Looks awesome. Congrats and thanks to everyone working on this.

Couldn't agree more about KDE Plasma desktop. I've used most desktops there are and switched to KDE Plasma about a year ago (I used GNOME2 until then, don't like GNOME3 and Unity at all) and boy, KDE Plasma is by far the best desktop I have ever used. Looks great, has awesome usability (once you get used to it) and it is very flexible so you can adapt it almost perfectly to the way you work. Realy awesome.

I switched back to GNU/Linux about 3 years ago when I started noticing and becoming aware of this ugly trend with Apple. I just couldn't live with myself anymore if I didn't also act according to my belief in digital freedom and empowering people. so after some self-questioning I have decided to switch to GNU/Linux and free software.

So you're willfully less productive because you want to have a cleaner conscience?

Actually I'm more productive and happier with desktop (KDE Plasma) and most of the software now: But freedom and rights are far more important to me than little differences in productivity.

Yes. For some people this is not a choice, as such. It’s like wearing slightly uglier, slightly less comfortable clothes because they weren’t made by child slave labor. Is there a true choice what to wear?

Yes, you could wear the clothes that fed that child that day.

Stuff isn't so black/white, I guess I'm trying to say.

If I’m understanding you correctly, you are implying that it’s OK to buy things produced by child slave labor, because otherwise the slave children would starve.

This is… an argument I won’t get into. Suffice it to say, I was merely trying to construct an analogy to demonstrate why, sometimes, using something less than the “best” product is preferable, and why, for some people, it can’t be considered a choice to use the less efficient product.

Yes, and I'm trying to dismantle that analogy by demonstrating that such decisions are made without consideration of the consequences, and that nothing in this world is so simple that simply using or not using a product makes the planet a better or worse place.

Where did he say anything about being less productive?

If you eliminate some number of products from your universe, random chance alone dictate that some of them must be the best at what they do, and you will be left with, for that program’s purpose, a product which makes you less productive.

Actually only the release candidate of GNU GCC 4.8 is released. The final release is expected in about a week or so: http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2013-03/msg00127.html

What’s New in GNU Emacs 24.3: http://www.masteringemacs.org/articles/2013/03/11/whats-new-...

Actualy Simon project has recently moved to KDE infrastructure: http://dot.kde.org/2012/04/08/simon-speech-recognition-proje... and the code is here: https://projects.kde.org/projects/extragear/accessibility/si...

Yeah, that's a sad example of what vendor lock-in closed file formats cause and what bad migration planing does. I guess IT people in Freiburg could learn a lot from their fwllows in Munich.

Yeah that's how I get almost all the software for my GNU/Linux boxen, all from repositories. And if I'm hacking on something just pull it out from Git or BZR or SVN or similar. Many projects also left SF since they started with changes that made it a bit of pain to use.

If you follow the link to Contour wiki you will find Screenshots and Videos page → http://community.kde.org/Plasma/Active/Contour/Screenshots

Currently my main OS is Gentoo Linux, I also have Mandriva Linux and openSUSE Linux on desktops. On laptop I also have PC-BSD. All of them with KDE Plasma desktop of course :) I also used to have OpenSolaris but I'm waiting now what will happen with the projects that came after Oracle made Solaris un-free again.