KDE Software Compilation 4

KDE Software Compilation 4 (KDE SC 4) was the only series of the so called KDE Software Compilation, (short: KDE SC), first released in January 2008 and the last release being 4.14.3 released in November 2014. Following KDE SC 4, the compilation was broken up into basic framework libraries, desktop environment and applications, which are termed KDE Frameworks 5, KDE Plasma 5 and KDE Applications, respectively.

Major releases (4.x) were released every six months, while minor bugfix releases (4.x.y) were released monthly.

The series included updates to several of the KDE Platform’s core components, notably a port to Qt 4. It contained a new multimedia API, called Phonon, a device integration framework called Solid and a new style guide and default icon set called Oxygen. It also included a new, unified desktop and panel user interface called Plasma, which supported desktop widgets, replacing K Desktop Environment 3’s separate components.

One of the overall goals of KDE Platform 4 was to make it easy for KDE applications to be portable to different operating systems. This was made possible by the port to Qt 4, which facilitated support for non-X11-based platforms, including Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions 4.0 to 4.3 of KDE Software Compilation were known simply as KDE 4 – the name change was a component of the KDE project’s re-branding to reflect KDE’s increased scope.

KDE Software Compilation

The KDE Software Compilation (KDE SC) was formerly used as an umbrella term consisting of a desktop environment and an associated range of KDE Applications produced by KDE. Prior to version 4.4, released in February 2010, the Software Compilation was known as KDE, which stood for K Desktop Environment until November 2009. The KDE SC included only applications whose development teams chose to follow the Software Compilation's release schedule; as a result, many popular KDE applications, such as Amarok and Digikam, were not part of the Software Compilation. To date there have been four series of releases. After that, the KDE SC was split into three separate product entities: KDE Plasma, KDE Frameworks and KDE Applications, each with their own independent release schedules.

History

Origins

KDE was founded in 1996 by Matthias Ettrich, who was then a student at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. At the time, he was troubled by certain aspects of the Unix desktop. Among his qualms was that none of the applications looked, felt, or worked alike. He proposed the formation of not only a set of applications, but, rather, a desktop environment, in which users could expect things to look, feel, and work consistently. He also wanted to make this desktop easy to use; one of his complaints with desktop applications of the time was that his girlfriend could not use them. His initial Usenet post spurred a lot of interest, and the KDE project was born.