Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Posted Nov 5, 2013 17:11 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)Parent article: Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
OK, "permission" is not the right word for what developers should be asking of users -- but some awareness of what users need should be there. KDE4, GNOME3, Unity were all developed in the Steve Jobs mode of "users don't know what they want." But most people aren't Steve Jobs.
Yes, it's a horse that has been flogged repeatedly, but is it a dead horse? Why do we see the same story repeat, again and again, in open source software?
Posted Nov 5, 2013 17:31 UTC (Tue)
by armijn (subscriber, #3653)
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Posted Nov 5, 2013 18:25 UTC (Tue)
by aseigo (guest, #18394)
[Link] (32 responses)
" I suspect the userbase is still rather far from KDE3 levels"
Every single user survey has shown that KDE's user base has been retained as measured in % of users; as the userbase for Linux has grown, that implies that not only has Plasma Desktop maintained users, it has grown in absolute numbers. Just recently the reglue project switched to Plasma Desktop, and this seems to be in line with how things have been for the last few years.
In future, you may wish to use data rather than suspicions.
"but some awareness of what users need should be there"
Perhaps you meant to say "awareness of what I need" since our user base has grown and been very content. I respect *you* may not be satisfied, but we have a few million other people to also take into consideration, and we do. It is quite literally impossible to please everyone, and the choice inherent in Free software makes that easier for everyone.
Now .. while I do admire your creative efforts to keep bringing the topic up at every opportunity by reaching for some thread, no matter how thing, of connectivity ... can we discuss the actual content of the blog entry instead of re-hashing an unrelated topic?
p.s. there is no KDE4. KDE is the community, the product you are referring to is Plasma Desktop.
Posted Nov 5, 2013 20:26 UTC (Tue)
by ballombe (subscriber, #9523)
[Link] (10 responses)
Posted Nov 6, 2013 6:59 UTC (Wed)
by mgraesslin (guest, #78959)
[Link] (9 responses)
We can now also think about how relevant the data is, if the maximum is just 40k.
Posted Nov 6, 2013 11:57 UTC (Wed)
by dgm (subscriber, #49227)
[Link] (6 responses)
Yes, kdelibs5-data reached 40,000 once... for a month. Then returned to about 30,000 where it stays since.
> We can now also think about how relevant the data is, if the maximum is just 40k.
Popcon was opt-in, AFAIK, so it's only representative of people willing to share their configuration. Still...
Posted Nov 6, 2013 13:21 UTC (Wed)
by lynxlynxlynx (guest, #90121)
[Link] (1 responses)
Very odd to have such a short and large spike there.
Posted Nov 6, 2013 15:52 UTC (Wed)
by ballombe (subscriber, #9523)
[Link]
The % is the % of active submitter (active: last submission is less than 20 days old). Feel free to use the site to generate better graphs.
Posted Nov 6, 2013 14:49 UTC (Wed)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link] (3 responses)
There is something strange with these numbers. Where did all the users go? They did not go to XFCE, Gnome or LXDE. Seems like they went headless mode. This basically suggests that popcon numbers are not suited for tracking desktop users. I am one of the Debian KDE users that do not submit data to popcon.
Posted Nov 6, 2013 17:38 UTC (Wed)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
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Posted Nov 6, 2013 19:10 UTC (Wed)
by alejandronova (guest, #93813)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Nov 7, 2013 8:10 UTC (Thu)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link]
That makes sense. I am one of those who spent years on Kubuntu. On my way back home now though.
> Sid stays at 4.8
Not anymore, both Sid and testing have been at 4.10.5 for some weeks now. Only grievance I have is that some idiots convinced Debian that KDE was bloated, so I had a non-functional desktop after first install due to lax dependencies. Installing the kde-full package solved everything.
Posted Nov 6, 2013 22:06 UTC (Wed)
by ballombe (subscriber, #9523)
[Link] (1 responses)
which is what Aaron asked:
>> Every single user survey has shown that KDE's user base has been retained as measured in % of users;
> We can now also think about how relevant the data is, if the maximum is just 40k.
Nobody so far has proposed an alternative users survey with a larger user base. 160k users report is a lot.
Anyway I suppose KDE4 is the karmic retribution for having made KDE3 too close to perfection.
