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KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge softwareKDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge softwarePosted Jan 28, 2009 23:32 UTC (Wed) by malor (subscriber, #2973)Parent article: KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software This is not about tricking people either: people seem to forget that the open source method is based on participation not consumption. That's fine, but I need to know that ahead of time. If it's not ready, and they couldn't get enough testers, putting a 'ready' label on it to get testers WAS tricking them, no matter how loudly he may assert the contrary. He's forcing me to conform to his viewpoint of what my participation should be, without my knowledge or consent. Coercing participation by deception is antithetical to the spirit of voluntary cooperation that makes free software. I used KDE for many years, and switched after this fiasco, and it's unlikely that I'll ever switch back. I have no problem being asked to volunteer. I have a huge problem with being fooled into doing so. Unless and until they express remorse for this unethical approach to development, and a clear understanding of just how wrong it was, I'll have nothing further to do with their software. And, really, GNOME works fine. I'd prefer more configurability, but eh, it's good enough. At least I know I can trust it, and that the devs won't falsely label their releases to fool me into being a beta tester.
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KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 28, 2009 23:51 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
They said, plainly, over and over again, that it was not suitable for
general desktop use and was a developer-only release.
If you chose to ignore that, it is not the fault of the KDE hackers.
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 29, 2009 0:37 UTC (Thu) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link] Of course it is. It's the fundamental social contract that a .0 release is "done", as much as possible. Obviously, there will be bugs, but .0 means "this is feature complete, and we think it's ready for general use".If it's not done, you don't make it a .0 release. You call it an RC, or, more honestly in this case, a beta. They knew that. Everyone knows that. But they deliberately called it 4.0 anyway to get testers. They've clearly and unambiguously admitted this: they thought calling it a beta wouldn't attract enough testers. Instead of being honest and asking for more help, they lied to get the help instead. A .0 release would be more broadly taken up, and too bad for the users. This is purposeful deception, no matter what they put in the README. They tried to force contribution via deception, rather than asking for voluntary participation. That's about as unethical as you get in free software, short of stealing code outright.
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 29, 2009 0:55 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
there is a repeated statement that they called it 4.0 to trick people into testing it when they knew it wasn't ready
if you read the article and the links in it, you will see that they made the release so that developers would have a stable platform to develop against (thus calling it a developers release)
they could have re-named everything from KDE 4.0 to KDE-infrastructure 4.0 and then make KDE depend on KDE-infrastructure, but however they did that split there would have been something one one side of the line that belonged on the other side.
x.0 == feature complete, end of story Posted Jan 29, 2009 21:59 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] if you read the article and the links in it, you will see that they made the release so that developers would have a stable platform to develop against (thus calling it a developers release) Yup. And such things have a name too: KDE 3.99.0 will be fine for such a release. Or they can use MySQL approach and called it KDE 4.0-alpha (with next revisions being KDE 4.1-beta and KDE 4.2-gamma). Instead they decided to use version number which clearly says: it's finished! It's not polished, it's not yet debugged enough - it's first rough release, but it's feature complete! KDE 4.0 was quite far from being feature complete, unfortunatelly...
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 29, 2009 19:09 UTC (Thu) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link]
Nonsense.
The fundamental social contract with free software is you can distribute it and change it. Some make it available for free as in beer.
There are no implied warranties, you own both pieces when they break.
That is the first part of the fundamental social contract.
The second part is that if you want something, you write it. If you can't, you support in some way those who can. If you can't or won't, you wait for them to do it.
Nothing more nothing less.
If you paid a distributor for a product, you can reasonably expect a bit more. Like a money back guarantee.
You can be upset or disappointed all you like, but I for one don't owe you anything unless you pay me for something. Neither does anyone who contributed to KDE.
Don't start attempting to impose your expectations as a 'fundamental social contract' unless you have a signed copy.
I'm serious. Developers don't owe you or anyone else anything at all. If you don't want to use what they write, that is your choice.
