Date: Wed, 04 Aug 1999 23:43:39 +0200
From: Jacques Le Marois <lemarois@mandrakesoft.com>
To: lwn@lwn.net
Subject: Linux-Mandrake News...

MANDRAKESOFT TO SUPPORT KOFFICE PROJECT

MandrakeSoft, the company behind the popular Linux-Mandrake Linux
distribution will finance David Faure, core-developer at KDE to work for
the KOffice and KDE projects.

For Gaël Duval, co-founder of Mandrakesoft, "Mandrake owes a lot of its
success to KDE and Free Software movement. We are very happy to help back
and contribute to the enhancement of development.We invite all the
companies who profit from Open Source Software to support KOffice by
funding dedicated developers. The more good developers will be involved in
KOffice the faster it will be ready for the users."

According to David Faure "KOffice is an integrated office suite being
developed by the KDE Team and based on the KDE libraries. It currently
includes a enhanced wordprocessor with desktop publishing functionality , a
spreadsheet, a presentation application, a vector drawing program, a
diagram program, a formula editor and an image viewer. KOffice makes use of
the most advanced Object Model in the OSS world. Thanks to this, it is
possible to embed any KOffice component in a different KOffice
application. This is realized using the KOM/OpenParts object model. Of
course the KOffice is, as the whole KDE project, a free project which is
released under the GNU GPL.

David Faure has been a core developer for the KDE project for two years,
maintainer of the KDE file manager (kfm) and its rewrite, OpenParts-based
(konqueror). He has also participated in the development of the KDE
libraries, including KOM/OpenParts, as well as the development of KOffice
itself.

About KDE: 
KDE is a collaborative project by hundreds of developers
worldwide to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop
environment employing a network-transparent, intuitive user interface.  In
addition, many KDE users assisted in the preparation of new releases by
providing constructive feedback, suggestions and software patches.  KDE is
working proof of the power of the open source software development model.

About MandrakeSoft:
Founded in 1998, MandrakeSoft publishes the popular Linux Mandrake
operating system, which is compatible with the leading Red Hat Linux (tm)
distribution. Linux Mandrake 6.0 features the "Mandrake touch"
MandrakeSoft's signature graphical interfaces that give users selected
desktop icons including easy CD-Rom and floppy disk access and easy
Internet upgrades using the "Mandrake Update" icon. Linux Mandrake also
features Pentium optimization, scalable font support and KDE/Gnome
integration. MandrakeSoft is also the originator of several other
innovative Open Source cooperative projects that focus on ease of use,
including Lothar, an automatic hardware configuration, Linux4Windows, which
allows users to install and use Linux on top of a Windows partition, and
the DiskDrake hard-drive partitioning tool.

LinuxMall, the largest online reseller of Linux products, reports that
Linux Mandrake was its bestselling in July. LinuxWorld also
selected Linux Mandrake as a finalist in three categories: Product of
the Year, Distribution/Client and Distribution/Server.

        KOffice: http://koffice.kde.org
        KDE: http://www.kde.org
        Linux-Mandrake: http://www.linux-mandrake.com