"In this weeks' edition of the Road to KDE 4, we'll take a look at the up and coming KWord 2.0 as part of the KOffice project. KWord 1.6.1 is already a powerful KDE-integrated word processor, but with KDE 4 technologies, KWord 2.0 promises to be among the most powerful free word processors available. Read on for more details."
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Member since:2005-07-06
However, the (theoretical) advantage to the KDE4 approach is that the heavy lifting is pretty much done by Qt and the core libs as far as cross-platform capability.
In theory yes, but you're missing the wider issue.
The KDE applications work very well because they are integrated and embedded in KDE's infrastructure, and that's where they work best. To make it work on Windows in an integrated way it will have to be ported to the Windows infrastructure for embedding COM objects in KOffice, clipboard etc. This is a huge amount of rather pointless work, because you can't just port KDE, you'll have to port the applications and KDE infrastructure and make it work well together with Windows.
I mean, what would be the point of simply porting the whole of KDE to Windows and running KDE on Windows rather than individual applications? You've gained nothing.
Member since:2005-08-15
KDE-base 'is' being ported to windows,i.e. phonon uses the directsound from windows, for clipboard the same things can be achieved.
Porting the apps seperatly solves nothing, it's the base that covers the hardest part of the crossplatform things. Amarok, Konqueror, Koffice... all will be easy to port once kde-base is ported(which already has been done for the most part, if I'm not mistaken) (alongside with the native windows Qt-framework), KDE is so strong because of the platform they created not because of the seperate apps (though now, because kdebase makes it easier to create great aps, they have in my opinion some of the best pieces of software floating around).
One thing a lot of people forget is that there's a huge windows userbase that might want to start helping with the coding once there's a windows version of i.e. Koffice. A lot of people that perhaps might want to translate, a lot of people that just might help improve KDE, and what's good for KDE, is good for linux as well. Will it make a difference for Linux adoption? perhaps not, will it make the life of linux users easier? Most certainly, since KDE uses a lot of open standards and open protocols, so KDE adoption results in open-standards and open-protocols adoption.
Member since:
2005-07-13
Developers spend a lot of time and effort porting applications to Windows in the vain hope that people will move to an alternative platform, and what happens? People continue to sit on Windows and use the same applications.
I agree that the work in porting to Windows is misguided if the application requires significant re-coding, it sort of dilutes the value of collaboration in the OSS model and becomes somewhat of a fork.
However, the (theoretical) advantage to the KDE4 approach is that the heavy lifting is pretty much done by Qt and the core libs as far as cross-platform capability.
So a project like KOffice could (theoretically) attract developers interested in the capabilities on Windows but by using the existing framework, ultimately contribute to the alternative platforms as well. The project becomes KOffice, not KOffice on Windows vs KOffice on *nix. By expanding the reach of the application, users on all platforms can (theoretically) benefit by drawing from greater exposure to potential developers. I do perhaps naively believe that there are developers working with Windows for pragmatic reasons that would still be interested in contributing to open software on Windows. The Qt/KDE4 approach can ease their ability to participate in a large-scale collaborative OSS project.
Of course, it really remains to be seen once the libs are released and people can assess what's really involved from a technical/developmental POV. But I do think there's no harm in expanding the reach of free software as long as the effort to port free software to closed platforms doesn't detract from the the support of free software on open platforms.
Still, I'll admit there's a lot of theoreticals involved in my probably idealistic view, and this is just my 2c...