KDE 4.8 approaches with final release candidate

The KDE project has published the second and final release candidate for version 4.8 of the KDE Software Compilation (KDE SC). As expected at this stage, no new features have been added and the developers have focused on "further polishing", as well as finding and fixing any last minute bugs.

KDE 4.8 is the project's next major update and includes support for Qt Quick in Plasma Workspaces and a re-written file view in the Dolphin file manager. Other changes include optional support for a shared password storage in KSecretService, and various performance and stability improvements. According to the 4.8 Release Schedule, the final version is expected to arrive on 25 January.

More details about the second RC can be found in the release announcement and on the KDE SC 4.7.97 Info Page. Source code for self-compilation and binary packages for various Linux distributions are available to download from the project's site. Users testing the release are encouraged to provide feedback and report any bugs that they find.

KDE is licensed under a combination of the LGPLv2, BSD, MIT and X11 licences for core libraries and the GPLv2 or GPLv3 for applications. The current stable release is KDE SC 4.7.4 from early December.

See also:

• KDE celebrates 15th birthday, a report from The H.

(crve)