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

KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software

Posted Jan 29, 2009 12:16 UTC (Thu) by kov (subscriber, #7423)
Parent article: KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software

Lessons learned (for myself):

* .0 releases are usually buggy, no surprise there
* .0 releases are expected to not have huge regressions, and at least migrations paths
* we are no longer 'from geeks to geeks'; we have reached out for non-technical users
* it is good we have options; KDE may end up becoming the 'for geeks' desktop (for its
customizability), while GNOME ends up becoming the 'for regular users' one (for its simplicity)
* distributions should worry a bit more about stability and the principle of least surprise; they may
find that tagging 1 stable release per year, using one of the 2 yearly releases as 'developers release'
may be a good idea

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KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software

Posted Jan 29, 2009 13:12 UTC (Thu) by apokryphos (guest, #42130) [Link]

Aseigo is not the KDE project lead, there isn't a single leader.

KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software

Posted Jan 29, 2009 16:38 UTC (Thu) by kov (subscriber, #7423) [Link]

Well, that much is obvious. But then again, I didn't say there was a single lead, or that aseigo was
the leader. Having said that, he is the de-facto leading visionaire of today's KDE project and the main
driving force of many of the very good and some bad things that happened to KDE and its users. I
don't blame him personally, though. I am just pointing out that there are important lessons to be
learned, as in all previous similar happenings.

KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software

Posted Jan 31, 2009 21:14 UTC (Sat) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link]

KDE will indeed probably be more popular with people who use a computer
regularly (for example those working in offices) and Gnome is more for the
casual grandma who checks mail once a month.

Then again, that might change. Gnome really needs to change stuff to get
development going again. Seeing how much time many KDE devs spend thinking
about usability makes me expect KDE to start doing much better in that
regard. 4.2 is already a clear testament to that, btw.

KDE 4, distributors, and bleeding-edge software

Posted Feb 2, 2009 12:18 UTC (Mon) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link]

In the desktop world there are 11 kinds of people.

There are those who think that having multiple desktop environment projects is counterproductive: a waste of valuable developer resources, and therefore a suboptimal user experience.

There are those who think that having multiple desktop environments means healthy competition between groups of developers competing for (one or two of) speed, features and stability, and therefore, ultimately, a better user experience.

And there are those who think that grandma should partake in the peeing contest.