Social Desktop
Encyclopedia
Desktop environment
In graphical computing, a desktop environment commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface derived from the desktop metaphor that is seen on most modern personal computers. These GUIs help the user in easily accessing, configuring, and modifying many important and frequently accessed...
s such as KDE
KDE
KDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...
and GNOME
GNOME
GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
and how they could directly be accessed by desktop applications such as a Plasmoids
Plasma (KDE)
Plasma Workspaces is the umbrella term for all graphical environments provided by KDE.Three Plasma sub-projects are currently being developed: Plasma Desktop for traditional desktop PCs and notebooks, Plasma Netbook for netbooks, and Plasma Active for Tablet PCs, Nokia N900 style smartphones and...
.
A core idea of the Social Desktop is to connect and to improve the communication in the free software community
Free software community
The free-software community is an informal term that refers to the users and developers of free software as well as supporters of the free-software movement. The movement is sometimes referred to as the open-source software community or a subset thereof...
between the user. Its main pillars are user generated content such as applications, artwork, an event database and a common knowledge base. Integrating this kind of information and data to the desktop and to be accessible for everyone is the main goal of the initiators.
The idea was presented for the first time on Akademy
AKademy
Akademy is an annual contributors and users conference of the KDE community. Akademy is held at varying venues in Europe....
2008 by Frank Karlitschek
Frank Karlitschek
Frank Karlitschek is a German open source software developer. He was born in Reutlingen but lives in Stuttgart, Germany.- Free software :...
.
Backend
Backend of the Social Desktop is Open Collaboration Services APIOpen Collaboration Services
The Open Collaboration Services is an open and vendor independent modern REST based API for integration of web communities and web based services into desktop and mobile applications. It allows to exchange relevant data from a Social Network between the site and clients such as other websites and...
. As it is a freedesktop.org
Freedesktop.org
freedesktop.org is a project to work on interoperability and shared base technology for free software desktop environments for the X Window System on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. It was founded by Havoc Pennington from Red Hat in March 2000.The organisation focuses on the user....
standard it allows to have several different and independent backend provider for the Social Desktop.
People and Groups
Finding new people with the same passion, connecting with and meeting them, sharing of interesting topics and knowledge in groups is possible.Activities
Informs users about their friends' activities, e.g. a friend posted a new blog entry or a friend of mine is looking for a new job.Events
An event database which informs people about open source conferences or Linux User GroupLinux User Group
A Linux User Group or Linux Users' Group or GNU/Linux User Group is a private, generally non-profit or not-for-profit organization that provides support and/or education for Linux users, particularly for inexperienced users...
meetings nearby them is also part of the Social Desktop. Every user is allowed to create and to enregister new events, to take part in them and to comment the event.
Knowledge Base
Questions concerning applications can be posted and their responds are viewable for everyone. Tips and tricks and short guidances from project owners or users can be posted.Implementation
Many of these features are already visible and usable via the site openDesktop.orgOpenDesktop.org
The website openDesktop.org is a social networking site with main focus on the open source community. It centers on sharing of user generated contents such as applications and artwork with social components. openDesktop.org is one of the biggest online communities, social networks and portals for...
. Ubuntu 10.04, released in April 2010, included the social desktop application Gwibber
Gwibber
Gwibber is a microblogging client for the GNOME desktop environment. It was created by Ryan Paul, a writer for Ars Technica. Gwibber is distributed under the GNU GPL license.It supports Linux and is written in Python using the PyGTK library...
, already supporting Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
, Identi.ca
Identi.ca
identi.ca is an open source social networking and micro-blogging service. Based on StatusNet, a micro-blogging software package built on the OpenMicroBlogging specification, Identi.ca allows users to send text updates up to 140 characters long...
and other microblogging
Microblogging
Microblogging is a broadcast medium in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size...
services. An early realisation of the social desktop concept was already implemented as a plasmoid (a desktop widget) for the KDE desktop. The release of KDE 4.3 in July 2009 already has a so called Social Desktop Plasmoid integrated. Furthermore the official KDE community forum is also working on integrating the Open Collaboration Services API
Open Collaboration Services
The Open Collaboration Services is an open and vendor independent modern REST based API for integration of web communities and web based services into desktop and mobile applications. It allows to exchange relevant data from a Social Network between the site and clients such as other websites and...
into the platform.
External links
- http://www.open-collaboration-services.org/socialdesktop.pdfFirst presentation during AkademyAKademyAkademy is an annual contributors and users conference of the KDE community. Akademy is held at varying venues in Europe....
2008 from Frank KarlitschekFrank KarlitschekFrank Karlitschek is a German open source software developer. He was born in Reutlingen but lives in Stuttgart, Germany.- Free software :...
] - OCS API spezifications on freedesktop.org
- Background story and evolution of the Social Desktop
- openDesktop.org, first OCS provider