Sometimes You Have To Pay For Open Source Software Or Services, And That's OK

We in the open-source world enjoy so many freedoms that we are grateful and thankful for. In general, we reap the benefits of avoiding vendor lock-in, for example, and are free to use and reuse code as we see fit for our own reasons.

We are able to get things done for business, pleasure, and education all with tools freely available to us. All this on an operating system whose underpinnings are the pinnacle example of community contributed code.

It is important to note that when we say freedom, of course we mean Libre - free as in Freedom, not necessarily always freedom from economic realities. Many companies like Canonical, Red Hat, Suse, NextCloud, and even Microsoft all make money from providing the services to clients who deploy their open source technologies. It's a beautiful thing, really.

However it's not just big companies that make money from open source software. Many small niche companies also use these same business models. And all the way down to the single developer level with a simple application maintained on GitHub, and everything in between all comes together to create the User experience that we utilize every day and - at least for me - could not imagine life without.

Keeping it real

On a personal level, I have used Linux now for over 10 years exclusively. Starting with Kubuntu somewhere around 7.10 or 8.04, I was hooked and really never looked back. At one particular point in time for a job I had around then I did run Windows XP in a virtual machine. That was the extent of my interaction with a non Linux operating system. And that was only to access a vendor websites that insisted I run Internet Explorer on Windows.

Since then, even that need has gone away and tools like KMyMoney and LibreOffice and Firefox and many others have come together to allow me to manage my life only using open-source software. Again for this I am extremely thankful, proud, and humbled.

Open source code, freely distributable and usable by anyone
is the life-blood of Libre software and communities

Paying it forward in the open source world

Sometimes, however, even though the software we use is completely free as in open code, there are reasons one may entertain purchasing software or supporting a community or developers on a personal level. There are a few reasons we may want to do this. Some that come to mind are:

• Supporting a project or developer to encourage them to keep making their software better (and making it at all)
• Supporting companies who are aligned with our technology and / or privacy or other values
• Supporting a community to keep them healthy and innovating
• Supporting people in non-dev roles - bloggers (ahem), publishers, podcasters, artists, and others are just a few that come to mind here
• Supporting content distribution platforms and their contributors that get stuff to users efficiently and easily. OpenDesktop and the KDE Store would be an example here
• Sometimes one may want or need to run a commercial, licensed application on Linux that needs to be paid for in order to use. CrossOver Linux would be one example
• We may want paid-for support for our Linux computers we use for business or mission-critical use-cases

Are any of these mandatory? Of course not. Whether you support an open-source developer or project or content creator or not is entirely up to you. That is part of the whole Freedom deal. Further, one must realize that many do not have the ability to pay at all. Of course there are myriads of other ways one can contribute.

A few real life examples of financially supporting open source

In my case, I will give a few examples of where I have personally contributed in the past. These are just a few small examples, and over the years I have supported many projects and communities in different ways. Both financially as well as other ways as my abilities, time, and / or finances would allow.

I say the above and it is important. For my examples are personal to me and may not be applicable to you. Therefore, I am not endorsing these particular projects for you, dear reader, as your situations (and passions) are likely to be entirely different. Although I would recommend them to anyone if the need fit.

Again these are just examples and you as an individual would have to find your own open source causes to support.

Supporting a service

 

KolabNow ticked all my boxes in allowing me to
move away from GMail for good

Sometime around five years ago I decided to abandon a few Google services. One of these being GMail. In my quest to find an email provider I had a few criteria:

• They had to use open source technologies 
• They had to have the ability to self host if and when I desired to do so 
• They had to play well with various email clients once I found the one I really wanted to use long-term 
• They had to also respect freedom and privacy 

Kolab ticks all of those boxes and instantly became a service that I could see as a long-term replacement for Gmail. Kolab has a service called KolabNow which charges a monthly fee to utilize they're full-featured PIM service. These include email, calendaring, address book, tasks, notes and even file storage. They fit the bill then and continue to do so today, hence while I still use them.

Easy to use and hosted in Switzerland. They are very privacy-focused. I gladly pay for this service monthly.

