KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software [LWN.net]

KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software

Posted Jan 28, 2009 19:41 UTC (Wed) by tjasper (subscriber, #4310)
Parent article: KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software

This whole debate is sad really. From my point of view as a KDE user by choice (as opposed to having to use MS for work) I read about the release of KDE 4.0 and CLEARLY got the message that it was primarily a developer release and wouldn't suit my needs. I wouldn't have said that the KDE 4.0 release was half-baked. There appears to be such a fine line between release early and get flamed!!! Personally, I think the KDE devs and others did a good job of communicating to ME what to expect of 4.0.

Furthermore, Ubuntu got heavily criticised (I seem to recall) for not doing a Kubuntu 8.04 LTS release based on 4.0 - feeling that 3.5 would be too old to be maintained for three years yet 4.0 was too raw to support.

They clearly got the message about 4.0. I don't know why Fedora chose to switch to 4.0 without easy recourse to 3.5, but I know they have pushed other technologies and got angry responses from their users in the past.

However, I think there is a place for distros to push the envelope and make bleeding edge software default to give users the ability to test and develop. Perhaps Fedora didn't/haven't communicated to their users the implications of switching to their bleeding edge release well enough. It seems to me that Kubuntu/Mandriva and others knew enough to make KDE 4.0 optional.

My $0.02 worth!

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KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software

Posted Jan 29, 2009 20:50 UTC (Thu) by jmorris42 (subscriber, #2203) [Link]

> I don't know why Fedora chose to switch to 4.0 without easy
> recourse to 3.5, but I know they have pushed other technologies
> and got angry responses from their users in the past.

These are users who should not be using Fedora. In the Debian world you effectivly have four layers:

Sid - developers only
Testing - Will be the next Stable, experienced users only please
Stable - This is what you should be using on your servers
Ubuntu - This is what you put on your desktop/laptop

In the RH world it is similar:

Rawhide - developers only
Fedora - Will form the basis for the next RHEL and the rebuilds, experienced users only, never put into production lest you get stuck on the upgrade treadmill. The one year shelf life is supposed to be your clue.
RHEL Clones - Experienced admins who don't need support deploy these
RHEL - Everyone else uses this on their servers and Workstations
The RH world doesn't currently have a desktop/laptop solution.

Fedora shipped KDE 4 for two reasons. First it was a .0 release, not a beta. Second because eventually a KDE 4.x release would be shipping in a production release so let the Fedora users hammer it into shape.

KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software

Posted Jan 30, 2009 3:17 UTC (Fri) by mmcgrath (subscriber, #44906) [Link]

> I don't know why Fedora chose to switch to 4.0 without easy recourse to 3.5, but I know they have pushed other technologies and got angry responses from their users in the past.

What do you think Fedora is for?