Andreas Pour is well known to most everyone in the K Desktop Environment
(KDE) community. Considering that KDE is the leading desktop for Linux, if
you are investigating GNU/Linux workstations, you are sure to run into Pour's
work.
According to a story published by another LDN affiliate, LinuxandMain, the UnitedLinux consortium should release a beta to select testers by the end of the month. UnitedLinux, which launched in the end of May, is a group of four beleaguered Linux companies attempting to make a proprietary GNU/Linux “standard.” “The UnitedLinux consortium says the first beta drop of its common base system will be available to its customers by the end of August. An open beta, the consortium said, will be made available by the end of September.”
A story in ComputerWorld talks about TrollTech's upcoming Qt 3.1 beta. Qt is a multi-platform development toolkit made famous by the KDE desktop environment, and more recently, by the Sharp Zaurus PDA. Qt 3.1 gains integration with the Mac Appearance Manager, support for antialiased text, and user settings. OpenGL support has also been greatly improved, with hardware acceleration now in place.
In our review of OEone's HomeBase 1.2 release ( OEone HomeBase Offers Computing, Simplified), we noted that HomeBase was probably the most innovative interface released since the advent of the GUI. OEone HomeBase Desktop is the only package we know of that has pulled off a simplification of the user interface without “dumbing down” the system.
Peter Bojanic is Vice President, Software Development of OEone Corp., a Hull, Québec company that
develops the extremely easy to use HomeBase DESKTOP and SUITE software (see our new mini-review of HomeBase SUITE 1.5 here).
Mr. Bojanic also serves as an associate staff member of the Mozilla.org project, creators of the Mozilla/Gecko
engine that runs Netscape 6, Galeon, and OEone HomeBase DESKTOP.
In an interview at OSNews, it has come out that the new owners of the gobeProductive office suite for Windows and Linux, plan to place the package under the GPL license. “FreeRadicalSoftware's business plan requires them to GPL the popular office suite, allowing everyone to access gobeProductive's source for Windows, Linux and even BeOS. The official announcement is expected next week. FreeRadicalSoftware was created recently by the ex-boss of Gobe Software, Bruce Hammond, and some other ex-Gobe and non-Gobe people. Read more for our exclusive interview with Bruce regarding the open sourcing of GP3 under the GPL. “
As the economic downturn has taken its toll on GNU/Linux companies, many surviving companies have decided to move away from the desktop market, and focus on the server instead. This escalated to an alarming pace after the death of Eazel, a startup that created the Nautilus file manager, and while the focus-on-server mania has calmed down lately, it is still very much alive. Yet, it seems to me, that focusing on the server will in the end cause these companies to lose not only the desktop, but the server as well.
Grant Gross of NewsForge writes about Linux's appeal to churches and other non-profit groups. “We've long talked about how government agencies almost owe it to taxpayers to explore low-cost Open Source alternatives to Microsoft and other high-cost vendors, but it seems that non-profit organizations such as churches are also starting to get the Open Source religion.”
Philippe Fremy has written a nice piece describing the benefits of the Qt toolkit over Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC). For those of you not familar with Qt, it is the toolkit used by the KDE desktop as well as the Qtopia environment featured on the Sharp Zaurus PDA. Qt - unlike MFC - works on Windows, Linux, UNIX, and Mac OS X (Aqua).
In an article for fellow LDN-member site LinuxandMain.com, Anthony Awtrey comments on GNU/Linux's tremendous growth in the server market. ” I have searched for market information and corporate strategy documents that outline where we are today and give some idea where we are headed. At first glance I can tell you that plans to deploy Linux and other Open Source software are evident everywhere. Independent software vendors, especially those writing software for niches like computer aided design, law offices and medical practices, are porting their applications from Windows and commercial Unix to Linux to take advantage of customer interest.”