Supporting a developer

 

UKUU Kernel update utility

I have written here on these pages about UKUU (the Ubuntu Kernel Update Utility), both in its free and recently licensed incarnations. In my case, the freedom and flexibility to download any kernel and install it at will, including release candidates and LTS', along with the ability to easily uninstall them, read the change logs, etc. etc. make the tool extremely valuable to me personally.

As noted in my previous article on UKUU, the developer moved to a paid only version going forward (although the free version still remains in its original repository for anyone to use). I believe that people's hard work should be rewarded, and bought the license.

In this particular product's case, it is a one-time lifetime license fee that gives the user updates forever. Small price to pay for such a valuable thing in my case. Again this fit my needs - hence why I supported the developer. Most users will likely never have to install newer kernels as most of this is taken care of by their distribution.

But there are valid use cases for wanting newer kernels and you can refer to my previous articles on UKUU and elsewhere as to the pros and cons of such a practice. But the long and short of it is that it did what I wanted and I paid for it. No regrets.

 

Supporting a community

 

The elegant Linux Mint KDE4 edition
lives on in this author's memory

One of my first forays into Linux after Kubuntu was the KDE edition of Linux Mint. I really liked the elegance and loved the Linux Mint desktop - especially with its KDE implementation and artwork back then.

I also really liked the idea that Linux Mint's main developer, Clem, was actually able to quit his job to work on his project full-time. This was achieved solely through donations to the Linux Mint community.

As time went on, other devs and support people were added to the team, and Linux Mint became a shining example of what the Linux desktop could be. At the time when I used Mint, I subscribed monthly to giving them a small donation. It felt pretty good knowing that I was a small part of something that was growing and becoming a beautiful thing as well as an active community.

And even though I have since moved on, and Mint has dropped any kind of official support for KDE whatsoever, I do not regret donating money to them back then. If I were using Mint today I would still donate to them I'm sure.

Final thoughts

So here in this article I have provided three examples of supporting open source software: as a service, as a product, and as a community. In two of the cases, the financial obligation was necessary to use the product or service. And in the third example with Mint, while not required, it certainly felt like the right thing to do in order to support something that I used every single day of my life.

Many years ago I wrote about the $5 Challenge and many of those principles still apply today. But even if that's really not your thing, and you are more of the pragmatic type, if the right tool for the job requires a small financial obligation, I'm okay with that.

People need money to eat and live and we cannot expect people to endlessly donate time and resources for free. Sadly this is not how the world works.

Finally, from a purely selfish perspective, I want as many people in open source as possible. And as many people to move to Linux for their everyday computing as possible. While we don't have the marketing arm of huge billion-dollar corporations, we do have each other.

And our communities.

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We Have Everything We Need And Should Be Thankful...The Rest Is Just Excuses

Excuse me while I vent for just a minute here. I have been thinking about this for a while now, and tonight I was sitting here jamming music on Amarok, one of the long-forgotten but truly amazing projects to ever come out of the KDE Community. And I thought, how blessed are we?

I mean if there's something you want to do on Linux, you can do it. And if you say you cannot, it's merely an excuse and a rehashing of old ideologies or technical limitations that no longer can possibly hold any merit.

Let me get this out of the way now. There are a few AAA games and granted there are old, crusty, walled technologies like Adobe Suite and Office. And some of us work for companies who force us to use Microsoft technologies and other normally-accepted, but closed and otherwise less-than-ideal things. In spite of that, really, when we add all that up, we're probably talking about the 10%.

For the rest of us, the open source community has risen and brought us just about every conceivable thing you could want to do on a personal computer or a laptop (or even a Pinebook or a Pi - hashtag winning?!).

Really. We have digiKam and OBS, and Lutris, and Krita, and Latte Dock, and KMyMoney, KDEnlive, KDE Connect, WikiMedia, Simon, OpenStreetMaps, and an entire Community (with too many projects to possibly name) making software that while not perfect, pretty much kicks ass and gets the job done.

We have so many good (and smart) content creators it's not even funny. Even the mainstream is starting to take notice! 

We argue because we are passionate about what we do, but at the end of the day we all want the same thing. Whether it's advancements by Canonical, Pop_OS, the KDE  Community, Gnome, the fine folks over at Red Hat and openSuse, we see a need and we fill it. And give it all away - code-wise. Because we're awesome like that.

