Sebastian Kügler interviewed by kubuntu-de.org and Radio Tux

The date for the release of KDE 4.1, the 29th of July 2008, is approaching fast. Therefore we want to dare a look at the new version of this desktop environment. So we used our chance on the LinuxTag 2008 and asked Sebastian Kügler (a.k.a. sebas) for an interview to get answers to some questions regarding KDE development, the current state and his work in the project.

Sebastian is a member of the board of management of the KDE organisation and a member of the release team. He studies at the Radbound University of Nijmegen. As a member of the marketing working group he is responsible for strategic decisions regarding the project.

The interview was produced together with Radio Tux. They did the first part. Radio Tux broadcast live at the LinuxTag in Berlin. From the 28th to the 31st of May they broadcast interviews, background information and free music.

The interview was rearranged for better readability.

Hello Sebastian, please tell us something about you to present you to the audience

Hello, I'm Sebastian Kügler, I work on KDE and at the moment in particular on Plasma, on the desktop shell and on the window manager and its compositing effects. I also do some "non-coding" things, e.g. I'm in the mangement of the KDE e.V., it's the organisation behind KDE. Like the Mozilla Foundation or the Gnome Foundation but only for KDE. I also do a lot of marketing and publicity work.

Sebastian, how did you come to the KDE project? Did you say: "I use this, so I also want to develop this further"? What was the reason to join KDE?

It was 4 or 5 years ago, I had been using KDE for a while. I wanted to work on something useful. I enjoyed programming and I wanted to write code that would not be thrown away. So I wrote an e-mail to Simon Edwards, because I had noticed that he had programmed tools for system settings which were very very alpha at that time. I just asked him if he could give me the latest version of his code. He warned me it wouldn't work. I answered "That's why I want it." I began to port the tools to Debian and sent him my patches. That's how I got in. Simon invited me to the Dutch KDE community, where I got to meet other people. I also went to Akademy in Spain, that's an annual conference and after this I was more integrated.

Sebastion, in January KDE 4.0 was released. KDE developers haven often saidthat it's not for a productive work, that people who have to work with their systems should continue to use KDE 3.5.x. Many people were disappointed. KDE 4.1 will come out soon. What do you think: Will this version be usable, and what is new in KDE 4.1?

KDE 4.1 will be a release for the end user. Most importantly, the existings functionality was extended, stabilized and made faster. New apps got included, e.g. the DragonPlayer, an easy to use media player. There is also KDE PIM, with its most important component, the e-mail client, and we have have an amazing number of cool new games. Plasma has important new features: one can add panels, create panels, there are new plasmoids, and a lot of performance improvements have been introduced. We have new features from Qt e. g. the WebKit. Very important in 4.1: It's the fist version for Windows, Mac and Solaris. There are lot of new things. Try it!

What are you looking forward to the most?

KMail. Currently I am still using KDE3 Kontact, because I couldn't get the KDE4 version to compile.

Sebastian, what's the significance of KDE 4.1 for the development cycle of KDE?

KDE 4.0 is more of a platform release. We have new technologies, the libs are stable now. In KDE 4.1 there are a lot of new things which depends on these features. Considering that we have only worked on this really for 4 months, it looks very good. In KDE 4.1 we will find a bigger user spectrum. One can say it like this: 4.0 for developers, poweruser and bleeding edge things; 4.1 for endusers; 4.2 for enterprise users. 4.1 extends the circle of users, so we will get more feedback from the community. It's a next step on the road to world domination.

Sebastian, the current development of KDE is very fast, the step from KDE 3 to KDE 4 is giant. The whole environment was designed anew and filled with new apps. It's now more appealing for developers to work with you now, too?

I think so. In Plasma we use a very easy API also for webdevelopers, that means you have the possibility to write your own extensions for the desktop in Javascript. That's good for people who are relatively "untechnical". We address a bigger spectrum of developers. What I have noticed is this: within 20 minutes two people visited the KDE booth who both plan to take part actively in the development process. I believe that with this really comfortable and tidy development environment we enable developers, hobby programmers and companies alike, to build good applications which are portable and integrate well into the desktop and and the operating system.

You've just mentioned: there were two people at the KDE booth and they want to be part of it. How can someone start to participate in the development?