Derek
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 29, 2009 21:48 UTC (Thu) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link]
Equally, I owe you nothing as a user that I don't want to contribute. Misleading me into beta testing for you is theft of my time.
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Feb 6, 2009 2:17 UTC (Fri) by pyellman (guest, #4997) [Link]
I think the "fundamental social contract" is about communication, not numbering systems, which, despite your assertion, are obviously still a point of significant disagreement and divergence. I thought the KDE team communicated the meaning and intent of the 4.0 release quite clearly. I might cut some slack to a novice user who was surprised when 4.0 was dumped on him/her, but it's just plain weird to hear those kind of comments from LWN readers, whom I expect to be better informed.
It's impossible to escape the conclusion that there was a cadre of people out there -- not novice users at all, but really, power/expert users -- who, despite knowing full well how the KDE team had characterized the 4.0 release, insisted as a matter of highlighting a "higher" principle (the ".0" principle) on installing it and treating it as what they insist a .0 release should be, and then using any negatives from that experience as ammunition and fodder to attack the KDE team -- all to grind into the face of the KDE team (and the rest of us) -- the consequences of messing with their beloved ".0" definition.
Peter Yellman
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 29, 2009 2:06 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
here are a few question for you. Are all forms of communication equal?
Was the developer only nature of the release mentioned in the release announcements on kde.org?
http://kde.org/announcements/4.0/
Does that read materially differently than the 4.2 announcement?
http://kde.org/announcements/4.2/
-jef
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 29, 2009 4:04 UTC (Thu) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link] Again: there is an implied promise to a .0 release. If the implied promise didn't exist, there would have been no reason to release as .0. They knew there was a specific meaning, and they took advantage of that to get more testers.They called it something other than what it was to trick people into testing it that ordinarily would not. They have explicitly admitted this. The facts of the matter are not in question. The patch notes are irrelevant. Shipping .0 software and then putting in the README "oh, by the way, this isn't .0 software" doesn't change the implied promise, or the deception involved in releasing it that way. Arguing against this is a stupid waste of time. They've admitted guilt. They just haven't admitted that it was wrong and abusive of their user base. And until they do, I'll be pointing people at GNOME, because that's a dev team that, at least so far, can be trusted to do what's right for users. I don't like their over-simplification of things, but at least if I install a stable release, I know they thought it was actually stable when it went out the door.
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 29, 2009 6:01 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
I don't think you can hold GNOME up as a better example at how to handle this sort of shift. Now its been a long long long while...but when gnome 2.0 was introduced..in 2002...didn't that also have some regression-neering?
To quote:
"Hiding behind the 'this is a mostly a release for developers' excuse is not good enough for me. Gnome is around for years, and the GNU project was not able to deliver an outstanding version yet. Is this the best that the GNU project can offer to the Joe User who wants to switch away from the commercial option of OSX or Windows? Well, nice try
I usually start my reviews with the positive points of a product and then continue with whatever I found as 'bad'. In this case, I just can't hide my dissapointment about the new version of Gnome. As a user, I expected more, and I want more."
Ah yes, that takes me back. Good times...installing Ximian's GNOME 2.0 desktop over RHL 7.3 and watching it bleed.
The only thing that has changed since 2002 and the GNOME 2.0 release..is that there are more users now to complain. I don't think the KDE developers handled communicating 4.0 release significantly better or worse than the GNOME developers did their 2.0 release in 2002...they just happened to do it 6 years later.
-jef
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 29, 2009 6:29 UTC (Thu) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link]
KDE gained a number of users from the Gnome transition. Gnome is gaining
some disappointed KDE users now. When Gnome does their 3.0 switcheroo, KDE will gain some disgruntled Gnome users.
Something like the tides of the sea.
At least there is a choice.
Sometimes things have to be burnt to make it better. Xorg is doing
Derek
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 30, 2009 14:42 UTC (Fri) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793) [Link]
Let's just hope they don't decide to make a major transition at the same time ;-)
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 29, 2009 13:54 UTC (Thu) by roblucid (subscriber, #48964) [Link]
Awww come on, you've been around! How many X.0 releases have been trouble?