The community steps up and produces artwork, we produce technologies that allow easy migration to other platforms, we have business software, art software, social media software, productivity software, gaming software. If you name the need then the open source community will produce it. And people who make little money will blog and Youtube and preach it. All for not enough recognition and sometimes vitriol, apathy, and  instead.

This is a shout out to the content creators and programmers and community volunteers and testers and users who simply get the job done. Most of the time it's thankless, but the world would not be the same without us. To all the visionaries, teachers, supporters, users, developers, and every other Community member that gives of their time based on pure unselfish love, this goes out to you. Keep up the good fight and never give up.

I could shout out to so many people and organizations, but I would be leaving good people, organizations, and companies out. From devs to release teams to kernel maintainers to people just trying to scratch an itch to people working on future career goals to people who just are ideologically-aligned to FOSS to people actually making a living in this beautiful space - so this is instead to ALL OF US. 

We are the 2% and we're passionate about what we do and why we do it. Never forget that. And we accept everyone and anyone. No judgements, no eye rolls. Just respect.

At some point we need to get past the fragmentation and language barriers and time barriers and other real but overcomeable things to make us better than we are today. Thanks for the last 10 years of me being Windows-free , and here's to one hell of a ride from here. If you agree in any kind of way, feel free to list your comments, rants, dreams, and whatever else below.

We may have different laws and borders and DNA, but we are one. We are FOSS. 

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More Than A Year Since It's Last Maintenance Offering, Amarok Still Has Not Had A Proper Plasma 5 Release

More than a year out from it's last maintenance release, and 15 years(!) since it's first edition, KDE's venerable music player has not yet seen a release for proper Plasma 5 integration and support.

Hard to believe it's been 15 years for Amarok to be rocking in the free (and not-so-free) world. When the announcement for the 2.9.0 release was made last March that kept the application functioning for the most part in the Plasma 5 era, the release stated:

"In fact, the port is already progressing nicely in the Git 'kf5' branch, which is soon to become the new ‘master’ branch. We welcome everybody willing to help out to check out the source code and improve the next major version of Amarok!"

However, since that time, we haven't heard anything from camp Amarok. Now it should be noted that the current version, - 2.9.0 - for the most part works fine on Plasma 5, and is available in the repos and software stores of nearly all major KDE distributions. I realize this may surprise some of you, as many I've talked to assumed Amarok was somewhat left to bit rot into oblivion.

This does not seem to be the case, although when I tested Amarok on my Neon system, some plugins were not working. Mainly the 'photos', 'info', 'upcoming events', and 'tabs' (guitar tablatures) did not seem to be doing anything for me. These likely need some love in order to function again.

Amarok has some really nice features,
such as dynamic playlists, Lyric retrieval,
cover art retrieval, a built-in E.Q., robust
online integration, and more

 

Maybe it's not all doom and gloom

On a positive note, a quick scan of Amarok's Git repo does show some activity.  Some of it as recently as two months ago - so that's pretty encouraging. Also worth noting is this page outlines what has been done and needs to be done to get things in proper shape. If I'm understanding it correctly, right now Amarok uses a dependency on the lib 'KF5::KDELibs4Support' to keep things running. This, of course, is not a good long term solution but rather a patchwork way of keeping the moving parts working. It would be curious to know how many other KDE apps use these libraries...

Another apparent bright spot is this Amarok commit page, where we can see work is still being done to the Master branch, albeit mainly by one person (Laurent Montel). However, it does not appear that anything has yet been tagged as a "3.0" version milestone as of yet. Which is a bit disheartening.

Amarok 2.9.0, shown as available via
the Discover Software Center in KDE Plasma

 

Summary (queue best Monty Python voice - "I'm Not Dead Yet"!)

It's been a while since I wrote about Amarok. While many of our readers have likely moved on, and there is certainly no lack of media players and music players available on Linux (understatement of the year?), to many of us old timers Amarok holds a special place in our hearts. This application has stood the test of time, been around forever, and like all the great KDE applications is - by design - Simple by default, Powerful when needed.