Posted Nov 7, 2013 6:48 UTC (Thu)
by mgraesslin (guest, #78959)
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Posted Nov 5, 2013 21:17 UTC (Tue)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link] (2 responses)
I think the reason why people bring up KDE 4 is that the blog post is so unspecific as to make us wonder which two communities it is that you were writing about. Were they the KDE (Vivaldi) and EOMA68 communities? Or were other communities involved? It may be a disappointment to you, but we don't monitor your every move on the Internet. (Certainly, as others point out, the "easier to ask for forgiveness than permission" adage is something that only sounds reasonable when narrowly applied. I became familiar with it in the Python language learning materials where it is used to advocate exception handling over conditional invocation of code that might fail if the conditions are inappropriate. I'm not sure that anyone meant it as some kind of general advice for interacting with other people.)
Posted Nov 6, 2013 7:03 UTC (Wed)
by mgraesslin (guest, #78959)
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I think the point of the blog post was that the two communities do not matter. It was a trigger to write that post, nothing more.
Posted Nov 6, 2013 8:16 UTC (Wed)
by aseigo (guest, #18394)
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(And no, the cases I referenced had nothing to do with Vivaldi :)
Posted Nov 6, 2013 0:56 UTC (Wed)
by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
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Posted Nov 8, 2013 16:28 UTC (Fri)
by N0NB (guest, #3407)
[Link] (16 responses)
Ultimately, Xfce may go some direction where it doesn't meet my needs and I'll be trying something else. That's life. If KDE is garnering new users because the project's offerings meet their needs, that is well and good. Likewise, it should have enough flexibility for users like me who like a lightweight desktop without things like desktop indexing (that's what locate(1) is for!) or some massive PIM database I'll never use, both of which seem mandatory (at least the last time I checked). I'm the user that wants more than just a window manager and yet much less than I seem forced to accept with KDE4 (or, whatever it's called these days). I've tried RazorQt and while it holds promise, it's not there yet for me.
Posted Nov 9, 2013 11:12 UTC (Sat)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link] (2 responses)
KDE applications and workspace products are independent, e.g.. applications can be used on workspaces of other vendors and vice versa.
Using applications on a workspace of the same vendor might unlock additional features, but both kinds of products are fully functional without the other.
Posted Nov 12, 2013 10:57 UTC (Tue)
by N0NB (guest, #3407)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Nov 12, 2013 11:27 UTC (Tue)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link]
File indexing might be on by default but can be turned off.
PIM applications are, well, applications and need to be started by the user or be part of a saved session (started by the user back then and saved as part of the session).
There's some PIM infrastructure services that get started on-demand, i.e. when something needs access to them. For example when a PIM application is started or when the Clock applet is configured to show calendar events.
Posted Nov 9, 2013 14:27 UTC (Sat)
by brianomahoney (guest, #6206)
[Link] (7 responses)
I took 1 look at kmail-2 and switched to to Claws.
I have just spent 18 hours rebuilding my desktop because some combination of .xxx settings caused Launcher to bus error, and I got neither useful logs, documentation or help as to how to fix this problem.
I am now considering which alternative desktop to use, which is reliable and debugable.
Another intended refugee.
Posted Nov 9, 2013 16:28 UTC (Sat)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link] (6 responses)
Posted Nov 12, 2013 11:27 UTC (Tue)
by N0NB (guest, #3407)
[Link] (5 responses)
Recommending reconfiguration of the many pieces of a complex modern desktop and then trying to sell it as a "feature" because the developers ignored QA 101 is insanity. My jaw dropped when I read, "It basically always solves such issues, and works as a nice reminder just how smooth configuring KDE is when you do it again." I'm sorry, Del, but this is not how or where we should be going! The goal should be to match the set and forget configuration nature of the majority of the packages in a Linux distribution. To offer this advice and praise it tells me that developers still have not gotten the message and are still more focused on 'Ohhh, shiny!' than on writing solid software that does not eat its own tail. This is massive fail and takes me out of the mood of trying KDE again for the foreseeable future.
Perhaps other users find these kinds of "fixes" acceptable. I do not, and software that forces that sort of "fix" on me gets replaced on my system by an alternative in short order. We can and should be doing be doing better, much better than the proprietary competition.