The easiest way to get in is to look at techbase.kde.org. There is an introduction how to install the latest version, how to set up the environment, compile the code, install it and look at it. One mustn't be afraid to open an editor. Play around a bit, nothing can break, because you can undo it. Then you register for the mailing lists which are of interest for you. That way you will get a feeling for the community and what happens there and how the development works. You write patches for bugs that annoy you. So you get deeper and deeper into the matter. You will meet new people who have new input for you. If you don't have fun you go do something else. It's free and easy.

What do you think, are there also things to do for people without programming skills?

Sure. To expand a little: I believe that free software has only a chance to become big if it does not limit itself to software, but embraces a completely free culture. A few buzzwords: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap and such things. A whole infrastructure for a completely free computer. You don't only need software, there is also data. That's the one point if you don't have any skills in programming. We don't only make software, we are a big community. We need people who write the documentation, who translate, who go to events, organize events, who hold presentations and people who administrate bugs in Bugzilla or triage bugs and support the developers that way. People who do PR things, write newspaper reports, who do little things like promoting KDE on Digg, writing articles for websites, who blog about KDE. Very important: helping. We need community support. To work on KDE also means to help a friend install it. Programming is only a small part and we have worked hard on it to underline the part of non-developers in the community over the past years.

End of live interview by Radio Tux

Where do you see potential for improvement?

Everywhere, I am very critical, because I know a lot in detail. On the other hand I am very happy with how things are going at the moment. New challenges in the development cycle are certainly the integration of distributed version control systems like git, which allow us to treat release and development cycles separetely. This would be suitable for our developers and at the same time make it easier for distributors to distribute KDE.

It's an official goal of KDE to run on many platforms. How is the development going in this area?

I am following the OpenSolaris development, there it's almost possible to install everything. The next step will be the further integration into the operating system so that we will be able to offer interfaces for features like ZFS.

Recently I tried KDE apps on Windows and so far they seemed to work. Unfortunately I don't have experience with Macs. I think that in July with KDE 4.1 we will definitely be ready to try things. On the other hand not everything will be perfect at once, which may harm our reputation. Of course KDE can only come fully into its own on free platforms.

Which parts of KDE will be available on other platforms?

Generally said, everything on OpenSolaris, for Windows and Mac but not the desktop - that already exists. But I wouldn't completely rule out that a "lunatic" will port the desktop itself, too.

What do you hope for by porting KDE or parts of KDE for Windows, too?

I am personally not interested in this very much. I am interested in the free desktop, and it belongs on a free OS. But I understand that it can be very interesting in heterogenous environments. The BSI has just announced Kontact that runs on Linux, MacOS and Windows. This yields concrete advantages for paths of migration, possibly an approach for solving the exchange problem.

Certainly a couple of new developers will join, but I will personally lobby for keeping the focus on free platforms. But we will also adopt new members into the community, and happily so.

And it makes it easy to show the people what we have to offer.

What swayed you to move to a fixed release cycle?

I think we have become too big to wait for everything to finish. This has not worked for 4.0, either. At the same time this helps distributors to offer KDE. This yields advantages to us. However, on the long run I want to see more flexible release cycles.

A lot of the big distributions use GNOME as their standard desktops. How are the chances that this will change with KDE 4?

54.32% ;-) . At the end of the day, it's not up to us to decide this, but up to the users. We give our best to make it as easy as possible to offer KDE. But there are enough users for both KDE and GNOME. For me it's more important that free software is spread more. I favor a GNOME desktop over a Mac or Windows Desktop 1000 times. The unfree systems are our enemy. To position us against GNOME would be petty minded. We have more in common than separates us, especially regarding fundamental things like ethics and community.

Maybe it's a bit early, but are there already plans for the 4.2 release?

Yes, it will come out in January 2009, 6 months after 4.1. I hope that KDE PIM will be based on Akonadi in that release, that we will see more of the new frameworks (especially the integration of Decibel and Akonadi seems to be interesting). Furthermore: A more complete application park, a lot of new cool things in Plasma, KWin, better integration of web content, and hopefully focus-follows-mind ;-) .

Nokia has taken over Trolltech a couple of weeks ago. Will this be an advantage or a disadvantage for KDE?

It shows that KDE is interesting for the desktop as well as for embedded. A big company that puts itself behind KDE is a very good sign. During our collaboration they have proven to be very friendly, cooperative, open and interested. I get the impression that Nokia wants to learn to be a good citizen of the KDE ecosystem.

I see this development very positively.

Complete this sentence: KDE means for me ...

joy, freedom, fun.

The second part of the interview for kubuntu-de.org was carried out by Marc Hildebrand (a.k.a. serenity).