To my knowledge, there is no other single music player available for KDE, or Linux in general for that matter, that can do as much out of the box and do it as elegantly as elegantly as Amarok. Let's hope that 2019 brings some good news with regards to this KDE original. I'm sure Amarok would regain quite a following and a lot of new fans should a proper release and an appropriate amount of Promo come to light.

In the meantime, Happy belated 15th birthday to Amarok!

Amarok 1.4.3, as it appeared in 2007
- courtesy of wikimedia.org

PS - If your curious for an overview of all that Amarok can do, please check out their features page. It's pretty impressive. Amarok can even be your podcast manager, should you so choose. Multitaskers FTW.

Read more "More Than A Year Since It's Last Maintenance Offering, Amarok Still Has Not Had A Proper Plasma 5 Release"

Moving Away From Feedburner For Email Subscriptions

Just a quick note to let our readers know who are subscribed to our posts via our email delivery service, I have decided to move the site away from Google's Feedburner service for email delivery of posted articles. This is mainly due to having a severe lack of control over how and when such emails are sent, how they look, and overall quality of the email is delivered. The new service allows much better control and a much more professional environment for both our subscribers and for the site administrators.

Additionally, it is understood that many people are trying not be so dependent on Google and its plethora of services. So we definitely do not want to be in a position whereby someone who would like to stay current with our content chooses not to do so because RSS feeds were all utilizing a Feedburner service that is owned and managed by Google. Further along this line, at some point when the site's traffic warrants, the site itself will be moved to a different hosting provider as well. But that is a topic for another day.

If you are already subscribed to KDigest's email delivery service, the change will be automatic and you will have to do nothing on your part to continue getting daily digest deliveries of the content we are publishing here on the site (and, on a side note, thanks for being a subscriber!).

You current RSS feed from K*Digest! will possibly no longer work...

One change that will be impacted however are the RSS feeds. The decision has also been made to shut down the Feedburner RSS feed in it's entirety. While the old link  should "just work" via permanent redirection, the Feedburner RSS feed was the default RSS feed for this site for a long time now. So if for some reason you stop receiving are articles in your RSS feed reader of choice, I will post the new one here. Please be sure to update your RSS feed subscription service with the new address.

If you have any other questions or comments, on either making sure everything is setup right to continue receiving are feeds, or just on the quality of the emails themselves, be sure to let us know. I just appreciate your understanding as we keep moving to provide a better and more professional experience for our readers.

Thanks much and keep on enjoying the KDE Community, Linux, and free software!

New RSS Feed:

https://kdedigest.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss  

</kdigest!>

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The Case For Making A KDE Neon "Maximum Plasma" Edition

Having been a KDE user since 2010, and a Neon user since it's inception, I've grown to appreciate how sparse Neon is after install. Like a fresh canvas or a newly-plowed field, Neon lets you do things they way you want to do them. Firefox is there and a few others necessary to function a little beyond the command line. But really, there's no other assumptions made as to what you should do with your newly-minted Neon system, or the tools you should use to go about doing it.

This is why the Neon team likes to say Neon is not a distribution. And they have a point, in a technical sense at least. Users are used to distributions making a lot of decisions for them. And this usually involves throwing the proverbial kitchen sink at them. Among the 100's of distros out there, many are separated only by a few application decisions. Chromium instead of Firefox? Sure. Gnome Media Player instead of VLC? We can do that for you, Madam. Fork almost every main computer function and put your own name on it? Well, if it works for Linux Mint, it will likely be OK for you as well.

On the other hand, we keep a running monthly list here on K*Digest! about the top 5 pure KDE Plasma distributions out there at any given time, so do be sure to check it out for further examples.  

Plasma 5.12 in all it's customized glory

Neon is different, of course. Only want to use Neon for work? Fine. Install Calligra or Libre Office and an email client and go. Want to user it for video production? KDEnlive is there - or Openshot. Hey, we don't judge, go for it. Using Neon to make a sexy gaming rig? All of the games available from Ubuntu, KDE, Steam, PlayDeb, and more are available. Haver at it. That's what makes Neon so good for knowledgeable users - the ability to mold and shape into whatever use-cases you'll ever run into, without the bloat of having so many applications already installed and those assumptions made for you. A totally blank canvas.

