KDE and Wikimedia Start Collaboration

April 4, 2008 (The INTERNET). KDE e.V and Wikimedia Deutschland have opened a shared office in Frankfurt, Germany. As two organizations that share similar goals and organizational challenges, they hope that working out of the same space will strengthen and expand their links to the Free Culture community, as well as allowing them to share resources, experience and infrastructure.

"We believe that the combination of Free Software and Free Content is not only beneficial," remarked Sebastian Kügler, a KDE e.V. board member, "but the next logical step towards a mature, organized Free Culture community." Kügler explains the idea behind opening the shared office: "Being able to tap into the expertise of an organization in a different field, but with very similar goals and principles, provides us with an opportunity to grow and gain experience that I hope to see more often, both within our projects and those of our peers."

Kügler added that the shared office space is not the only organizational improvement under way for the KDE e.V. The founding of the office in Frankfurt coincides with the hiring of an administrative assistant, the e.V.'s first employee. "This will help the KDE e.V. become more efficient in our work of supporting the KDE community. With eight developer meetings and presence at many events already planned for 2008, a dedicated administrative assistant enables an even faster growth of the K Desktop Environment."

Wikimedia Deutschland (the German Wikimedia chapter), which established its office originally in October 2006, is also happy to be able to expand its activities together with KDE. "Back then, we were the first national section of the Wikimedia Foundation to open its own office. Before that, we were a purely voluntary-driven organization. Opening an office was new and unchartered territory for us", says Arne Klempert, Wikimedia Deutschland's executive secretary. "We're now glad to share the experiences we've made during that first period with KDE e.V. That said, due to the collaboration with KDE it is also much easier for us to extend our office and activities. Both organizations can share a lot of resources this way, resources that both would have had to carry individually if we weren't collaborating."

About KDE

KDE is an international technology team that creates free and open source software for desktop and portable computing. Among KDE's products are a modern desktop system for Linux and UNIX platforms, comprehensive office productivity and groupware suites and hundreds of software titles in many categories including Internet and web applications, multimedia, entertainment, educational, graphics and software development. KDE software is translated into more than 60 languages and is built with ease of use and modern accessibility principles in mind. KDE4's full-featured applications run natively on Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows and Mac OS X. KDE e.V. is the organization that supports the growth of the KDE community. Its mission statement -- to promote and distribute Free Desktop software -- is provided through legal, financial and organizational support for the KDE community. KDE e.V. organises the yearly KDE World Summit "Akademy", along with numerous smaller-scale development meetings.

About Wikimedia Deutschland

Since its establishment in 2004 the nonprofit foundation Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. supports the propagation of Free knowledge. The German section of the Wikimedia Foundation focuses on the various international Wikimedia projects, especially the free encyclopedia Wikipedia. The independant foundation is a not-for-profit organization under German law. Its work is financed nearly exclusively through donations. The foundation supports the expansion and operation of a technical infrastructure to enhance accessibility to Wikipedia and its sister projects. Wikimedia Deutschland also supports initiatives for improving the quality of the content of the German Wikipedia. The foundation organises events that foster this goal, for example the yearly "Wikipedia Academy" that encourages the dialog between researchers and Wikipedia authors.

Press Contacts

Africa

Uwe Thiem P.O.Box 30955 Windhoek Namibia Phone: +264 - 61 - 24 92 49 info-africa@kde.org

Asia

Pradeepto Bhattacharya A-4 Sonal Coop. Hsg. Society Plot-4, Sector-3, New Panvel, Maharashtra. India 410206 Phone : +91-9821033168 info-asia@kde.org

Europe

Sebastian Kügler Wolfstraat 154 6531 LR Nijmegen The Netherlands Phone: +31-6-48370928 info-europe@kde.org

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