Posted Nov 12, 2013 22:27 UTC (Tue)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
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Unfotunately most users novadays find such fixes acceptable. Which means that software which “eats its own tail” wins because of positive feedback (you may despise all these 'Ohhh, shiny!' users, but the more these there are the more developers there and the more developers there the more real features you get as the result and these features then attract new users, etc). Why. The given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow law only works if there are enough eyeballs! And your beloved “proper” software is maintained by smaller and smaller number of people.
Posted Nov 13, 2013 21:36 UTC (Wed)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link] (3 responses)
I offered a user who gave me absolutely no hints help. The tip is highly effective, and is more or less the standard approach on any capable desktop when users or admins fuck it up without a clue to how. It has nothing to do with kde.
I took the opportunity to share that configuring kde is a breeze these days, a nice opportunity for you to place a strawman and behave like a jerk. I hope it made you feel good.
There may be some failed development, but if so you are nowhere near demonstrating it. The only thing you have demonstrated so far is your own disability to behave. Now get this into your head, *any* linux desktop can be messed up beyond any repair, if you don't like it then there is always locked down devices for you.
Posted Nov 14, 2013 12:05 UTC (Thu)
by nye (subscriber, #51576)
[Link] (1 responses)
I think your response is the one that's in the wrong here. The GP's post was polite and accurate, and I can't see anything in it that could seriously be considered controversial.
Your behaviour in this thread however has been arrogant and condescending, filled with personal attacks, with nearly every post being offensive.
I realise it can hurt when somebody points out that the emperor has no clothes, but that doesn't make it right to attack them in response.
Posted Nov 14, 2013 16:48 UTC (Thu)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link]
We have very different views on what is polite and accurate. For instance, I find putting a series of strawmen quite impolite and inaccurate.
> Your behaviour in this thread however has been arrogant and condescending, filled with personal attacks
I am sorry if you have read it that way. As far as I have seen I had one misplaced comment on brains, which I have duly excused for and tried to explain what I meant. KDE is feature rich, that is a fact. When I say that XFCE may be the right thing for you, I really mean it. Some people enjoy abundance of features, some people enjoy a mean and lean experience. There is nothing wrong with either, and I am very sorry if you somehow interpreted me to be arrogant and condescending because of that. Other than that I have no clue what you are talking about.
Posted Nov 23, 2013 12:36 UTC (Sat)
by brianomahoney (guest, #6206)
[Link]
The lack of time, care and professionalism, and the poor documentation are matched only by arrogant Oh ah over tertiary issues.
Posted Nov 9, 2013 16:30 UTC (Sat)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Nov 12, 2013 11:42 UTC (Tue)
by N0NB (guest, #3407)
[Link]
That myself and some other users are content with Xfce and don't miss "any of the abundant additional features or configurations available in KDE" should say something. That "something" can be argued as a failure of the users to understand the vision of the KDE developers or as a failure of the KDE developers to understand the needs of a certain segment of its former user base. Personally, I have played with many of the advanced features of various desktops over the years and have found them wanting when it comes to getting my daily tasks done. I now find Xfce a nice mix of desktop functionality and simplicity for getting my work done.
Posted Nov 15, 2013 20:01 UTC (Fri)
by brianomahoney (guest, #6206)
[Link] (2 responses)
sencond the same with egregious change to fullow sone developers sense of taste.
The problem is that hwen things go wrong, there is no way of telling what broke, and restoring a 'back to virgin .kde dump' often does not work and there is no way top debug anything. The documentation is out of date, incomplete and facile, and also disgustingly full of puff.
Posted Nov 15, 2013 20:25 UTC (Fri)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
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Posted Nov 15, 2013 23:58 UTC (Fri)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
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I'm not sure you can have both of those at once. Pick one. Is it moving too fast or too slowly? :)
Posted Nov 5, 2013 19:06 UTC (Tue)
by halla (subscriber, #14185)
[Link] (45 responses)
Bullshit. As far as KDE4 goes, utter _bullshit_. Just stop spouting that crap. Being a computational biologist who's been using Linux for a long time doesn't exactly make you an expert on developing user-faced software, you know. Rather the reverse, I'd say.
The KDE software isn't developed in that dictorial, cathedral-like fashion that you claim. Its a huge and burgeoning community doing all kinds of things. During the KDE4 development cycle, the number of new contributors grew -- developers, artists, users, testers, everyone was welcome, and a lot of great stuff happened. KDE4 was a huge achievement by a huge community of volunteer hackers. Just go back, read the blogs, the news items. Anyone who wanted to be part of it was welcome. It was great fun!
