GCompris is a software suite comprising

educational entertainment Educational entertainment (also referred to as edutainment) is media designed to educate through entertainment. The term was used as early as 1954 by Walt Disney. Most often it includes content intended to teach but has incidental entertainment ...

software for children aged 2 to 10. GCompris was originally written in C and

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

using the

GTK+ GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free and open-source cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and proprie ...

widget toolkit A widget toolkit, widget library, GUI toolkit, or UX library is a library or a collection of libraries containing a set of graphical control elements (called ''widgets'') used to construct the graphical user interface (GUI) of programs. Most widg ...

, but a rewrite in

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

and

QML QML (Qt Modeling Language) is a user interface markup language. It is a declarative language (similar to CSS and JSON) for designing user interface–centric applications. Inline JavaScript code handles imperative aspects. It is associated wi ...

using the Qt widget toolkit has been undertaken since early 2014. GCompris is

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

and the current version is subject to the requirements of the AGPL-3.0-only license. It has been part of the

GNU project The GNU Project () is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and computing devices by collaborati ...

. The name GCompris is a

pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...

, in the

French language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...

is pronounced the same as the phrase "I have understood", ''J'ai compris'' . It is available for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berk ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and Android. While binaries compiled for Microsoft Windows and macOS were initially distributed with a restricted number of activities and a small fee was required to unlock all the activities, since February 2020 the full version is entirely free for all platforms.

Extent

At the time of writing GCompris comprised more than 130 games, called "activities". These are bundled into the following groups: GCompris V15

* Computer discovery: keyboard, mouse, different mouse gestures * Numeracy: table memory, enumeration, double entry table, mirror images * Science: the canal lock, the water cycle, the submarine, electric simulations * 123Geography: place the country on the map * Games: chess, memory, connect 4, oware, sudoku * Reading: reading practice * Other: learn to tell time, puzzle of famous paintings, vector drawing, cartoon making

Development history

The first version of the game was made in 2000 by Bruno Coudoin, a French software engineer. Since the first release it was distributed freely on the Internet and was protected by the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

. The motivation behind the development was to provide native educational application for Linux. Since then, the software has seen continuous improvements, in terms of graphics and number of activities, thanks to the help of many developers and graphic artists joining the project over the years. There are two branches of GCompris; with released versions in each. The first, older of which is the GTK+ branch that contains 140 activities is now considered to be a legacy branch in maintenance mode, with no new development. The latest release of the GTK+ version is 15.10 of 18 October 2015. GCompris Administration

The newer branch of GCompris is completely rewritten using

Qt Quick Qt Quick is a free software application framework developed and maintained by the Qt Project within the Qt framework. It provides a way of building custom, highly dynamic graphical user interfaces with fluid transitions and effects, which are b ...

. The current version is developed using

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

, QML and C++ languages.

References

External links

* * Downloa
Windows, Linux and macOS
versions
Source code (Qt)

Source code (Legacy)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gcompris 2000 software Educational software for Linux Educational software for macOS Educational software for Windows Educational software that uses GTK Educational software that uses Qt Free and open-source Android software Free educational software Free learning support software GNOME Kids GNU Project software KDE Linux games Educational video games Open-source video games Software for children Software that uses QML Software that was ported from GTK to Qt