Work is underway to provide a means whereby developers can create a single application that works on the KDE and Gnome Linux desktop environments. Backed by the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) and Freedesktop.org, the Portland project will make it possible for code to be written once, and then used on either a KDE or Gnome environment. OSDL hopes that the move will lead to an increase in the appeal of Linux as a desktop operating system.
A preview of Portland was unveiled at the LinuxWorld conference in Boston on Tuesday. A first beta is scheduled for May 2006 and version 1.0 is slated for June.