And when it was released, and all the lazy layabouts who had stood aside during development were, of course, calling for the aristocrat-coders to go to the tumbril. Probably the only way they could have kept their self-respect. "Confess", they shouted, those cynics and pundits, "Admit how bad you are!" And, having addicted themselves to drawing the blood of the people who are actually doing the work, they are still braying for it. Can't get enough of it.
Bah. If it weren't so sad, I'd laugh.
Posted Nov 5, 2013 19:56 UTC (Tue)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (40 responses)
Turned out that vendors couldn't care less about KDE4 and the only device (Vivaldi tablet) has never materialized. Most KDE3 users I know just switched to Xfce or some other light-weight environment, a couple went to GNOME3.
So yeah, you can say whatever you want, but KDE4 was not a roaring success it was meant to be by developers.
Posted Nov 5, 2013 21:18 UTC (Tue)
by nhasan (guest, #1699)
[Link] (5 responses)
On the other hand, I am really fed up with these armchair critics with a big sense of entitlement. If you don't like something move on to something else instead of spewing venom for years against people who work to give you something. Just say "Thanks but no thanks." Now is that too much to ask?
Posted Nov 5, 2013 21:40 UTC (Tue)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (3 responses)
KDE4.0 should never have been released to the community in general, because most of the necessary apps WEREN'T there, because it's hard to develop on quicksand if the API keeps changing underneath you.
Unfortunately, as is the nature of open development, naive users did get their hands on 4.0 (or had it foisted on them) and of course they were upset because most of the superstructure (unsurprisingly) didn't work.
Not helped, unfortunately, by the disaster that was semantic-desktop/strigi/nepomuk. Why the f*** would I want something *enabled* *by* *default* that gives me HALF AN HOUR boot times (if not longer) and is touted as "speeding up all those things I never do".
That is why I now have both XFCE and LXDE now installed, although I rarely have cause to use either (apart from my old Y2K era system which is far too long in the tooth really. Maxed out with RAM in the *mega*bytes).
Cheers,
Posted Nov 5, 2013 23:29 UTC (Tue)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link] (2 responses)
Meanwhile, Tracker still manages to saturate the CPU and I/O bandwidth in its relentless quest to make absolutely everything on my system searchable. No wonder Debian will switch to XFCE: I bet they've had a lot of bug reports about people not being able to interact with their computers and that "Linux has become slow".
One related thing that annoys me about KDE 4, erm, Plasma Desktop is the way that you can't launch applications for a while after the panel has loaded. That feature of Windows surely didn't need to be copied. I really liked the way KDE 3 was interactive immediately after the splash screen went away.
Posted Nov 7, 2013 19:42 UTC (Thu)
by ovitters (guest, #27950)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Nov 7, 2013 23:23 UTC (Thu)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link]
I remember loosely following the furore about Tracker and whether it was written appropriately. Having had some experience with database and indexing systems, there are situations where you just want to crunch the data as quickly as you can, and you get used to seeing big numbers in things like vmstat.
Quite how Tracker manages to tie up lots of resources while established data processing solutions generally do not might have something to do with a "perfect storm" of sub-optimally stored data - rather likely given the "scan the filesystem" nature of desktop search - and processor-intensive data extraction tools. Database and indexing systems tackle the former issue head on, of course, as I suspect Tracker also does once it has populated its index.
The solution is to dial down the aggressiveness of the indexing instead of assuming that the scheduler will keep things civilised. Sadly, I rather suspect that people have experienced Tracker's "warming up" period and have written off Debian and other distributions as a result.
Random Internet page showing that this isn't just me: http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-her...
Posted Nov 6, 2013 9:47 UTC (Wed)
by renox (guest, #23785)
[Link]
In fact the KDE project did *exactly* what Aaron Seigo describes as a bad idea..
Posted Nov 6, 2013 3:07 UTC (Wed)
by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Nov 6, 2013 9:56 UTC (Wed)
by niner (subscriber, #26151)
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Posted Nov 6, 2013 11:20 UTC (Wed)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (1 responses)
Remember that this is your *opinion* and it is not shared by everyone.
