The Official KDE 4 Roadmap

While the third KDE 4 development snapshot was released approximately 3 weeks ago, which was intended as a reference for developers who want to play with parts of the new technology that KDE 4 will provide, the KDE developers announced this weekend the roadmap to the KDE 4.0 release, which starts from April 1st and ends in 23 October 2007 with the release of KDE 4.0.

The KDE 4.0 schedule:

1 April 2007 - Subsystem freeze
15 Apr 2007 - kdelibs Hackathon week
1 May 2007 - Alpha release + kdelibs soft API freeze
8 May 2007 - Usability and Accessibility review
1 June 2007 - Feature freeze
25 June 2007 until 24 September 2007 - Beta cycle, full kdelibs API freeze
25 September 2007 until 22 October 2007 - Release Candidate cycle
23 October 2007 - KDE 4.0 released

Now, for the end user, the 23 October date is the most important, which is based on an estimated 3 Beta's and 2 Release Candidates.

They have also set up a future plan page intended to indicate if features are completed, in progress or only as a notion project, and a module status page which lists the overall status of the different KDE main modules.

About KDE

KDE is a powerful Free Software graphical desktop environment for Linux and Unix workstations. It combines ease of use, contemporary functionality and outstanding graphical design with the technological superiority of the Unix operating system. KDE is a network transparent contemporary desktop environment for UNIX workstations. KDE seeks to fill the need for an easy to use desktop for Unix workstations, similar to the desktop environments found under the Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows.

You can download KDE now from Softpedia.