The Open Web: KDE frees the web from the browser [LWN.net]

The Open Web: KDE frees the web from the browser

Posted Oct 15, 2009 15:14 UTC (Thu) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link]

I'd be happier if people stopped posting "Oh no! They didn't fix my favourite issue and are working on something else instead!" messages whenever a free software, volunteer-based project shows some initiative.

Guess I won't get my wish either, but I cannot do anything about the whining of people who show a basic lack of understanding how volunteer- bugs you feel strongly about.

(And, for the record, I'm using screen in konsole every day, all day long, and I don't recall having a problem. Not to say you're whining about something non-existing, but I guess that the konsole developers (all two of them, and none of them are involved in project silk) don't have that problem either. So, if you want to be happy, it's up to you to scratch your itch, or to pay someone to fix the problem. And I wouldn't even have a clue about what you mean with the other problems you mention, so they probably don't hurt all that many people.)

The Open Web: KDE frees the web from the browser

Posted Oct 15, 2009 17:54 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]

This kind of flaming does nobody any favours, least of all the reputation of the KDE project.

FWIW, the features the OP would like would be extremely difficult (I think impossible) to implement without modifications to screen, except possibly using some deeply ugly hacks, however I do have the following in my bashrc, which the OP *might* find of some use:

function ssh-reagent () {
    for agent in /tmp/ssh-*/agent.*; do
        export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=$agent
        if ssh-add -l 2>&1 > /dev/null; then
            echo Found working SSH Agent:
            ssh-add -l
            return
        fi
    done
    . ~/.ssh-agent
    if ssh-add -l 2>&1 > /dev/null; then
        echo Found working SSH Agent:
        ssh-add -l
        return
    fi
    echo Cannot find ssh agent - maybe you should reconnect and forward it?
}

The Open Web: KDE frees the web from the browser

Posted Oct 15, 2009 18:49 UTC (Thu) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link]

Flaming? I wouldn't call what I said flaming -- just expressing being fed up with people complaining about completely unrelated things in reaction to announcements.

It's quite the fashion these days to make that sort of remark, but it makes me sick. And it shows a complete lack of understanding of the way a large volunteer-driven free software project works: it is made up of many individuals, who all work on what they find interesting, and any request to reallocate effort from one sub-project to another to gratify the poster is mere pointy-haired-bossiness. Fine, this subproject is of no interest to Mtk -- what's the problem? There are tens of thousands of projects that don't fix Mtk's bugs -- will he or she post a complaint with every announcement?

If mtk is interested in terminal emulation, he or she should get involved. I know it's an unpopular message these days, but it's the only way forward. Pay up or submit patches but don't whine in the comments section of a website.

The Open Web: KDE frees the web from the browser

Posted Oct 15, 2009 19:05 UTC (Thu) by mtk (subscriber, #804) [Link]

any attention (even negative) from someone on the inside is good. no need to rehash the eternal complain vs contribute argument. my point was this: at the end of the day, merging screen into konsole (and into gnome-terminal) would have a greater impact on my every day use than deploying a browser-independent social networking desktop. a power user argument for sure, and thus not generally applicable. but this is LWN after all :-).

The Open Web: KDE frees the web from the browser

Posted Oct 15, 2009 20:13 UTC (Thu) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link]

I work on a suite of KDE applications, that's true, but I'm no more on the
inside of konsole development or project silk than you -- and I still
don't get why you ask for bug fixing on konsole instead in response to
this announcement instead of, say, an announcement of the next KOffice
beta or Gimp release.

The Open Web: KDE frees the web from the browser

Posted Oct 20, 2009 5:16 UTC (Tue) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]

Without any comment on the state of any KDE projects, it is kind of frightening how there's almost no quality terminal maintained anymore.

Xterm works fine, but has really wonky ui, worst part is broken scrollbar.

rxvt: dead

urxvt: features in perl....

mrxvt: kind of cargo cult

gnome terminal and backing library: paste bugs, fat

konsole: don't know this one as well, but the list of dependencies is long -- dont' really need a lot of stderr spew from my terminals.

the best of the lot is urxvt, but more love for terminals would be nice, given how important they are.