Open Source Accounting

An entry over at linux magazine discusses some of the financial side of the Gnome and KDE open source projects and how both organizations might be spending their money.  It, for myself, is interesting to think about because not very often is the financial side of big open source projects considered.  I say big open source projects because the smaller projects generally don't have a financial side to them.  In fact, many large open source projects do not have a financial backing.  Does this mean they are of lower quality than the projects who put money where their mouth is?  I think not.  They are just different.  Besides, for most end users of most open source projects, the financial situation of the project is of little to no importance.  The software is free.

Another notable aspect of Gnome and KDE specifying where their money comes from is that most people don't care who the big corporate sponsors of the project are.  And, even the ones who do care, the acquisition of such insight is unlikely to influence them positively toward the project.  Big open source projects should advertise the fact that the smaller contributions of users are what matter.  They are more influential toward other users making a similar small donation.  I think both Gnome and KDE do a good job of this.

Update crashes Umbrello on Ubuntu

Just the other day, I updated several KDE packages and the Umbrello package on my Ubuntu system. Now I find that Umbrello is extremely flaky if it even agrees to start at all. Not sure what went wrong here. If you haven't already, I wouldn't recommend the latest KDE and Umbrello updates on Ubuntu.

Umbrello on Ubuntu 8.10

Shortly after updating my Ubuntu system to 8.10, I got an update for Umbrello, the UML diagramming tool. So far, I'm very impressed. The application is essentially the same but it actually works with KDE 4. Here is a screen shot.



So, I suppose I'm not excited about Umbrello itself. Just the fact that it works with KDE 4. I never thought I'd say it but KDE 4 has impressed me thus far.