Funding Request

contributions to various hackathons

KDE development

KDE is a Worldwide, international project. People from around the World contribute to the development of this desktop environment which can be used on Linux and other Unixes. The desktop is the graphical user interface plus a large set of commonly used applications, one of which is the personal information manager (PIM) named Kontact: the agenda and e-mail applications of KDE.

KDE developers are organized per continent and sometimes per country. Next to the formal continent representatives who watch over the regional concerns, smaller local groups have shaped in recent years. Those groups promote the local use and development of KDE, primarily by creating localization; adapting the interface to language, currency, and character-set needs. The strength of the international cooperation in KDE is best shown from the number of languages supported: already 89 (2005)

Some of those local groups, like in France, Germany, the UK, and The Netherlands go a little further, trying to make the larger public aware of KDE.

KDE-NL (The Netherlands) is a SIG (Special Interest Group) of the NLUUG (the Dutch Unix Users Group) with the following objectives:

• localizing the KDE desktop to improve the usability in the Dutch and Flemish languages.
• promoting the free KDE as valuable alternative for commercial desktop /application combinations.
• demonstrating that KDE on Linux or other Unix platforms provide a good way to reduce costs for companies which like to limit their ICT budgets.
• support the (software) development, both inside and outside the language and country boundaries.

KDEPIM-NL meeting

In 2005, the KDE-NL group organizes a meeting of international KDE developers, as example of the latter objective. The target is to improve KDE's PIM application: the agenda and e-mail application.

The KDEPIM-NL meeting 2005 takes place from May 27 till 29. Amongst others, hackers from Germany, Sweden, Chili, and England are expected to join in. Some of them develop for hobby, and other for profession. They will work intensively together to improve the PIM application, to produce the best possible program.

On the agenda of the event are a dozen of improvements. For instance, the integration of a conferencing application, the creation of an MS Exchange plug-in, and the syncing framework named 'Kitchensync'. The complete agenda is available from the KDE-PIM website.