KDE 4.1 Beta 2: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back (Datamation)

I believe you are correct, except that I would have called 4.0 an early 
tech preview.

For years, starting back on MS (before I emigrated to a land of freedom; 
I'll continue to compare with them as the majority platform provider out 
there) with IE 4.0 where I ran both public previews, I've been a "bleeding 
edge" beta adopter, but 4.0 wasn't even beta, and certainly not even as 
functional as the MS public tech previews.  It wasn't bleeding edge beta, 
it was ground hamburger early-alpha tech preview, the kind of stuff the 
demonstrate at developer conferences and perhaps send the devs home with a 
conference edition tech preview, but not even public preview level; the 
kind of stuff one realistically isn't even expected to file bugs on, or to 
realistically test, because there's still way more missing than there in 
the first place, and filing bugs just doesn't make sense yet because 
there's more bug than product!

So as soon as I actually had time to try it out and find it wasn't just me 
missing the functionality, but that it actually wasn't there, I dropped 
4.0 like the non-functional bits of bloody ground hamburger flying 
everywhere (when compared to the more conventional "bleeding edge" beta, 
at least) it actually was.  

Don't get me wrong, I'm still a strong KDE user, but for now it's KDE 
3.5.9, not that 3.90 early 4.x preview raw bits of meat flying everywhere 
crap they labeled 4.0.  I've every faith they'll get there... eventually, 
but it certainly wasn't then, and I doubt it'll be what they call 4.1 
(which is more likely 3.95 or 3.98, now).

Of course, the problem was one of PR.  The devs had been talking up all 
this fancy new technology, and everyone was hot to try it with 4.0... only 
what was labeled 4.0 should have been early tech preview as I said -- a 
chance to play with the new technology using still only partially 
developed and working toys, nothing more.  If they'd handled it that way, 
I expect a lot more people would have been a lot happier with it.

But back to the present.  As I said, I expect what is to be labeled 4.1 to 
not even be a real .0 release yet.  Actually, I expect this to be much 
closer to what MS would release as public preview two.  As such, as a 
normally bleeding edge user and happy to be one, I expect I'll actually 
find it usable now, and will actually probably take to it pretty avidly -- 
even if I don't expect it to be proper release quality just yet.  Note 
that I'm still saying "expect".  I'm not crazy enough nor do I intend to 
try "betas of betas", not after the versioning fiasco they already pulled, 
so I'm leaving it alone.  When the final 4.1 (aka 3.98, aka 4.0 public 
preview two, properly versioned) comes out, I'll try it and see if it 
works as I now expect it to.  If so, as a proper bleeding edge beta 
tester, I'll try it and file bugs on it as necessary, and I'll probably be 
reasonably happy running it and working around still not quite there 
functionality.

By extension, what will probably be labeled 4.2 should finally be what I'd 
consider proper 4.0 release quality, something I could honestly but 
cautiously recommend to non-bleeding-edge but still early adopter users.  
And along about (labeled) 4.2.2 or or 4.3.0, I expect I'll finally 
consider it a decent service-pack-1 normal user release.

By 4.4, /maybe/ as early as 4.3, all that hard sweat equity investment in 
all that new technology will be paying off, taking the FLOSS community to 
GUI heights no one, proprietary or freedom based, has ever reached before. 
Yes, I believe it /will/ come, but it sure would have been a smoother ride 
had this versioning and PR fiasco never happened.

Duncan