KDE 4.1 Beta1 Release Announcement

> As a final note, after so many years it is becoming tiring to deal with
> these type of issues. I know that OSS development does not have the 
> engineering resources of Apple or MS, however the engineering resources of 
> OSS development are not being used very effectively (why have three or 
> more efforts for a desktop, if we include XFCE ?). It seems to be a case 
> of too many cooks in the kitchen, many of which are convinced that their 
> way is the "one true way".

I disagree.  One of the key values of open source is that people can work on whatever they
want/feel like/are passionate about.  This includes allowing different opinions about how to
go about things, and different projects to implement them.  If everyone were just working on
the same thing, it would no doubt turn away people with good ideas (intentional or not).

Another benefit is the programming equivalent of evolution.  As the parent mentions, (s)he
stopped using KDE and tried Gnome for a while.  This simply wouldn't be possible if there were
one all-powerful project.  You'd be forced to live with whatever mediocre project was The
Chosen One, and wouldn't have the ability to decide that you don't like it, because there's
nowhere else to go.

There really isn't the option of "everyone should do it exactly how I like it and stop wasting
their time on other things".  It's more like "everyone does it how they feel like doing it,
and you hope that somebody has the same tastes as you, or at least similar enough that you can
modify it to your liking".

"Interesting that this release has been called "Beta 1". Perhaps this is an acknowledgement of
sorts that KDE 4.0 was a public alpha release. I thank all the developers, and at the same
time I wish they would be more considerate next time they make a release that's allegedly for
public consumption."

It's called beta 1 because this is the first beta release of KDE 4.1. Nothing strange about
that at all. There was a beta 1 of KDE 4.0 too. The 4.0 release have been discussed a lot all
over the net. I believe the biggest complains was the lack of polish and features of Plasma.
The KDE developers warned about this quite a bit and for a long time. Maybe they should have
called it "KDE 4.0 - developers release". I do agree that KDE 4.0 wasn't really ready for
"normal users", but it has been said often that most users probably should wait for KDE 4.1 or
maybe even KDE 4.2 before switching from KDE 3.5.x. 

"I've been a KDE user since the beginning, however the snafu caused by the 4.0 release (as
present in Fedora 9) highly incetivised me to give Gnome a go."

Fedora is generally well known to live on the bleeding edge. If you prefer a more stable
environment, you might want to use a more conservative distro.

"However the main problem is that if I were to write any software specifically for KDE, it
would have to follow the licensing of Qt. Even though the FSF recommends that the GPL be used
for libraries, I find this to be too restrictive of my freedoms. (side-note question: is there
an LGPL licensed GUI toolkit that will respect user-preferences set in either KDE or Gnome?)"

Where exactly have you gotten that information? Most of the KDE libs are LGPL not GPL licensed
and there are lots of exceptions to the QT GPL license, a quick google search provided me with
this list: http://doc.trolltech.com/main-snapshot/license-gpl-except... 

Golden rule of the internet: The persistence of a piece of information is entirely based on
how wrong it is. If the information is seriously wrong or outdated, it simply can't be killed.

Someone more fluent in english should reformat that into a rule that's actually understandable
:p

"As a final note, after so many years it is becoming tiring to deal with these type of issues.
I know that OSS development does not have the engineering resources of Apple or MS, however
the engineering resources of OSS development are not being used very effectively (why have
three or more efforts for a desktop, if we include XFCE ?). It seems to be a case of too many
cooks in the kitchen, many of which are convinced that their way is the "one true way"." 

It's not a matter of too many cooks in the kitchen. That's completely flawed. It's not one
kitchen - there are thousands of kitchens, each with x number of cooks and unlike a real
kitchen, it mostly works pretty well in the open source world with lots of cooks in the
kitchen.

mtall said: 'All in all, a "better" desktop environment would be comprised of a cleaned up
KDE'

I'd regard that as a worse desktop environment.

It's down to personal taste, I suppose.  I left Windows for Debian/Ubuntu, and Gnome was a
major factor in that.

After many many years in Windows - from version 2.11 onwards - I'd become sick and tired of an
interface that was getting more and more cluttered.

Microsoft were throwing sticking-plasters at it - things like the Most Recently Used programs
list on the Windows XP Start Menu - but they were just that, sticking plasters.  They didn't
reliably solve the problems, they just covered it up 90% of the time.

KDE didn't make the grade for me because it felt just enough like Windows that it was
comfortable and intuitive, right up until it was different and frustrating.  Its similarity is
its downfall for me.
Gnome, by contrast, was just what I wanted - a simpler interface which was easy to use yet
retained 90% of the power I needed.

Clean up KDE all you like, but I suspect if you removed its clutter it would lose lots of its
fans.  I'm not going to use KDE until it's as clean and simple as Gnome, and that's just not
going to happen.

Of course, this is all just a matter of personal preference.  I wanted to go back to the idea
of a simple clean GUI, with the "10,000 options and ultimate flexibility" being left for a
command line.  Gnome gives me that.  KDE users typically want those options and that
flexibility in their GUI, which I find makes the GUI harder to use and - crucially - less
pleasing to use.

It's good that we have both options.  Especially now that KDE programs can run under Gnome and
vice-versa without any major hassles.  I see no need for the two to mimic each other or to
converge, and would rather that they didn't.