One of the things that's come out of the desktop architect's meeting was the need for something to simplify having to choose between GNOME and KDE. This need has spawned a new project called "The Portland Project", formed by leaders from KDE and GNOME (and a bunch of other projects).

Briefly stated, the goal of the Portland Project is to make KDE and GNOME work so well together that a software developer could choose either Gtk or Qt at their whim, and it will "just work" and fit natively for either desktop environment, including look and feel, themes, services, and so on.

The kickoff announcement is below. There is a mailing list on freedesktop.org for this just forming.

Bryce

----- Forwarded message from "Bastian, Waldo" <waldo.bastian@...1100...> -----

Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 19:49:50 -0800 From: "Bastian, Waldo" <waldo.bastian@...1100...> To: desktop_architects@...701... Subject: [Desktop_architects] Portland: The Linux Desktop Integration Interface

In the followup session aimed at making the live of ISVs easier wrt targetting the Linux Desktop two topics were discussed. The first topic addressed the issue of integrating with the two different desktop environments. The second topic addressed the issue of API/ABI stability. I will not be addressing the second topic here.

During the meeting on Thursday a number of desktop integration points were identified that would benefit from having a well defined interface, independent of the desktop environment in use. In the follow up meeting it was discussed how we can move forward to make such common interface a reality. Nothing is real without a name and so "Portland" was adopted as the name of this initiative.

Since the goals of Portland are very much in line with the mission of FreeDesktop.org it was agreed that FreeDesktop.org was the proper place to drive this effort.

To speed up the process a task force of 4 people will be created with two representatives from both Gnome and KDE. Alex Graveley (Gnome) and George Staikos (KDE) agreed to lead the task force and will each invite one additional member. The goal of the task force is to prioritize integration points, solicit feedback from ISVs and identify existing functionality in Gnome and KDE that can be used to implement Portland, and possibly provide a first draft implementation.

The task force will do a first report out before Linux.Conf.au (End of Jan, 2006)

The goal is to have the first version of Portland ready for inclusion in LSB 4.0 which is scheduled for the end of 2006. In order to reach this goal it is important that Portland is available in early 2006 so that it can be included in distributions before LSB adoption. It is understood that the first version of Portland may not be able to address all integration points and that additional versions may follow.

Cheers,

Waldo

Linux Client Architect - Channel Software Operation - Intel Corporation

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