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Posts Tagged ‘Release’

Kraft 0.40 Beta 1 for KDE 4 available

February 27th, 2010 by

The Kraft team is happy to announce the first beta version of Kraft version 0.40. This is the first version of Kraft based on the KDE 4 platform. It is the result of a very long porting effort but has now reached a state where we can, after a short beta cycle, release a stable version of Kraft for KDE 4. It will be nearly feature equal to version 0.32 for KDE 3.

One of the new features of Kraft 0.40 makes the setup of Kraft easier. The file based sqlite database was added in addition to the mysql backend, so for evaluation no database server setup work is required any more. Furthermore a setup wizard that guides new users through the setup process aims to make it easier for new and unexperienced users.

Please help us by testing the beta version and report bugs back to the Kraft user mailinglist. The sources can be downloaded from the Sourceforge project page. Binary packages for openSUSE 11.1, openSUSE 11.2 and (K)Ubuntu 9.10 are available from the Kraft Beta repository from the openSUSE Buildservice, see here how to add and use it.

openSUSE 11.2 is out

November 12th, 2009 by

The openSUSE Project is pleased to announce the release of openSUSE 11.2. After a couple of month good work towards the 11.2 we’re enjoying a very nice distribution which I already like very much. It is running on most of my machines for a few weeks now. I have already seen some SUSE Linux distros going gold over the time I spent with SUSE and my personal gut feeling tells me this is one of the more remarkable versions.

As usual it comes with tons of new up to date software and also the installation runs smoothly, please read the announcement for all the details, but what for me the most remarkable with 11.2 is that it is a real community openSUSE distro.

There is so much effort visible in 11.2 which was achieved through our growing community rather than just the SUSE people. We had a lots of requests in openFATE suggesting features, we discussed some of them quite heated, others were no-brainer. We again had lots of testers who hammered the alphas and betas and reported big and small bugs. On the openSUSE Conference many discussions about the upcoming distribution took place which were inspiring. We were able to utilize the powerful openSUSE Buildservice to build the distro together with all packagers very effectively. That improved the quality of our packages again. Another very visible thing for me personally is the desktop artwork which was done in best cooperation with upstream – and it looks so great that I hesitate to start applications which cover the desktop all day 😉

It is really exciting to see how things come together on the way to community distribution, and how far we got with openSUSE 11.2. I am happy about that and I am proud to be part of this and like to say thank you for every little bit you might have contributed. I believe that the message that openSUSE is your community distribution has arrived.

Of course openSUSE continues to be open for your ideas, the distribution can be the vehicle to power up ideas from a little application to huge software projects. The openSUSE project is the powerful community behind which helps to make ideas reality. And all that based on the principles of free software! I am really happy today and very excited about what future will bring 🙂

I hope to see you on the release event here in Nürnberg soon 🙂

Kraft 0.32 Released

May 10th, 2009 by

Kraft 0.32 was released a few days ago. Kraft is KDE software for people who operate a small business and want to generate documents like invoices or offers for their customers. Kraft helps to do that in a very efficient way with template texts and a calculation module and of course integration in KDE. Very important is an excellent print out (that’s the face to the customer) which Kraft does via an PDF export of the document.

I say ‘small business’ as a target group and I mean small shops doing crafts like carpenters or plumbers or landscaping working alone or with a few people. I think free software and especially KDE is very good for these kind of companies. Larger companies usually go for specialised software, which is available for nearly all kind of crafts in all levels of usefulness and quality.

When I talk in the community about Kraft (I am of course not as good as Tackat in his best Marble-times) I sometimes feel that the coolness factor of this kind of software is not so big. People seem to think “How can one do this kind of boring, already-there software?”. Well, yes. This kind of software exists. But as free software and on KDE, well integrated into the desktop? Not that I am aware of.

Here are some good reasons to work on Kraft for me personally:

  1. I think it is important that this kind of software is available. Not only Kraft, but other stuff people need for their business, for example financial software like KMyMoney. Well integrated in KDE this can enable another huge group of users which now uses other systems.
  2. It is serious. Kraft is software people use to get their money. If somebody has done work and wants to invoice it she loves a well working software that saves time for her. But if it does not work, it becomes a serious issue quickly because only written and sent out invoices are good invoices from that POV.
  3. Especially because there is much competition from the commercial side, it is fun to try to create free software that is even better from for example the usability perspective. It is real challenging.
  4. I am somehow addicted 😉 This year I work for twenty years on this kind f software. If you like you can check out an underground video which shows software running on an Atari ST, used for daily business in my brothers landscaping company. I released that version in 1991, I still have an earlier release from 1990 which I could not get to run anymore. I started to develop it in 1989.

But back to the new Kraft-release: Beside other things I did some change to the tax system which make Kraft now useable internationally (shame  on me that the earlier versions where tied to german taxing too much).

So please, tomorrow first thing knock at the door of your handcrafter neighbor and ask him if he has thought about invoicing with Linux – Kraft  is with you, when you support him. Chances to get very interesting insights on how non-geeks see the computer world.