KDE Software Compilation 4
KDE Software Compilation 4 (KDE SC 4) was the only series of the so-called KDE Software Compilation (short: KDE SC), first released in January 2008 and the last release being 4.14.3 released in November 2014. It was the follow-up to K Desktop Environment 3. Following KDE SC 4, the compilation was broken up into basic framework libraries, desktop environment and applications, which are termed KDE Frameworks 5, KDE Plasma 5 and KDE Applications, respectively.
KDE Plasma Desktop 4.10 | |
| Developer(s) | KDE |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 11 January 2008 |
| Final release | 4.14.38 (November 7, 2017) [±] |
| Written in | C++ (Qt 4) |
| Operating system | Whole desktop: Unix-like with X11 and also Windows XP–7. Applications only: Mac OS X v10.4–10.6 |
| Available in | Multilingual |
| Type | Desktop environment |
| License | GPL, LGPL, BSD license, MIT license and X11 license |
| Website | kde |
Major releases (4.x) were released every six months, while minor bugfix releases (4.x.y) were released monthly.
The series included updates to several of the KDE Platform's core components, notably a port to Qt 4. It contained a new multimedia API, called Phonon, a device integration framework called Solid and a new style guide and default icon set called Oxygen. It also included a new, unified desktop and panel user interface called Plasma, which supported desktop widgets, replacing K Desktop Environment 3's separate components.
One of the overall goals of KDE Platform 4 was to make it easy for KDE applications to be portable to different operating systems. This was made possible by the port to Qt 4, which facilitated support for non-X11-based platforms, including Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions 4.0 to 4.3 of KDE Software Compilation were known simply as KDE 4 – the name change was a component of the KDE project's re-branding to reflect KDE's increased scope.