OpenStreetMap is a free editable map of the whole world. Marble, a virtual desktop globe application and widget for KDE desktop, will support OpenStreetMap in KDE 4.1. Once you start Marble and select "OpenStreetMap" as a theme then Marble will directly start to download OpenStreetMap tiles from the OpenStreetMap server.

There’s nothing worse than hearing how an entire school district is switching operating systems from Mac to Windows (or vice versa) because that’s what the “business” world relies on or some other blather. The costs associated with the transition are enormous and the whole ‘to do’ is unnecessary, because features on applications mimic one another.

Jos Poortvliet has created a couple of cool sceencast videos showing what is coming in KDE 4.1, planned to be released this July. High quality videos are available via torrent, low quality ones from YouTube.

KDE Community Ships Fourth Translation and Service Release of the 4.0 Free Desktop, Containing Numerous Bugfixes, Performance Improvements and Translation Updates

The state of Plasma can be currently described as 'chaotic'. The reason for that is that its API is being refactored which in result makes it almost impossible to use for a regular human being. Most applets despite continuous development, still experience issues with adjusting to the new API. This results in instabilities and — in some cases — even problem with displaying properly on desktop.

Three are three audiences: libplasma, ninjas and myspacers. Whole areas of Plasma library are designed around the eventual use cases for interpreted languages. The new widget programming interface for KDE 4.1 was designed 100% for the foundation of sane interpreted languages API exporting.

One of the most frequently asked questions (FAQ) about KDE is how to start applications when the user logs into a KDE session. The answer is not always as straightforward as one would hope, and sometimes quite scattered across several sources.

This week, I'm listing the items, big and small, that impress me about the latest release of KDE 4, in the hopes of offering some starting points for others' exploration of the new desktop. I have left out long-established features, such as virtual desktops, to focus on the new ones.