Another thing the Neon devs do an outstanding job of is making up-to-date KDE applications available to it's loyal users. Whether it's Calligra Office Suite, KMyMoney, Kaffeine video player, or KDE  PIM, the latest and greatest that the KDE Community has to offer is made available to you, with only a few "apt" commands, or firing-up Discover (or the recently-updated Muon Package Manager).   

And that brings me to the point of this article.

The need for a "Maximum Plasma" edition

Call it what you want (and name suggestions are certainly welcome!)

- Maximum Plasma Edition 
- All-In Edition
- Much Too Much Plasma On My Hands Edition
- Everything and the Kitchen Sink Edition

A candidate for a Maximum Plasma Edition Wallpaper?

Whatever the nomenclature used, I would like to suggest the friendly developers over at KDE Neon make periodic releases of KDE Neon that showcase every application they've released within the Neon repositories. And honestly - I bet even most Neon users don't know this - it's quite a lot. Don't believe me? Fire up Muon Package Manager, Synaptic, or whatever graphical package manager you use. Then filter packages by source, selecting KDE Neon as the source shown. That's a lot of packages, I must say.

Using Muon to filter KDE Neon packages

Now I will note that for the purposes of clarity, it wouldn't have to be the Neon team that brought forth a release like this. Chakra Linux, for example, might be a good fit. It could be any other distribution out there. I'm using Neon here for arguement's sake that the Neon team would be the most likely to do such a thing. And to me makes a lot of sense. Anyone else who would be excited to do this, feel free! You see, in this (for now imaginary) distribution, it's all about Plasma discovery, after all.

My thought   process goes something like this:

"Well, Calligra Words seems like it could be a great word processor, and might handle my different file formats really great. I'd much rather use a KDE application than not, so let's give it a try. We could always install Libre Office if it doesn't quite cut it."

The potential here is that we just gained a Calligra fan! Get enough of those, and cause and effect kick in and - guess what? - we get more Calligra contributors! It's an exponential win-win. Another example could be that a Plasma user who has used Quicken for money management for years maybe has known that a KDE app like KMyMoney existed, but who has time to install and play? Well, in my mind, a user who could just fire-up KMyMoney and read from a tool tip about how easy it is to import a Quicken file with just a few mouse clicks, might just do exactly that! Again, #winning.

I'm talking nothing but Plasma applications here. If it's not Plasma, throw it out. Simple. A list that comes to mind but is not at all all-inclusve would go something like this:

• Falkon Web Browser
• Babe Music Player
• Calligra Office Suite
• Kaffine Video Player (the only KDE player updated to Plasma 5)
• KDE Partition Manager
• KBackup (Coming standard in Plasma 5.13, but still)
• KGet
• Full Kontact PIM Suite
• the Plasma-Widgets-Addons package
• KDE Games
• KMyMoney
• Konverstaion
• KTorrent
• DigiKam
• Krita
• Muon Package Manager
• Yakuake
• Kexi
• KFind
• KUser
• And others I can't think of at the moment

You get the idea. If it's a KDE application and built for Plasma 5, and in the Neon repositories, it should be there. This way, we get more users - and more users of the good kind; the curious kind. The kind more likely to possibly join the KDE Community and contribute one day. This, my friends, excites me. So much so that I really think this should exist. A hallmark distro (or non-distro, if you must) that showcases everything KDE and it's community have to offer at that point in time.  People can install it, fire it up in a VM, run a live session, whatever. More exposure. More people. More contributors and community members. More donators. More excitement from the press. More overall goodness.

Plasma All The Things^[TM].  Yea, that will work.

 

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Plasma Media Center Has Gone Silent And It's a Shame

While browsing the state of various KDE projects recently, it came to light that the once promising Plasma Media Center has seemingly went silent for a little while now. A little while as in a few years. And that's a bit of a shame, really. For a few reasons that I will touch on briefly.