How often have OS-es been shipped with huge problems that take a year to settle down? You really so surprised and feel "betrayed" because 4.0 was buggy and lacked desirable features?
You know, I just don't believe you!
The Developers weren't in the best spot, to take impartial decisions about the software. That was the distro's job,
There were Live CD's to try out, and it was clear many features weren't implemented. Those of whose who repsonded to the pre-release call for wider testing, have said, it was clear to us within an hour or two, that it'd not be ready for general use for a long time.
If KDE had been Fedora's main desktop, they'd have sorted the problems, so someone like Linus could have chosen to install the stable desktop, and play around with the new one when he felt like it.
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 29, 2009 16:38 UTC (Thu) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link] There is an enormous difference between getting software wrong -- all software has bugs -- and deliberately misrepresenting your product to get extra beta testing.They've admitted this. It's not in question. They called it .0 to trick people into testing a product that wasn't finished yet. They're even proud that it worked. THAT is what I object to. In some states in the US, they have statutes against 'theft by deception', and that's exactly what the KDE team is guilty of -- stealing time from people who trusted them, by misrepresenting the product. Painful .0 releases are nothing new, but lying to get beta testing is. Above all other things, for free software to differentiate itself, it has to work. If free software is claimed to be stable, it needs to be stable. The KDE team's lies hurt everyone in the community. Most high-profile free software teams do fantastic work, and as a result, open source as a whole prospers. When big projects like KDE deliberately ship garbage to get more testing, they don't just damage their own reputations, they damage everyone's. And what if other teams see their evinced pleasure at all the free testing they got, and decide to start emulating them? The more that idea spreads, the more the quality of free software suffers. This was a horrible idea, selfish and manipulative, and it should be condemned in the strongest of terms.
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 30, 2009 9:08 UTC (Fri) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] The problem seems to be that there were two information flows. If you visit the KDE announcements site, you will find advertisement language about how everything is new and improved. But like in this 2006 LWN article and many others, the plans for KDE 4.0 were clearly outlined from the start: maturity and functionality would appear later in the 4 series.Like others have remarked, as a Free Software user you should be aware that you receive a product WITHOUT ANY warranty. Read the license, always a good idea. At the same time, it must be annoying to do a distribution upgrade and see your desktop stop functioning.
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 30, 2009 14:18 UTC (Fri) by roblucid (subscriber, #48964) [Link]
"There is an enormous difference between getting software wrong -- all software has bugs -- and deliberately misrepresenting your product to get extra beta testing."
They didn't lie, they were very upfront about it. They didn't claim the release was "Stable" far from it, they announced a rapid development plan with frequent releases. They wanted the distro's to make KDE4 available, to encourage participation, and application porting.
Aaron Seigo, said clearly at the time, that making a 4.0 release was necessary to get this to happen, it was a very clear implication that quality was going to suffer. If you go back to Jan 2007 on this site, you'll see discussion on the very point. The PR train wreck was all too predictable, I think they could have handled it better, but it isn't their fault, the apparent blind enthusiasm with which the distro's pushed out the packages, without the stable KDE3 fallback, which received 2 updates in the past year.
Any body with any experience, knows re-writes of large projects tend to either never ship, or ship initially unstable and feature incomplete. This is one of the big reasons to prefer evolutionary, not revolutionary development.
There is a problem with version numbering. With a new project, releasing version 0.x.y signifies pre-production status. 1.0 is a milestone.
