Why, who, when, current status and future

We want you in

KDE on Windows needs more developers and packagers

Talk to me if you want to join us.

Why

KDE was started in 1996 by Matthias Ettrich as a desktop enviroment for Unix operating systems
Quickly adopted by Linux distributions
Its success is a very good example of the power of open source
Often cited as a showcase for Qt
Why move back to a closed-source operating system? Aren’t you taking to pieces the arguments for open source?
- Fact: Windows is by far the most used desktop operating system in the world right now
- Some people are forced to use Windows for some reason (work, games, etc) but still want KDE applications
- I’ve been told some people do like Windows!
Smooth transition: Windows + proprietary ⇒ Windows + KDE ⇒ Linux + KDE
Also, helps in finding bugs (e. g. multiheaded environments)

History

The heroes of KDE on Windows

Ralf Habacker
- First port (KDE 1.45)
- Cygwin ⇒ Slow
- Year is 2001!!!
Christian Ehrlicher
Jaroslaw Staniek
- Worked for a company selling Kexi (KOffice/Calligra database)
- Native port of kdelibs3 using Qt3 commercial
Holger Schöder
- Started port of Qt3/X11 to native Windows (24th December 2002)
- Forced Trolltech to release Qt4 as GPL for Windows
More recently: Patrick Spendrin, Carlo Segato, Andreas Hammertz, Romain Pokrzywka, Patrick von Reth, myself, Kolab (KDAB, Credativ)

Demo

Konqueror
Dolphin
Amarok
Okular
Kate
Gwenview
Digikam
Potato Guy
Calligra (WIP)
KDevelop (WIP)

It works on Terminal Services

We want you in

Did I say KDE on Windows needs more developers and packagers?

Talk to me to join us.

For users

Go to http://windows.kde.org
Download the installer (Cygwin-like)
Select the application(s) you want to install
Done
- Installs pre-built binaries

Last version is 4.5.4, we are working on 4.6.0

Currently bug if you choose Visual C++-compiled binaries: you’ll need to download and install the Visual C++ 2010 Runtime Libraries before you install anything

Plasma

It is not our purpose to fully replace the Windows shell
You can do it, though, and may be interesting for the ReactOS project
Plasmoids integrate with Windows Vista and 7 quite nicely already

A decade of KDE on Windows

KDE 1, 2 used Cygwin - Slow and required X on Windows
KDE 3 had two ports (native using Qt3 commercial and native using Qt3/X11-port-to-Windows)
KDE 4, thanks to CMake, is much much easier to port
But that only applies to KDE code, and still many times we need to add Windows-specific code
Problem: KDE has a LOT of 3rd-party dependencies

Dependencies

KDElibs 4.6.0 depends on ~40 3rd-party projects
With other libraries' and applications' 3rd-party dependencies, more than 200 3rd-party dependencies
Linux distributions have maintainers for those 3rd-party dependencies
- We don’t
Many 3rd-party projects already run on Windows and offer their own builds
- We cannot use them:
  - We support 4 compilers (original mingw, mingw64, MSVC2008, MSVC2010)
  - We support 2 platforms (Windows and WinCE)
Some 3rd-party dependencies did not work on Windows at all and we had to port them (for instance, DBUS)

emerge

Package manager inspired by Gentoo’s
Mainly intended for developers and packagers
It has recipes to download, build and install KDE modules and its depencencies
Currently about 70 recipes for 3rd-party dependencies
We want new packagers who add new dependencies
- More or less the same role as a Debian, Fedora, Suse, etc packager
- Contact us

Developing for KDE on Windows

Developers and packagers should run with EMERGE_SOURCEONLY=True in kdesettings.bat
If adding/updating KDE or 3rd-party packages, use emerge -i
You can use Visual C++!
Still a lot you can help us with

Developing with KDE on Windows

"Packager mode" is currently broken
If you want to port your application, or create a new application using WinKDE, use emerge
No, using emerge is not difficult!

Packaging

Not too different from packaging for a Linux distribution, *BSD, MacPorts, Homebrew, etc
Easiest way to get started: take on existing recipe and modify it
There are lots of 3rd-party dependencies we are currently missing
Very little Python knowledge required
You’ll need to know a bit of C and/or C++ if you need to patch package to build

We want you in

In case you don’t remember, I was asking for developers and packagers

We need you to help us make KDE on Windows great

Commercial software

There is already some commercial software running on top of KDE on Windows (for instance, Kolab)

TODO

64-bit
Better integration with Windows (notifications, system tray was only recently added)
Replace shell?
Samba/CIFS: requires to replace Samba code with WINAPI code
Better installer (Mac AppStore-like? Bretzn?)
Standalone installers: we already have some but they could be improved a be automagically created (CMake BundleUtilities/GetPrerequisites?)
More 3rd-party dependencies need to be packaged
Faster start times
Some applications are still not ported, or are missing Windows-specific bits
More users
More developers and packagers

Meet us

Join us

Thank you for attending

If you want to know more:

Mailing list: kde-windows@kde.org, https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-windows
IRC channel: #kde-windows (FreeNode)
Conferences
From time to time, kde-windows sprints