I had occasion to try PMC recently, and - at least as packaged in Ubuntu > Universe, or KDE Neon, it's not usable at all. There's some dependencies missing, or something's not right. All of the features released as part of PMC 1.1 do not seem to be working.  There's no menu available on the home screen. Therefore, there's no settings available either. Actually, this is what it now looks like, run for the first time:

No menu, no options, just 3 singular - and tiny -
icons for Music, Pictures, and Videos

And since there's no menu, there's also no way to exit the application. You have to alt > tab and close from the task manager.  According to the PMC 1.1 release notes, from 2013, it is supposed to look more like a traditional media center with a 10-foot interface, like this:

Plasma Media Center 1.1

So again, I can only assume there's some KDE 4 libs missing here, that are keeping PMC from looking or functioning properly. Case in point: No video thumbnails. Also, it appears that the default paths for media are coded in, and there's no way to change those.

Plasma Media Center's Video Screen
As shown on KDE User Edition. Sadly,
thumbnails do not work

In it's current form, running in Plasma 5, PMC sadly is not usable. I can only assume that a few things happened here - again, these are just assumptions:

• The original developers moved on
• Plasma 5 happened
• Kodi took off and gained a large community 
• Thus slowing demand for another open source solution
• No one stepped up to pick up the project

 

Why should I care?

Well, there are a few reasons that come to mind as to why PMC should exist and thrive.

- Firstly, KDE's "Plasma Everywhere" approach lends itself well to this use case. Moving from a traditional desktop / laptop to a media center PC or laptop connected via HDMI cable is a common thing. The concept of using a 10-foot interface has exploded, with the likes of Kodi, Plex, Emby, and even the long-standing and still highly-active MythTV - which has been happily running on Linux for over a decade and moving Linux into the living room and out or the office. In short, the reasons for PMC's existence were and are solid. In some ways, for normal and traditional users, it was perhaps even a bit ahead of it's time.
    

MythTV has been happily running on Linux -
both on the front-end and / or back - end for years

-  Secondly, with many Plasma apps also having Android equivalents, it only makes sense for Plasma to move onto as many devices as possible. The Babe Music Player developers know this already, and offer both a traditional music player along with an Android equivalent. Same with KDE's Marble Maps and others. This also falls conveniently in line with KDE's Usability and Productivity initiative.

"Your Music, Photos, and Videos everywhere, on any device, all from the KDE Community" has a nice ring to it. Yes?

- Lastly, Plasma now has the tools for any front-end GUI work to be done via the flexible and portable Kirigami Framework. To me, this would seem like an ideal use for someone looking to get into using Kirigami for app development. And, with the benefits of much of the heavy-lifting for the 'under-the-hood' parts already done.

As for me, I would love to set up a MythTV back-end feeding my TV, Music, Videos all to my TV, happily showing-off Plasma. All which Plasma Media Center could do, and more, with a little effort and a new community around it. What do you think?

Links:

- Plasma Media Center
- PMC 1.1 Release Announcement
- PMC Future Plans 

Read more "Plasma Media Center Has Gone Silent And It's a Shame"

Creating A Running List Of Ways To Donate To KDE-Centric Projects

* updated 3/30/2018 *

One of the things that usually arise out of using free software long enough is a willingness and desire to help out in some fashion or another. For many, this takes on the form of becoming a developer. And that is a wide net that could encompass helping to develop core technologies for various end-user form factors, adopting an application that is in need of some T.L.C. and overseeing it's future development, creating a new application from scratch, helping with internal infrastructures (web sites, databases, application delivery methods, and the like).

For others, it may be contributing in different ways - perhaps via promotion, testing, documentation writing, artwork and visual excellence, bug-squashing, creating online content, and countless other ways that are likely only limited by one's imagination. And, perhaps, cash. And that brings us here. There are others who either don't have the time or desire to get directly involved with a particular project. Some just want to help out with a little cash in order to help facilitate future successes with something they are passionate about.

We <3 freedom & open source

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It's All About Choice: Alternate Applications For Your Kubuntu / NetrunnerOS / Linux Mint KDE Computer

We are very lucky here in KDE-land. By the grace and talent of hundreds thousands of developers and maintainers, we have excellent default applications that are carefully packaged together and installed on your KDE-based system. Everything one needs to get the most out of their computer in order to get things done. All of this is available to us via the wonderful concept of Open Source.