Personally, I found the Gnome3 paradigm an immeasurable improvement over what came before.
(And Ubuntu doesn't have anything special as far as hardware support is concerned, unless you are referring to the inclusion of binary-only drivers. Similarly, configuring Ubuntu for non-default settings is of the same order of complexity/difficulty as any other Linux distribution. Now perhaps their *defaults* are saner, at least for their target audience, but that is a separate discussion.)
Posted Nov 6, 2013 19:41 UTC (Wed)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
Cheers,
Posted Nov 6, 2013 14:15 UTC (Wed)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link] (29 responses)
I think everybody can agree today that Nepomuk was overly ambitious, and that making key components like KMail depend on it early on was a mistake. I believe that is exactly the dead dog we would like to bury once and for all. Unfortunately fixing Nepomuk (and by proxy KMail) has taken quite a bit of time, but I would say we are largely at that point now.
What is there not to like about plasma? It is excellent. I don't use too many plasmoids myself, but the folder view and lancelot are both very addictive. It gives a level of customization that I really love. If you don't see it, then just crawl back to the endless icons of IOS and let the rest of us enjoy a proper workspace.
It is worth noting that besides Nepomuk related issues, there seems to be very little criticism of KDE. Makes me wonder, how many here has tested the latest reincarnation of the semantic desktop as seen in 4.11? Actually it is quite decent in the 4.10.5 version that ships with Debian testing these days.
Thanks Aaron for a great post, please keep up the good work. I believe KDE will retake the linux desktop within a couple of years. I love it, and enjoy it every day.
Posted Nov 6, 2013 17:41 UTC (Wed)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (28 responses)
And again, it took KDE about 6 years (from 2005 to about 2011) to become good enough for tasks that were working pretty much flawlessly in KDE3.
I think that was a result of diffusion of efforts. Lots of attention went to the "Activities" feature and all the Plasma stuff with only limited manpower. And stability got worse as a result.
Posted Nov 6, 2013 17:53 UTC (Wed)
by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742)
[Link] (1 responses)
Your comments about the limited manpower and its effects are obviously right.
Posted Nov 6, 2013 18:08 UTC (Wed)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
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Posted Nov 7, 2013 7:58 UTC (Thu)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link] (25 responses)
No, it is not. It is a neat way to organize, distribute and maintain all my shortcuts across all my desktops. I haven't put any icons on any of my desktops in years. You have spent far too long away, come home and enjoy all the KDE goodies.
> And again, it took KDE about 6 years (from 2005 to about 2011) to become good enough for tasks that were working pretty much flawlessly in KDE3.
Indeed, quite a fantastic feat don't you think? Google with all it's funding and developers needed about the same time to get Android decent.
> Lots of attention went to the "Activities" feature and all the Plasma stuff
Not really. Keep up with KDE and you will see that most developers work on other stuff (like getting the applications up to level). However, I am very grateful for the efforts that went into plasma. It is now rock solid, while the Karamba stuff in KDE3 never got anywhere near stable, that was a rather large frustration to me.
On a general note, bashing choices made years ago is all too easy. For the semantic desktop, it got substantial EU funding. Shit hit the fan when the funding stopped. You should take the time to understand the background before attacking the developers we depend on. You should realize that failing to do so is a provocation. Today, Blue systems have stepped up, and KDE is in better shape than ever.
Posted Nov 7, 2013 13:29 UTC (Thu)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link] (21 responses)
Isn't folder view the thing where you have a "plasmoid" on the desktop background that behaves like a panel or bottom-of-the-stack window containing icons? It's certainly an improvement over managing icons on a normal desktop, but it can also confuse the uninitiated when they accidentally close the "plasmoid" and wonder where their icons went. Fantastic it may be, but those were six lost years as far as getting Free Software in front of people and building on earlier achievements are concerned. Nobody should be patting themselves on the back that someone in 2013 can move from KDE 3 to KDE 4 and feel that at least they didn't lose much functionality.
Posted Nov 7, 2013 17:58 UTC (Thu)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link] (20 responses)
Yes.
> but it can also confuse the uninitiated when they accidentally close the "plasmoid"
Indeed, so users will need to have the brains necessary to populate their desktop with widgets. For those who are not up to it, I suggest moving over to something IOS like. I really do not want KDE dumbed down that far.
