KDE SOC projects published

The list of the Google Summer of Code projects for KDE was published. The list has several interesting entries to make the life for KDE users much easier.

The results for this year’s Google Summer of Code are out, and several KDE ideas were picked up.

Going through the list I found some items which immediately rouse my interest:

• Media Device Support in Amarok 2 with Collections – This will bring support for collections/playlists to different media devices.
• Amarok and UPnP – UPnP is used in today’s media streamers, and native support for it in Amarok would help integrating such media servers with KDE.
• Notes and Presenter View Support for KPresenter – All big proprietary solutions have such a presentation view and even OOo works at it. So developing one for KPResenter is just sensible to do.
• Easy monitor hot-plug support in KDE – The presentation view requires a second video output device, but to setup such is not easy on KDE – yet.
• Integrate Decibel into the KDE 4 environment – Decibel is so far in a basic shape, but not integrated with KDE atm: think of Plasma applets, KRunner support and similar “glue” to make communication on KDE possible everywhere.
• Jingle video and voice chat in Kopete. – I had great hopes for jingle, and for certain reasons I still think that it is essential to support it everywhere in the FLOSS world.
• KMail enhancements and porting to native Qt4 – KMail is one of the most important apps on the KDE desktop for many users. Therefore having a fully ported, well polished version of KMail is essential for a good user experience on KDE.
• Integration of the QtWebKit based KPart – It is helpful to switch between two engines without a big hassle to compare these or to use one engine when the other doesn’t work.
• Integration of WebKit SVG library with KHTML – Sharing code between KHTML and WebKit does make sense when it is productive and helps both. And that’s the aim of this project.
• StepGame: educational game based on Step – The Incredible Machine as a native KDE game would be awesome!

Of course this is just a small list of the accepted applications – and an accepted application doesn’t necessarily mean that the project will be a success. Additionally, this year the process around the applications and slots wasn’t perfect, but maybe the KDE e.V. can step up there to make the rejected projects possible nevertheless?
An idea would be to collect money through the KDE e.V. to sponsor other applicants, given that KDE finds their applications worth a try. I would be willing to donate some money for a stand-alone, KDE integrated browser based on WebKit, for general video input device support in Phonon or for a full featured Sonnet.