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 30, 2009 15:51 UTC (Fri) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link] They didn't lie, they were very upfront about it.No, they weren't. They called it 4.0 explicitly to manipulate people into testing it that otherwise wouldn't. It wasn't feature complete, it wasn't done, but they gave it a stable release number purposely, and admittedly, to get more testers. All they had to do was call it 4.0-alpha, and all would be well. No fuss, no muss, nobody would be upset. Once they got to feature complete, they could have called it beta. But they didn't. They've directly copped to this: they tricked people into testing for them. They loudly insist that they weren't deceptive, but of course they were. They've stated that they knew that calling it 4.0 would get them more testers. They knew what 4.0 meant. Putting that release number has a very strong implication of stability and feature-completeness. Then, they put in the fine print, "Oh, gee, this isn't actually any damn good yet, and you shouldn't use it." They did this to get people to test that otherwise would not. And, as you can see in the quote in the original article, they're proud that their lie worked. If everyone started doing that, free software would be very badly damaged.
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 30, 2009 17:14 UTC (Fri) by kragil (subscriber, #34373) [Link]
You really need to chill, dude. The past is the past and cannot be changed.
OK 4.0 should have been called "4.0 Developer Release/Foundations" or something, but other than that it was OK to release. That would have made the "KDE 4.0 is not KDE4" excuse more understandable.
So ..
Lessons learned:
1. Don't just call a release that mostly/only sets new foundations "$X+1.0" or people will whine for YEARS (like you do)
Did I miss something?
I hope people will read this post before KDE 5.0 based on Qt5 is released ;)
Yes, there are something else... Posted Jan 30, 2009 20:10 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Did I miss something? Yes: All distributions which shipped KDE3 and KDE4 in the same box were forced to heavily patch the thing. You can not just "./configure ; make ; make install" KDE3 and KDE4 on the same system (unlike GNOME 1.x/GNOME 2.x) - this makes all such talks hypocrisy. Even this "feature" was unfinished (granted - it was in the same state as everything else: mostly, but not 100% complete).
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 31, 2009 15:58 UTC (Sat) by roblucid (subscriber, #48964) [Link]
You're wrong. Though I don't expect you to change your perceptions.
There was an appeal for wide scale testing, before 4.0, giving
There was widely available info about the re-write, also the new Plasma
The clear implication was that there'd been insufficient testing
The problem for a project like KDE, is it's hard to download the source,
What KDE were, was naive about the process. Now I'm sure they see that
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 31, 2009 20:59 UTC (Sat) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link]
Malor, you don't get it.
We didn't call KDE 4.0 that because it was stable. We did call it 4.0
The fact YOU think 4.0 was, in any way, telling you something about the
Fedora targets bleeding edge users - they considered 4.0 good enough, I
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Feb 1, 2009 0:21 UTC (Sun) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link] We didn't call KDE 4.0 that because it was stableYou're right. You called it 4.0 to get more testers. We've been doing this since 10 years I've been there the whole time, and I don't remember you guys ever before calling something 'done' that wasn't. Your .0 releases haven't always been that great, but to my memory, they've always been feature-complete. This time around, tou lied to us to get us to test your software before we normally would. That's new. And people are still pissed, a year later. This isn't coincidence. FOSS is about developers first, users next. The arrogance in this simple statement is breathtaking on two fronts. One is the fundamental belief that users are inferior. On Linux, do you know what a user actually is? Almost always, a user is a developer of another project. And your particular software is very central to the use of their computer, if they chose your flavor of desktop, and if you screw it up, you damage the progress of other projects. They're dependent on you to get it right. Time they have to spend fixing your problems is time they can't spend fixing their own. Further, it's worth pointing out that you lost Linus Torvalds, one of the most famous developers in the world, and yet here you're dismissively handwaving him away, lumping him in with the proletariat, the developers that aren't working on your project. Mere users. Scum. Secondly, if you hadn't noticed, you're writing a desktop. If your focus isn't first, foremost, and always about users, then you picked the wrong hobby. Go write webservers or something. Every day you write code without thinking about users, users, users, is a day that GNOME eats a little more of your lunch. They have come from essentially nowhere to gradually eclipsing you on the desktop. Eight years ago, only the diehard used GNOME. Today, you're in a substantial minority. This should be telling you something. And with 4.0, your focus on the needs of your own team, instead of the needs of your users, further accelerated your slide into irrelevance. Distributions are for users, source code on some developer site is not. This has never really been true. Remember: "users" are the people writing the kernel, too. Your entire comment is damage control, apologia for an enormous mistake. Just admit the damn mistake, apologize, and move on. And stop lying to us. Maybe you'll start regaining some of the ground you've lost.