> Fantastic it may be, but those were six lost years as far as getting Free Software in front of people and building on earlier achievements are concerned.
Your logic doesn't make sense. There was no way in hell KDE3 would make it out to average Joe. I loved it, but let's face it,the whole design of KDE3 (including apps) was a nerd fest of functionality straight in your face. One of the key achievements of KDE4 is to provide a superior level of functionality with a much more user friendly wrapping. Even KDE4 is probably too advanced to make it out to a majority of users. Those years were not lost, they were invested to give all of us a fantastic desktop. I cannot fathom why any of us need to look twice at any other desktop, KDE4 is light years ahead.
Posted Nov 7, 2013 20:44 UTC (Thu)
by dvdeug (guest, #10998)
[Link]
Right. Being a nerd, telling me that KDE4 evolved away from that doesn't really entice me. I'm not buying KDE or GNOME, because neither of them seem to be selling to me.
Posted Nov 7, 2013 21:02 UTC (Thu)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (2 responses)
On the other hand, I don't know anybody who used KDE4 with all of its Plasma and Activities functionality.
Posted Nov 7, 2013 22:27 UTC (Thu)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link] (1 responses)
Yes, your nerd friends don't count ;) Note, it wasn't just the desktop, it was also present throughout the applications. Today you have superior functionality across the board, but it is not in your face.
> On the other hand, I don't know anybody who used KDE4 with all of its Plasma and Activities functionality.
Well, it is hard to assess your social life, but I do know a number of people using plasma. I also use it myself. Activities is a bit more exotic, haven't really caught me yet. However, notice that you choose to focus on two functionalities that were either non-functional/extremely buggy (karamba) or non-existent (Activities) in KDE3. Neither of which you seem to have gathered first hand experience on. Neither of which you find worthy alternatives for in any other desktop. Yes, even nerds like me enjoy the cleaner user experience with even more functionality than KDE3 ever had.
If you take the time to investigate the design and functionality of the filemanager in KDE, Dolphin, you should understand what I am talking about. It is only an example, move on to investigate Okular, Gwenview, Amarok, Ktorrent, Konsole, Kdenlive, System Settings, Ksysguard, Rekonq, Kontact, Kdevelop, Kate, Kile, Krita Digikam, Ksnapshot, you will see it across the board. The desktop itself really tops it off, just the way users can share various goodies from kde-look.org is amazing and miles ahead of KDE3 or any other desktop on any OS.
Posted Nov 8, 2013 0:06 UTC (Fri)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
And it's disappeared from my wife's desktop, and I haven't got a clue how to get it back if she wanted it ...
And I have to strongly agree with the poster who said familiarity is important. My wife has Parkinsons, so she has poor motor control, and learning is very hard because Parkinsons plays havoc with the link between short and long term memory - how are people like her supposed to cope if the user paradigm keeps changing?
That said, it's also important that the developers think the same way as the user - you may remember I hate Word(-alikes) and love WordPerfect - because the underlying mindset between the two is different and my mindset matches WordPerfect's. That's probably why I like KDE and actively avoid Gnome :-)
Cheers,
Posted Nov 7, 2013 23:39 UTC (Thu)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link] (1 responses)
Well, I thought that there wasn't another choice in the matter (and maybe there wasn't in earlier versions of KDE 4), but I guess you can choose the traditional desktop background and ignore widgets entirely, although this may need some undoing of the defaults in a from-scratch installation. And you might want to tone down your assessment of users "having the brains necessary", partly because it sounds offensive, partly because the ability to operate someone's often-contrived interaction mechanisms doesn't necessarily correspond to "having brains", and mostly because the game of "hit the pixel" and "find the invisible controls" increasingly seen in graphical environments are an affront to usability and to anyone who doesn't have tip-top motor skills and optimised equipment to make the experience a pleasurable one. Huh? I met people who rolled out KDE 1 to average Joes, albeit in a workplace setting. Meanwhile, people demand the reinstatement of the Start button in Windows 8 and reminisce about the "good old days" of Windows 95. If the usability experts spoke to real people in their own environments, they'd realise pretty quickly that people like what they already know, and KDE 3 was quite a lot like what they already knew. And here we have to ask how you square that statement with the stuff you wrote above? Should we bury KDE 4 for a more sophisticated civilisation to enjoy given that our current one apparently isn't up to it?
