You read that right. Not alpha, not beta, not release candidate, but a stable 1.0 release of the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries. Ten years in the making, the EFLs released their first stable revision this weekend. This is the first step towards a "stable" release of the Enlightenment DR17 desktop.
I would also just like to clarify one thing. The Enlightenment Foundation Libraries and the Enlightenment desktop are two different things. The easiest way to think about this is that the EFLs are to the Enlightenment desktop, as GTK is the Gnome and QT is to KDE. They are the binaries that the graphical user interface is (typically) written in. They are the toolkit for writing applications, they are not the desktop environment itself.
As I've mentioned before, Enlightenment development is very rapid of the late and this stable release is not slowing anything down. Looking towards the future, work has already begun on what will become the 1.1 release of the EFLs (starting with the pile of patches that had built up during the code freeze before the 1.0 stable). If you are a coder looking to get involved with a project (or someone wanting to keep up with Enlightenment news) the E mailing lists are the best way to do so.
~Jeff Hoogland
Hi Jeff, sometimes it may just be a coincidence that the bodhi linux stable release (which is going to happen) and the stable release of EFL is happening almost together.... i am sure this will definitely accelerate the development of more distros including your Arch based e17 linux ... wish EFL and bodhi linux all the best..
ReplyDeleteSorry for the silly question. What is the reason for several graphical toolkits to exist? There are probably a lot of good in diversity. I suppose there are reasons like heavy weight, light weight, programming languages. etc. However. are there a little bit too much of graphical toolkits? Could Enlightment team join and enforce an existing one rather than pursuing in solo its own toolkit with limited resources?
ReplyDeleteWhat is the reason for several different operating systems to exist?
ReplyDeleteYou already listed the reason for EFL - light weight and good looking. They have been designed from the ground up to be quick. The toolkits such as GTK and QT have become bloated over time due to their constantly trying to provide backward compatibility to code that really just needs to be updated.
Those behind EFL as dedicated to speed and forward thinking :)