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Feb 1, 2009 11:53 UTC (Sun) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link]
You're right in that users are important, but it is very annoying that you simply ignore most that I wrote. We didn't release 4.0 to get more testers nor users, we did it to get more developers.
Well, ok, some parts of KDE needed testers, some parts were ready for that, and benefited from testing. In many other area's (plasma) we knew what the issues were, but didn't want to let all of KDE wait and suffer because it wasn't finished yet.
Again, it was a long-term decision which did hurt users in the short term but benefit all in the long term. You focus on a 1 year period (or even shorter). Linus went away for now - and so did many. Is that bad? Well, it sucks, but when you factor in the increase in speed of development, it is reasonable to expect them to be back. After all, the free desktop has what, 1% of the whole desktop market? So we did hurt a portion of that 1% to be able to get to the point where we could aim for the other 99%.
We're simply more ambitious than you think, I guess.
We can say sorry to those users we've hurt (even though I still think the distributions are to blame as well). But shouldn't the users say thank you now KDE 42 has proven us to be right?
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Feb 1, 2009 22:36 UTC (Sun) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link] As soon as you start valuing 'the project' above 'the users of the project', then your development process has gone off the rails.but didn't want to let all of KDE wait and suffer because it wasn't finished yet. KDE is code. It can't suffer. Only your user community can experience pain. You inflicted a great deal of it on them, to benefit some abstract code. From other comments here, it sounds like your users got shut out of bugfixes and maintenance on 3.5 while you guys focused on 4.0. (I switched away when 4.0 shipped, so I haven't been watching that at all.) If that's true, you not only didn't provide a replacement, but also stopped improving the old stuff as well. Your focus shifted so completely to the project that you abandoned the actual users OF the project -- presumably, the original reason you started developing KDE at all. So we did hurt a portion of that 1% to be able to get to the point where we could aim for the other 99%. That is true, but it strikes me as shortsighted. You're punishing the people who trusted you, to go after the people who haven't. Your existing user base is your best advertising tool; their evangelism matters. When you screw them, you get people pissed off -- some of whom are annoyed enough to post screeds to LWN. And if you're willing to screw that 1%, and it works, will you be willing to screw your 5% six or seven years from now? Why would people adopt your desktop when you're focused on your project, and don't care about their benefit? I think you might want to collectively ask yourselves, "Why are we doing this project at all?" If that answer, and your ultimate focus, isn't on making the lives of your users better, every day, then you're probably in the wrong area for development. Users and developers would be well-served by avoiding dependency on your desktop and libraries. You're going up against an entrenched monolith, whose user-abusing mistakes are legion. But they can get away with it, because they're a monopoly. It's those user abuses that, in many ways, prompted the entire Free Software movement. But you're not a monopoly. If you abuse users for the benefit of your project, you ultimately harm it more than you help it. You and GNOME both are tiny players, goldfish among sharks. If you're not obsessively focused on user benefit, then the other teams who ARE will take them away from you. I'm sure you want your project to move faster, but no matter how good your program is, people won't take it up based on technical merit alone. Just look at Sony's decisions with Beta -- chasing off users they didn't like, porn-mongers, ended up being a huge blow to the format, eventually driving it off the market. If you continue doing this sort of thing, you'll end up with the best desktop that nobody uses. Growth rates are always off how many users you have already. If you double your annual growth rate from 12.5% to 25% by abusive development practices, but cut your community in half in so doing, it'll take three years just to get back to where you started, and it'll take seven years to get back to parity with where your project would have been at the 12.5% growth rate. The real numbers won't be that large, but carefully, carefully consider anything that makes a user switch away. Each and every one is a seed that can grow into more users -- and, if you get lucky, more developers. Failing to water seeds you already have because you want to hike to what looks a bigger field on yonder mesa is a good way to starve.
