Enlightenment, DR17 and EFLs

If you have been by my blog here before then odds are you know I am a large fan of the Enlightenment desktop. If you have have never used Enlightenment before it is:

"not just a window manager for Linux/X11 and others, but also a whole suite of libraries to help you create beautiful user interfaces with much less work than doing it the old fashioned way and fighting with traditional toolkits, not to mention a traditional window manager."

Terminology is something that is important to get correct when working with technology. When reading about the Enlightenment desktop I've found that many people often confuse the difference between Enlightenment, DR17 and EFLs. So - what is the difference between the three?

Enlightenment - This is the original name of the project. Today when it is referenced it should refer to the project as a whole - not just one particular part.

DR17 - Also often called E17. This refers to the next major revision of the Enlightenment desktop/window manager. It is under heavy development (and has been for some time). The current stable revision of the desktop is DR16.

EFLs - Stands for "Enlightenment Foundation Libraries". These are the core of the Enlightenment desktop, but not the desktop itself. In simplest terms the EFLs are to the Enlightenment desktop as GTK is to Gnome and QT is to KDE.

Hopefully I have shed some light onto some Enlightening terminology for everyone :)

~Jeff Hoogland