<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 &MacOS; or &Windows; 95/NT. &kde; meets the requirement of users for an easy to use work environment. Tools used to reach this end are: enhanced inter-application communication, component reuse, global 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 labour intensive process. &kde; recognises 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 organiser).</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>

