The KDE organization has now announced its final schedule for the launch of KDE 4. KDE 4 will introduce a number of improvements over KDE 3, among others a faster desktop through the use of Qt 4.0, Solid, Phonon and Decibel. A simpler and more convenient language management through Sonnet and an overall better usability. KDE 4 is looking more and more like a real alternative to the more commercial solutions and there’s no other conclusion than that KDE is closing in on a real milestone, not just in its own development, but also in a bigger perspective.
The first alpha version is planned to arrive in April and this means that all APIs are more or less frozen, but there is still the possibility of changes if it’s absolutely necessary. On June first the features of KDE 4 will be frozen and later the same month Beta 1 will be released. At the end of September everything will be frozen and the first Release Candidate will be released. One month later the final product is set to arrive.
