KDE on KDE 4.0 (Groklaw)

KDE on KDE 4.0 (Groklaw)

Posted Jul 12, 2008 22:49 UTC (Sat) by mikov (subscriber, #33179)
In reply to: KDE on KDE 4.0 (Groklaw) by boudewijn
Parent article: KDE on KDE 4.0 (Groklaw)

If it doesn't make sense to you it's probably because you're not a developer, so you wouldn't be aware how these things work.

I've been a developer for more than 15 years, thank you, so I know a thing or two about how these things work :-) But that's not the point - I will be the first to admit that managing and releasing a free software project is very different from a proprietary one, and I only have major first-hand experience with the latter. I think I understand and strongly sympathize with the KDE developers, but I still think that ultimately they made a mistake.

To start with your second point: our experience is that nobody installs and tests alphas, betas or release candidates anymore. Which means no user testing -- basically, the users are reneging on their responsibility.

I hear you about users not wanting to test beta versions any more. This is a serious problem, but I suspect that shoving beta software to unsuspecting users may not be the best approach. BTW, the distributions who bundled KDE 4.0 by default are also very much to blame here.

KDE is a victim of its own success - we have gotten used to very polished releases, with practically no visible bugs, and every new release adding more flexibility and functionality without removing any. KDE4 broke that tradition, and whatever the justifications are, the backslash is undeniable. Even Vista is more backward compatible with XP than KDE4 with KDE3 !

Take me for example. As far as KDE is concerned I am strictly a user. I use my desktop for work and I am so used to it, and so productive with it (again, thank you KDE!), that I don't even notice it anymore. This is how it should be. If I upgrade to a new version of KDE, I need everything to remain exactly the same, so I can immediately continue to be productive, and I can explore the exciting new features at my own pace, when and if I have time.

I think that this is unavoidable as Linux (and KDE and Gnome, etc) become more widely accepted and established. The projects just can't afford to make such drastic changes.

Fortunately, I don't think what happened with KDE4 is such a big deal and I am sure the backslash will subside eventually. I am reasonably hopeful that Debian (my platform of choice) will not make a stable release with KDE4 before it is fully ready.

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