<chapter id="what-is-kde">
<chapterinfo>
<date>2002-01-18</date>
<releaseinfo>3.00.00</releaseinfo>
</chapterinfo>
<title>What is &kde;?</title>
<anchor id="whatiskde"/>

<sect1 id="what-is-kde-introduction">
<title>What is &kde;?</title>

<para>&kde; is a desktop environment. In other words, &kde; is a
collection of programs, technologies and documentation that attempt to
make life easier for computer users. &kde; is targeted at &UNIX;
workstations. It features network transparency and a contemporary work
philosophy. </para>

<para>The creators of the K Desktop Environment are a world-wide group of
software engineers. This group's major goal in free software development is to
provide high quality software that empowers the user with easy control of his
computer's resources.</para>

<para>&kde; seeks to fill the need for an easy to use desktop for
&UNIX; workstations, similar to the desktop environments found under
the &Mac; <acronym>OS</acronym> or &Windows; 95/NT. &kde; fills the
need of users for an easy to use work environment. Tools used to reach
this end are: enhanced inter-application communication, component
reuse, generalized drag and drop, uniform look and feel and many
more. Thus, &kde; offers much more than the traditional &UNIX; window
managers.</para>

<para>Stability, scaleability and openness are qualities which have
made &UNIX; the undisputed choice for the information technology
professional for many years.  &kde; builds on top of this excellent
base framework and brings new, much needed qualities: usability, user
friendliness and beauty! &kde; was the first, and stays the forefront
player in bringing these qualities to &UNIX;, which constituted for
years, the premier platform for server computers and scientific
institutions, but wasn't very attractive for desktop users.</para>

<para>Without &UNIX; the Internet would not exist, or at least would
have a vastly different form. &UNIX; has not, until now, addressed the
needs of the average computer user. This fact is particularly
unfortunate, since a number of implementations of &UNIX; (<ulink
url="http://www.linux.org">&Linux;</ulink>, <ulink
url="http://www.freebsd.org">FreeBSD</ulink>, <ulink
url="http://www.netbsd.org">NetBSD</ulink>, &etc;) are freely
available on the Internet, all of which are of exceptional quality and
stability.  </para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="what-is-kde-the-desktop">
<title>&kde; The Desktop Environment</title>

<para>In combination with a free implementation of &UNIX;, &kde;
provides to the world an open and completely free desktop computing
platform either at home or at work.</para>

<para> This platform is available to anyone free of charge including
its source code for anyone to modify.</para>

<para>While there will always be room for improvement we believe we
have now delivered a viable alternative to some of the more commonly
found and commercial operating systems/desktops combinations available
today. It is our hope that the combination of &UNIX; and &kde; will
finally bring the same open, reliable, stable, and monopoly free
computing to the average computer user that scientists and computing
professionals world-wide have enjoyed for years.  </para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="what-is-kde-the-development-framework">
<title>&kde; The Application Development Framework</title>

<para>&kde; focuses on the user's needs, but it's obvious that this
focus is more easily achieved by also giving developers the best
tools.  &kde; code contains, and comes with, some of the best
development technologies of the modern computing age.</para>

<para>Authoring applications under &UNIX;/X11 used to be an extremely
tedious and labor intensive process. &kde; recognizes the fact that a
computing platform is only as good as the number of first class
applications available to the users of that particular
platform.</para>

<para>&kde; defines new technologies in &DCOP; and KParts, created to
offer a component document model and technology.  Together with the
complete &kde; libraries programming interface, &DCOP;/KParts are set
in direct competition with other similar technologies like &Microsoft;
<abbrev>MFC</abbrev>/<abbrev>COM</abbrev>/ActiveX technologies. The
excellent quality and the high level of refinement of &kde;'s
application programming interface (<acronym>API</acronym>) enables
developers to focus on original and interesting issues and avoid
reinventing the wheel.</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="what-is-kde-the-office-suite">
<title>&kde; The Office Application Suite</title>

<para>In its current form, &kde; provides, apart from the essential desktop
component applications, a suite of powerful office programs known to the
world by the name &koffice;.</para>

<para>&koffice; is based on the &kde; &DCOP;/KParts
technologies. It currently contains: a word processor with desktop
publishing capabilities (&kword;), a spreadsheet application (&kspread;)
and accompanying charting program (&kchart;), a presentation program
(&kpresenter;) and a vector drawing program (&kontour;).  Tying things
together is the <application>KOffice Workspace</application>, an
integrated shell to ease the use of the &koffice; components in
conjunction with each other.  Additional components include an email
client, a news reader, and a powerful <abbrev>PIM</abbrev> (Personal
Information Manager - an organizer).</para>

<para>While some of those components are still in alpha development,
others are already extremely powerful.  For example, &kpresenter;,
&kde;'s presentation application, was successfully used at the 5th
International &Linux; Congress in Cologne, Germany to deliver a &kde;
presentation.  </para>

<para>We would like to invite you to <ulink
url="http://www.kde.org">learn more about &kde;</ulink> and <ulink
url="http://koffice.kde.org">&koffice;</ulink>.</para>

</sect1>
</chapter>

