Maui using KDE Frameworks 5

In the past months cooperation has increased between Maui, KDE and LXDE developers, not only regarding libraries, but also key components such as SDDM (which has become the new standard for Qt based login managers) or Calamares, a new unified installer framework based on Qt.

In the meantime, KDE also released their long awaited effort named KDE Frameworks 5.
Frameworks 5 is a comprehensive set of technologies for the Qt ecosystem.

Its initial KDE libraries were modularized to be a set of “frameworks” instead of a single “blob”, making parts or the whole stack easily available for other desktop environments to make use of, therefore benefiting projects from the experience and dedication of the many KDE contributors over the years.

As a result of these latest developments, Maui has decided to start using KDE Frameworks as its underlying stack and become a member of the cooperative and open family that is KDE and Qt.

Along with the Qt open governance, developers of the whole ecosystem can now co-operate even more closely together and make better software.

Maui is now able to focus completely on the user experience of specifically building a lightweight and easy-to-use shell by empowering Frameworks and other great Qt technologies.

A lot of work has gone into that direction lately, advancing the Maui operating system.
We now have a repository based on Mer package sources and use the OBS infrastructure to enable collaboration and an easier workflow.
Mer is also part of the ecosystem built around Qt. Bearing that in mind and considering the outstanding work done by its developers, Mer is the right candidate for us.

To give users a first impression of these efforts, we decided to release an early alpha version (0.5.1) as installable ISO for 32-bit and 64-bit PCs.