By default we have multimedia applications, office applications, games, email and PIM applications, vast system management tools and utilities. Not to mention web browsers and...well, you get the idea. Add to the mix the vast repositories maintained by the wonderful folks at Canonical, as well as the vast number of applications available via various Launchpad repositories.

Read more "It's All About Choice: Alternate Applications For Your Kubuntu / NetrunnerOS / Linux Mint KDE Computer"

With GetDeb and PlayDeb Back Online Should Kubuntu Have A Service Like This?

With the recently announced resurrection of both GetDeb and PlayDeb services, I couldn't help but wonder if the greater Kubuntu community would benefit from a service like this. For the uninitiated, GetDeb and PlayDeb are Ubuntu repositories that aim to "provide the latest open source and freeware applications for the current Ubuntu Linux release, in an easy to install manner". Additionally, these services provide a great way to browse releases and obtain software in a manner that users of that other operating system are very used to: Installing software with a mouse click. 

This service offers a great way for users to browse and install software they may not be aware of. Furthermore, the versions present in these services are often newer than the ones in the standard repositories. The downside, at least for the GetDeb website, is that the applications are geared towards Ubuntu and *not* Kubuntu. Meaning, you will not find Kubuntu / Qt apps there. Of course, that doesn't stop someone from installing these apps anyway, as they should work just fine in Kubuntu. It's just that we in KDE-land often tend to prefer KDE apps when possible.

"But we already have Muon Software Center"

Yes, Kubuntu ships with Muon. It's a great app! However, it is limited to the software sources that it has access to (and rightfully so). But utilizing the GetDeb and/or PlayDeb services, you install the repositories for the respected services. This gives the added benefit of having the ability to install these applications via Muon Software Center or Muon Discover, in addition to installing directly from Get / Play.Deb websites. This way, however you install the application(s), they will stay current automagically via the Muon Updater as part of the normal system updates.

The Case For A Kubuntu-Flavored GetDeb

Let us examine the options that exist today for a new Kubuntu / NetRunner / Linux Mint KDE user looking to install a program not in the standard repositories today. There are a few options:

• Search Google
• Pretty hit-or-miss, often outdated information
• Search Launchpad
• New users may be unaware of Launchpad's vast repositories
• New users may be unaware of how to add / remove / manage repositories
• KDE-apps.org
• Usually no Kubuntu version available, forcing a user to compile and often landing in dependency hell
• Many users are not aware of kde-apps.org
• Limited user base = limited testing and stability
• The app's website
• Same as above: If no official repository exists, the user may be left to compile

Plus, all of the above assumes that the user knows what application they want to install. There is no easy way to browse and read about all of the great software out there not in the standard repos.

Having a GetKDEDeb.org (sample name for discussion's sake) would allow a great way to both expose and distribute both newer upstream versions of software and new applications that are deemed good enough to include but at that time are not available via standard channels.

I have often seen an application on kde-apps.org or qt-apps.org and wanted to try them out, however for whatever reason compiling failed and installation was not successful.  Another potential user unexposed to a developer's beloved project.

As Usual, It Comes Down To Demand And Manpower

Of course, nothing is stopping me or you or anyone else from doing this. It comes down to if there is really a need for such a thing, and of course the big question: What person or team would manage it? Would it gt enough funding and donations to survive?

What do you think? Should something like this exist? Or is it overkill in a world of often understaffed projects already?

Read more "With GetDeb and PlayDeb Back Online Should Kubuntu Have A Service Like This?"

Using Subtle Hints To Remind People Of The Ethics Of Donating In Free Software

I have a Twitter account that I mainly use Choqok to manage. Choqok is a great microblogging client (Think Twitter and Identi.ca) that is available for free right in your standard Kubuntu system. Just launch the Muon Software Center and install it. If you're into microblogging from a PC, even casually, you'll like it. It has most all the features of any other microblogging client on ANY platform, including web-based clients.

Choqok in action

However, this is not a post about Choqok per se. Rather, it is a head-nod to a great idea in user-interface design that I felt should be acknowledged. If you're running a recent version of Choqok, and you click the little Choqok-birdie-thing in the upper-right of the GUI in order to bring up the menu, you might notice something unique. That is, there's something there:

Click the little birdie - You know you want to

Notice anything?