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 30, 2009 14:36 UTC (Fri) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link]
Theft? Good grief, man, take a chill pill or something. Really, there's no
reason to be blowing your top like this. You know what? KDE 4.0 was not _that_ bad, _actually_. It was perfectly usable for many people doing perfectly productive work. And there wasn't a single lie in the release announcement. What you are writing, on the other hand, is at least baseless hyperbole -- and feel free to pencil in rather stronger words.
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 30, 2009 15:57 UTC (Fri) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link]
If all projects adopted this type of disinformation in their major releases, the usability and uptake of free software would take an enormous hit. People would learn that you can't trust software that's free.
This is worth being upset about. It's a very bad precedent.
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 30, 2009 18:10 UTC (Fri) by cry_regarder (subscriber, #50545) [Link]
Perhaps you should use Vista instead.
Perhaps Posted Jan 30, 2009 20:13 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Vista is very resource-hungry, but it's usable. KDE 4.0 was resource hungry and unusable. Now Microsoft created Vista+ (named Windows 7) which is less resource-hungry and more usable - we'll see how KDE 4.x will compare with that...
Perhaps Posted Jan 31, 2009 21:01 UTC (Sat) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link]
the final Vista gold wasn't that much better than KDE 4.0 - it did work,
basically, for most people but did a horrible job for some. Same with 4.0, I suppose, even though 4.0 as a FOSS product doesn't have to be as stable as a product by a big company. After all - we have the 'release early and often' paradigm, they don't.
Perhaps Posted Feb 2, 2009 19:49 UTC (Mon) by cry_regarder (subscriber, #50545) [Link]
I think I was too subtle.
1. The prev poster was implying that free software will get some sort of reputation because of things like KDE4. As if non-free software doesn't already have that reputation.
2. When I did customer support back in late 80s, the corporate policy was that if a customer for our product called too often and was belligerent to very carefully and politely introduce him to the competitor's product. Sometimes even with phone numbers for their sales department. The reasoning was that a troublesome customer is going to be troublesome for everybody...so he might as well be troublesome for your competition.
Cry
Perhaps Posted Feb 2, 2009 20:48 UTC (Mon) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link]
No, you weren't being too subtle. Your insult was obvious.
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 30, 2009 21:36 UTC (Fri) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link]
Heh, but I beg to differ, and I'm not a wilting flower when it comes to using bleeding edge stuff.
Some problems are bad, some problems are good.
KDE had(s) the problem where people want to use their stuff. They like the ideas, the applications, the way things work.
I suspect the distributions wouldn't have paid any attention to 'improved communication' with the 4.0 release. There was palpable demand for the offering. The moment anyone of them advertised that the new KDE 4.0 release was going to be on offer, all of them had to do the same. If I remember correctly, the developers had to make an effort to tone down the enthusiasm.
All in all, the only thing it has convinced me of is that releases are the spawn of the devil.
Derek
KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software Posted Jan 31, 2009 20:55 UTC (Sat) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link]
Funny to see the two announcements next to each other. Esp the screenshots
- our look & feel has improved a lot :D
Fedora with GNOME is no better Posted Jan 29, 2009 8:48 UTC (Thu) by omez (guest, #6904) [Link]
"GNOME is fine... At least I know I can trust it..."
to break useful functionality without even waiting for a major release.
For example, session management was deliberately broken in 2.24. There was no plan to replace the feature. The antique code was simply deemed too ugly to exist.
Fedora happily includes this less-featureful version because, just like KDE 4.0, it's the latest.
Fedora with GNOME is no better Posted Jan 29, 2009 17:29 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-session/+...
Fedora just happened to get there first...but other distributors are making the same choice to ship the newer gnome-session even with this regression in place. Maybe because other pieces of gnome are starting to make use of features in the new gnome-session design and simply keeping an older gnome-session with have other impacts on the overall integrated desktop.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-session/+...
