[ Thanks to James Maguire for this link. ]
“These are a few of the entries in KDE’s recent social desktop contest.
“They are also some of the first examples of what Aaron Seigo of the KDE project calls “freedom services” — applications that bring cloud computing directly to your computer and seamlessly integrate the desktop and online services.
“The social desktop was first proposed at Akademy, the yearly gathering of KDE developers, in 2008. In his presentation, Frank Karliltschek, the founder of openDesktop.org, a meta-portal for new applications that includes social networking features, advocated adding social networking features to the desktop.
“So far, the implementation of the social desktop in KDE is limited to a widget that lets users of openDesktop.org interact with friends and others users nearby. But behind the scenes, KDE developers have been developing a set of open specifications that can be used for writing other social desktop applications.”