Hands-on: KDE 4.3 delivers a Social Desktop

“KDE 4.3 is the first version of the desktop environment to
include integration with the KDE community’s Social Desktop
initiative. This project was largely conceived by Frank
Karlitschek, the developer behind the openDesktop.org
network–including the popular theming community sites KDE-Look.org
and GNOME-Look.org.

“Karlitschek has created an API that allows desktop software to
interact with his Web sites, making it possible for applications to
dip into the community-oriented social networking features and
content that he hosts. The openDesktop.org services include friend
and identity systems, a microblogging component, private messaging,
desktop theme hosting and search, event tracking, and several other
features.

“He hopes that his Web APIs will gain cross-desktop acceptance
and serve as a generic, vendor-neutral standard that can be
implemented by third-party Web services. He has documented the API,
which he calls the Open Collaboration Services (OCS) specification,
at the FreeDesktop.org wiki and is actively looking for feedback
from application developers. The OCS APIs can be used today to
interact with his Web sites, but there are no third-party server
implementations yet.”

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