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-session/+...
These comments really speak to the competing expectations projected onto the people working at the distribution level.
Very few distributors promise a feature regression free experience across the distribution release boundary. Why? Because very few of the upstream projects themselves promise a regression free experience across their release boundaries, even minor releases.
But as users that seem to be what we expect from distributors. We try a distribution, we like how the pieces work together and stick with it, and we want it to work that way..forever...regardless of what design decisions are being made in the upstream projects to support backwards compatibility or legacy behaviour. I think its a logic fallacy to expect distributors to do a better job at being upstream developers than the upstream developers themselves.
Fedora certainly does not come anywhere close to even hinting at an implied promise of a feature regression free experience across the Fedora release boundary. Fedora self-describes itself as leading edge, and each release is focused on integrating the current upstream project offerings.
-jef
Fedora with GNOME is no better Posted Jan 29, 2009 22:06 UTC (Thu) by omez (guest, #6904) [Link]
I was explicitly addressing malor's assumption that GNOME on Fedora would provide a better experience than KDE on Fedora. However, the situation is no different. The amateur release strategies evident in the latest GNOME can be as unwelcome as the latest KDE. As you note, Ubuntu likes to point upstream and say, "But... but...", also. I think you'll agree, Jef, that just because Ubuntu does it does not mean it's okay. Debian and Gentoo are generously resisting on behalf of their users.
Fedora with GNOME is no better Posted Jan 29, 2009 22:38 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
It's it okay? It's honest. I think user expectations on what distributions can accomplish with resources at hand are not calibrated to reality that the open desktop related software is going under heavy development. Distributions have to make choices as to what sort of experience they want to provide.
You want a regression proof experience in the distribution you use, then your distribution will stagnate relative to upstream development. Upstream moves so damn fast in some areas...especially the desktop arena. But the integration effort you are putting in at the distribution level to keep that regression free environment doesn't pay forward in time as it doesn't add manpower to the upstream effort to address regressions in the current upstream codebase. Distributions will not be better upstreams than upstream projects themselves. If upstream projects don't recognize the need for backwards compatibility in an area, trying to establish backwards compatibility at the distribution level can take significantly more work.
You are free to call it upstream development models amateur release strategies, but its not going to change how they do releases. A massive injection of additional contributing manpower into upstream projects could have an impact however.
Fedora says the same sort of thing being said in those Ubuntu tickets, except we try to put the stress on contributing manpower to upstream as much as possible. Manpower is limited at every level.
-jef
Fedora with GNOME is no better Posted Jan 30, 2009 21:49 UTC (Fri) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link]
>I think user expectations on what distributions can accomplish with resources at hand are not calibrated to reality that the open desktop related software is going under heavy development.
Insert upstream projects into that statement.
This highlights a fundamental problem with the desktop.
If you look at server applications, for the most part when they are stable, they cover the use patterns of many, and people are content to stick with what works. New feature requirements are there, but the pace of implementation is slower. The software usage corresponds more to how a desktop application uses a library. Stability stability stability.
The desktop is much different. If I run across some new gizmo, I may be the one informing the developer of the need. And I want it right now. Or I am anxiously awaiting the ability to do something that another platform does with ease. I will use code written yesterday for that reason.
A stable LTS release is useless for the desktop unless there is a very limited usage pattern.
Of course, when I am that close to the edge, things will break.
It isn't a management issue. It is simply that the desktop isn't done, and every improvement is important. Reality forces developers to throw stuff away from time to time to get to the next level of capability.
And the very odd thing is that for a number of years, I've been running KDE from svn. Build every few days. Other than the very early KDE4 time, it works very well.
Derek
Fedora with GNOME is no better Posted Jan 30, 2009 22:23 UTC (Fri) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
Indeed, I think you've hit the heart of the matter... the desktop isn't done.
I know that, you know that... and I know I know what the implications of that are. And I now know that you know as well. Or I think I do.
