KDE becomes Cross-platform!

KDE one of the most used open-source desktop environment is going cross-platform. Phonon, which was developed by KDE community as a part of KDE 4.0 release. Now KDE community, with the help of Trolltech will be extending Phonon to all major desktop including Windows® and Mac® OS X.

The core KDE library, and some applications like KDEOffice,Amarok audio player are being ported. Windows KDE (still in starting stages) is available for download at KDE mirrors.

Trolltech's Qt® has been a high-performance, cross-platform software library available for both open-source and commercial developers. It is also the base library used by KDE. Initially only linux verion of Qt was available in GPL, but Trolltech has decided to make Windows version available under the GPL too with the introduction of Qt 4. With these changes, you will see KDEOffice and KDE PIM softwares on windows environment.

This appraoch of bringing KDE as a cross-platform is welcomed. But I am still doubt how effective this is going to be. Mac has one of the test UI and is much user friendly than any other environment will user accept a change from the default Mac OS UI to KDE? Another concern is will the linux adoption reduce if this "KDE adoption" become popular?

QNX "Opens" Neutrino!

QNX Software Systems, leading provider of superior realtime operating system (RTOS) software and services for embedded design announced its move revolutionizes software development practices by combining the best of the open source and commercial software domains.

Neutrino, the realtime operating system from QNX will be open sourced under a new hybrid software licensing arrangement. Neutrino is ward-winning, microkernel-based OS released in 2001. Now, the source code will be available for non-commercial use and anybody can access it! According to press release the first source release includes the code to the QNX Neutrino microkernel, the base C library, and a variety of board support packages (BSPs) for popular embedded and computing hardware.

The new hybrid model will allow free access to code but, but commercial deployments of QNX Neutrino runtime components still require royalties, and commercial developers will continue to pay for QNX Momentics development seats. So, what is QNX targeting at? Is it that they want to open up just for innovation and improving Neutrino and sell it off through their commercial license? We have seen many company follow this type of hybrid software model to take advantage of open source developer community!

What is ReactOS?

ReactOS is a free and open-sourced operating system based on the Windows architecture. It stands for React Operating System. The operating system a ground-up implementation of Microsoft Windows XP compatible OS. The ReactOS team aims to achieve complete binary compatibility with both applications and device drivers. The OS is licensed under the GNU General Public License, but some parts have different licenses like code from Wine project which is licensed under LGPL.

In major difference in ReactOs is that even though its open-source, it is not a wrapper built on Linux. Instead the ReactOS development team has built a operating system with windows architecture and plan to provide support for existing applications and drivers. So is it another OS apart from all these Windows,Linux,Unix,Mac...?? Well even though the ReactOS belives it's not "yet another OS".. I belive it is. As per the ReactOS team the major reason for developing this OS is that "some people, or especially companies, will -never- switch to Linux." -- Which I will never belive!

ReactOS claims that its compatible and visualy consistent with Windows.Thus,it removes many of the problems that people or companies face when switching to Linux: training everyone on the new OS, increased support costs, acquiring or writing new software, hardware incompatibilities, and the list grows.

So, is this new OS here to stay and replace what Linux has been fighting for (desktop replacement of windows)? You can download the 0.3.1 version of ReactOS and check out how good it is! Good luck!