KDE 4 is finally out, as you probably already know, and it comes with a lot of innovations for the Linux desktop. KDE 4 is the next generation of the popular K Desktop Environment, which seeks to fulfill the need for a powerful yet easy-to-use desktop, for both personal and enterprise computing. KDE project's goal for the 4.0 release is to put the foundations in place for future innovations on the FREE desktop. But today, we will talk about the future versions of KDE 4 and what features they'll bring. Let's have a look first at the main goals for KDE 4.1, which will be released somewhere in July:

￭ Windows port (Frameworks and Applications)
￭ Mac port (Frameworks and Applications)
￭ OpenSolaris port
￭ Plasma with widgets on canvas, makes things like layouting much easier, and generally integrating widgets into Plasmoids
￭ Webkit in Plasma
￭ GStreamer, Quicktime, DirectShow9 Phonon backends
￭ Apple dashboard widgets support in Plasma
￭ Decibel VOIP and real-time communication framework
￭ Done! Dragon Player multimedia player
￭ Done! Lokalize (formerly Kaider) computer-aided translation system
￭ More polished Kopete
￭ KDevelop and KDevplatform modules
￭ KDE-PIM module, with some Akonadi functionality
￭ KBlogger for KDE-PIM
￭ Move Akonadi library into the kdepimlibs module
￭ GetHotNewStuff2 / DXS
￭ Plasmagik plasma packages and add-on creator
￭ Lots of smaller features

Now, let's take a look at the release schedule for future KDE 4 versions:

￭ January - KDE 4.0.1
￭ February - KDE 4.0.2
￭ March - KDE 4.0.3
￭ April - KDE 4.0.4
￭ May - KDE 4.0.5
￭ June - KDE 4.0.6
￭ July - KDE 4.1.0
￭ August - KDE 4.1.1

...and a closer one to the KDE 4.1 release schedule:

￭ March 31st, 2008: Soft Feature Freeze
￭ April 22nd, 2008: Hard Feature Freeze
￭ April 22nd, 2008: Tag KDE 4.1 Alpha 1
￭ April 29th, 2008: Release KDE 4.1 Alpha 1
￭ May 20th, 2008: Message Freeze.
￭ May 20th, 2008: Tag KDE 4.1 Beta 1
￭ May 27th, 2008: Release KDE 4.1 Beta 1
￭ June 17th, 2008: Tag KDE 4.1 Beta 2
￭ June 24th, 2008: Release KDE 4.1 Beta 2
￭ July 8th, 2008: Artwork Freeze
￭ July 8th, 2008: Tag KDE 4.1 RC 1
￭ July 15th, 2008: Release KDE 4.1 RC 1
￭ July 22nd, 2008: Tag KDE 4.1.0
￭ July 29th, 2008: Release KDE 4.1

If you want to install KDE 4.0 on your Ubuntu PC and don't know how to do it, we wrote for you a step-by-step tutorial about this. Get it here!

Download the Kubuntu 7.10 KDE 4.0 right now from Softpedia.

Download the openSUSE-based KDE 4.0 Live CD right now from Softpedia.

Download KDE 4.0 sources right now from Softpedia.