Anyways.... having the two of us understand what the reality of the desktop development landscape is lets us set our expectations on progress/regressions accordingly. But that doesn't automatically translate into a widespread understanding. I think the expectation mismatch between the user culture and the developer culture is real and if there's someone with some ideas on how to close that expectation gap in the future... I'm all ears.
-jef
Fedora with GNOME is no better Posted Jan 31, 2009 0:46 UTC (Sat) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link]
I have sold big ticket items in one of my iterations, and found it in my
interest to pop the emotional high that comes in these instances and replace it by some caution and realistic expectations of what was going to occur. Otherwise we would have ended up with the same level of satisfaction as the KDE 4.0 release engendered.
Derek
Fedora with GNOME is no better Posted Jan 31, 2009 5:53 UTC (Sat) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link]
All they had to do was call it "4.0 alpha", and about 90% of the potential problems would have instantly disappeared. The remaining anger at the flawed release would have been directed at the distros that packaged an alpha. And the whole thing would have blown over long ago.
It's really that simple. Call a product what it actually is, and it's amazing how much better consumers will like it.
Fedora with GNOME is no better Posted Jan 31, 2009 14:08 UTC (Sat) by kragil (subscriber, #34373) [Link]
OK, for sake of argument:
4.0 = 4.0 alpha
I will betcha that if they went down that road the 4.0 we would get in 6 months would have more unfinished blue sky features and frameworks and would have been less usable than the real 4.1. (again look at E17)
Release EARLY release OFTEN.
4.0 did work and was OK to release .. the "mostly erects the pillars of KDE for developers and upcoming releases" part is the only thing that should have been in big letters in every announcement and blog post and Fedora should have been more conservative.
Fedora with GNOME is no better Posted Jan 31, 2009 21:08 UTC (Sat) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link]
Kragil already makes a good point, but there were more reasons why a delay
of 4.0 would've been bad.
For example. NVidia would've continued to ignore our complaints about the
Another reason to release was to get more developers. Because as you might
There are more reasons for releasing 4.0 when we did, but I hope I managed
The only thing we imho could've done better is the release announcement
Fedora with GNOME is no better Posted Feb 1, 2009 0:30 UTC (Sun) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link] End users were simply not the target for this releaseYou have explicitly said you called it 4.0 to get more testing; I'd say that users were exactly the target for the release. You wanted them to start yelling at other teams to fix the bugs you wanted fixed. You deliberately inflicted pain on your userbase so that they would browbeat other teams into doing things the way you wanted. But, guess what? You're writing a desktop. If you're not completely focused on users, you're doing it wrong. You deliberately inflicted pain on people to make your own lives easier, and you did it through deception. And you seem to believe that it was even worth it, while GNOME keeps eating you. You're losing, and you are losing because the people who vote, the users, aren't the people you're really trying to help. Remember: Linux users are generally developers of other projects. Their time is worth at least as much as yours. we did it for other,equally (if not more) important reasons. You're focused on your own team's needs intead of the needs of the broader public. This is damaging you, badly. If you don't want to focus on users first, then pick a different type of project.
Fedora with GNOME is no better Posted Feb 1, 2009 11:47 UTC (Sun) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link]
Sure the final goal for what we do is for users. You are right in that. At the same time, what would benefit the users most? Having a good, stable KDE in 2009 or making them wait for 2010? We wanted to move as fast as possible. If we wouldn't have released 4.0 in 2008, we would have slowed development (or, not accelerated it) and KDE 4.x would still be a lot less mature.
You can look at it either way - the short term annoyances were worth the trouble. I honestly believe time will prove us right.
Thanks for KDE 3.5.10! Posted Feb 1, 2009 13:44 UTC (Sun) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link]
"what would benefit the users most? Having a good, stable KDE in 2009"
Fortunately there is a good, stable KDE in 2009. It's 3.5.10.
Many thanks to the subset of KDE developers who are still supporting their stable 3.x series, even while experimenting with new ideas (some good some bad) in the 4.x development series.
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