Ok...ok....so the big red circle might have given it away. There's a donate button. Right there, in the menu! I think this is genius. I'm not going to go into a big moral dissertation here about how it's important for all of us in free software to donate in some way. For most of us who don't code, this would imply maybe donating a small amount of money to one or maybe several of your favorite open source projects. Besides, I already shared some of my thoughts on this topic a while ago. 

The point of all this is that having a donate button right in the application serves a few purposes:

• Convenience
• Of course one is more likely to donate to a given application when they are using it
• Repetition
• Get the thought started and then reinforce it through redundant visual cues
• Setting a precedent
• ....That perhaps this should be a standard item in free software? 

I expect not everyone would agree with me, and that perhaps a few would think it's a little brash to ask for money right in an application. My thought, however, is that we humans all mean well, we really do. But that every once in a while we need a swift kick in the horse's derriere gentle reminder that donating money is one way we can show our appreciation for free software and those who make it.

What say you?

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Keeping Track Of Kickstarter And Crowd-Sourced Games For Linux

Since gaming on Linux is something that is seen to be on the rise as companies and independent developers alike show more attention to our cherished OS, is there any one definitive list keeping track of all the games coming down the development pike for your Kubuntu and Linux enjoyment?

It would seem to be a good thing to have a list where people could review upcoming games at a glance and decide if that particular project is worth supporting and worth following the development cycle.

To date, it seems that the main way people are learning about all of these crowd-sourced games is via blogs or forum posts. It would seem that a central, community-driven and community-maintained wiki would make sense in order to track which games are in what stages for Linux development. For example, the following milestones could be tracked with data culled from the web, Desura's Alpha Funding, individual developer blogs, and sources such as Kickstarter.com itself: 

• Games that have announced definite Linux support
• Games that have announced definite Linux support at a certain funding goal
• Games that have non-definite Linux support (i.e. A Linux port is planned in the future...) <-- As an aside, does this ever happen? 
• A follow-up to verify the developers follow-through and commitment to Linux
• A follow-up announcing all of the available outlets to purchase the game (Ubuntu Software Center, Desura, Steam, publisher-direct, other)

Right now, there are two efforts out there attempting tracking crowd-sourced Linux game  announcements and development. The first is the Linux Games Database who have started tracking Linux games as announced on Kickstarter.com. Secondly, a thread has opened up over at the Ubuntu Forums discussing the same. Both posts have been updated within the last few days, so it looks like there is an aim to keep the content current.

Still,  a wiki or website (I wonder if LinuxGameWatch.com or TuxGamingWatch.com are available...) would seem to make sense here. And make for a good way to get involved in helping to promote Kubuntu and Linux. That's always a good thing, for the time is now for keeping the momentum going regarding gaming on Linux. Frag on, dear Tuxers. 

 

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The 5 Dollar KDE Challenge

OK so today I was browsing the forums over on the Choqok website as it had been a while since I had been there. Not only did I want to see what was going on with KDE's favorite micro-blogging client, but I wanted to see how the novel idea of "support Choqok by funding the features you want" concept was working out. I thought this approach was rather a cool way to allow ordinary users a voice in shaping the application's development into being what they (the users) wanted it to be, instead of just reflecting the assumptions of the developers.

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Why is Linux Better?

Some of the questions I get asked a lot, besides "What is this Linux thing anyways?" and "How do I install Linux in Windows?", are one of the following:

What makes Linux so special?

or

Why is Linux better than
Windows
this other operating system?

Manu Cornet has put up a website that pretty much sums it up nicely. I especially like the way the site is organized by topic, thus allowing the peruser of the page to easily pick the topic that jumps out at her first. The site also contains a few examples of who Linux may not be for (read: Hardcore Gamers). Thereby providing a relatively realistic picture of where the Linux Desktop is today. Well done

Even if you fall within the realm of one of the minority of people that Linux may not be well suited for, in this day and age of dual-boot systems and live cds there really is no good reason not to check out Linux Mint KDE today.

Why Linux is better

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