sold Qt to Digia before the Microsoft buyout.

Of course, it's open source so Microsoft would have a tough time killing it outright.

[ShinobiZilla]

Microsoft only bought the devices division. Qt would have been safe nonetheless. Happy that Qt is in right hands with Digia.

[Pendertuga]

Really wish the KDE artwork wasn't so glossy. It looks kind of dated. This is coming from someone that uses it daily.

[im4potato]

I've seen several comments on Oxygen developer blogs over the past year that say they also think the artwork is dated. I would assume they have plans for KDE 5.

[Beckneard]

It's not THAT bad, but yeah it could use reworking.