What's in a name?

Wow, people certainly get emotional about stuff like this. I'm not a KDE user, I've tried it
very briefly on and off over the years but to me it tries to do too much, my ideal desktop
contains one big fat icon which starts a terminal.

Obviously the developers have put a lot of work into this, and it sounds like they are playing
around with some new concepts, some that people will probably either love or hate, only time
will tell.

The problem here is quite simply releasing alpha software with a new major number. I do
understand one of the arguments for doing this, get it out there for testing. The trouble is
that people do have expectations for new major versions of software. It's no good saying that
KDE 4.0 is not KDE 4, that an unreleased KDE 4.5 is somehow KDE 4 therefore don't complain
about KDE 4 being buggy. You are dealing with the media and users, they have expectations of
software releases. It also doesn't work trying to justify KDE 4 by comparing it's release
cycle to that of KDE 3 or KDE 2. Your users have a subconscious experience of the release
cycles of many different software packages, KDE does not fit their model. This doesn't mean
your model is "wrong", but if something doesn't fit into someones world model they will bitch,
as you have seen.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to KDE 5. Remember; one big fat icon in the middle of the screen
that launches a terminal, it can be semi-transparent if you really want it to be...

Z