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<chapter id="introduction">
<title>Introduction</title>

<qandaset>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>What is &kde;?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>&kde; is the K Desktop Environment.  It is a project initiated
by <ulink url="mailto:ettrich@kde.org">Matthias Ettrich</ulink> in
1996.  The aim of the &kde; project is to connect the
power of the &UNIX; operating systems with the comfort of a modern user
interface.</para>
<para>In short, &kde; will bring &UNIX; to the desktop!</para>
<para>If you want further information about &kde;, have a look at
<ulink url="http://www.kde.org/whatiskde/index.html">What is
&kde;?</ulink></para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>

<qandaentry>
<question id="platform">
<para>On which platforms can I expect &kde; to work?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>&kde; is a Desktop Environment for all flavors of &UNIX;.  While
it is true that most &kde; developers use &Linux;, &kde; runs smoothly
on a wide range of systems.  You may, however, need to tweak the
source code a bit to get &kde; to compile on a not-so-popular variant
of &UNIX;, or if you are not using the &GNU; development tools, in
particular the &gcc; compiler.</para>
<para>For an almost complete list of systems &kde; is running on, please refer to 
<ulink url="http://promo.kde.org/kde_systems.php">this list of systems for KDE</ulink>
</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>

<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>Is &kde; a window manager?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>No, &kde; is not a window manager.  While &kde; includes a very
sophisticated window manager (&kwin;), &kde; is much more than that.
It is a full-blown Integrated Desktop Environment.</para>
<para>&kde; provides a complete desktop environment, including a web
browser, a file manager, a window manager, a help system, a
configuration system, uncountable tools and utilities, and an ever
increasing number of applications, including but not limited to mail
and news clients, drawing programs, a &PostScript; and a &DVI; viewer
and so forth.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>

<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>Is &kde; a <acronym>CDE</acronym>, &Windows; 95 or &Mac;
<acronym>OS</acronym> clone?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>No, &kde; is not a clone. Specifically &kde; is not a
<acronym>CDE</acronym> or &Windows;  clone. While the &kde; developers
have and will continue to glean the best features from all existing
desktop environments, &kde; is a truly unique environment that has and
will continue to go its own way.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>

<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>Is &kde; free software?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>Yes, &kde; is free software according to the &GNU; General
Public License.  All &kde; libraries are available under the
<acronym>LGPL</acronym> making commercial software development for the
&kde; desktop possible, but all &kde; applications are licensed under
the <acronym>GPL</acronym>.</para>
<para>&kde; uses the <link linkend="qt">&Qt; C++ crossplatform
toolkit</link>, which is also released (since version 2.2) under the
<acronym>GPL</acronym>.</para>
<para>It is absolutely legal to make &kde; and &Qt; available on
&CD-ROM; free of charge.  No runtime fees of any kind are
incurred.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
</qandaset>
</chapter>