Posted Nov 8, 2013 7:17 UTC (Fri)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link]
Sorry about that, never meant to offend anybody. I simply wanted to state my observation that users of KDE need to know how to populate their desktop (including taskbar). Simply because it is just a question of time before they mess it up. Hence you need to know what the basic widgets are and how to put them on the panel.
It is not that different from Android, also on Android people basically need to understand how to populate their screen with widgets to obtain a good user experience.
The reason I say that users need the brains (or equivalently training) is simply because I don't see how it could be implemented much more user friendly. Moreover, I really love widgets whether it is on my desktop or my phone (not that I use that many of them, but those I use I really enjoy). I think KDE has struck a good balance between catering to the likes of me and still keeping discoverability and user friendliness at a good level. There is no inconsistency in what I am saying, simply interpret it by the fact that I like KDE as it is. I am not a believer in one-size-fits-all. Things can be improved of course, but this discussion hasn't even begun looking at how.
Posted Nov 8, 2013 14:41 UTC (Fri)
by sorpigal (guest, #36106)
[Link] (13 responses)
This is nonsense. KDE3 didn't have problems that a regular user would care about which could not have been fixed by a good going-over to clean up and organize menus and control panels. That's all that was holding it back where usability is concerned. All the infrastructure improvements in KDE4 are the sorts of things that developers like and regular users don't notice or want to hear about.
There's no question KDE4 is better now, but the way it was transitioned was wrong wrong wrong. At a time when Windows users were looking for alternatives out of a fear of Vista all they found from KDE was a buggy early 4.x instead of the stability that would have lead to more switching. A great opportunity to convert many users to a Free OS was lost because KDE was in a period of infrastructure churn that was not *necessary*, however nice the results.
> I cannot fathom why any of us need to look twice at any other desktop, KDE4 is light years ahead.
So where is the key binding manager? In KDE I still have to use xbindkeys and bbkeys to drive windows and have shortcuts. Sounds like blackbox is ahead, to me.
Posted Nov 8, 2013 15:23 UTC (Fri)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link]
ISTR there being a global keybindings editor somewhere under systemsettings. It had checkboxes for CapsLock-as-Backspace and ShiftRAlt-as-AltGr (which is what I use). I also had a boatload of bindings set for KWin to manipulate windows.
Posted Nov 8, 2013 22:03 UTC (Fri)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link] (11 responses)
I beg to differ. The transition to Qt4 combined with opening the path to platform independent libraries was alone enough to warrant or even necessitate a rewrite across the board. Deep ranging changes like plasma and (yes) the semantic desktop was also infrastructure that would be rather challenging to do by refactoring KDE3. I believe users do enjoy the improvements.
> At a time when Windows users were looking for alternatives out of a fear of Vista all they found from KDE was a buggy early 4.x instead of the stability that would have lead to more switching. A great opportunity to convert many users to a Free OS was lost because KDE was in a period of infrastructure churn that was not *necessary*, however nice the results.
I am afraid our perceptions are wildly differing on this issue. From my end of the universe Ubuntu was the only hope of getting users over from Vista. Ubuntu hedged all their bets on Gnome way before KDE4 became an issue. Moreover, our shot was through the netbooks. From my sources Canonical priced Ubuntu licensing way to high, pusing the likes of ASUS to ship Linpus and Xandros on netbooks. Users got a horrible experience. End of story. An all in effort on KDE3 would do shit about Vista, and only serve to keep KDE on a dead end Qt3 for several years. Whethet pushing Ubuntu on netbooks would have made any difference is also an open question. Personally I believe GNU/Linux is in a much better position today than back then, and I am afraid we need another couple of years before we really have a viable desktop alternative. With a focussed Canonical we could get there faster, but that is I am afraid not going to happen.
> So where is the key binding manager?
In system settings of course, you have always found all settings there. Gnome is finally copying it.
Posted Nov 8, 2013 22:23 UTC (Fri)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (2 responses)
I haven't seen _anyone_ using the "Activities" feature yet. People generally continue to use KDE4 as a yet-another-classic-desktop (it works pretty well for this right now).
Posted Nov 9, 2013 0:11 UTC (Sat)
by hummassa (subscriber, #307)
[Link]
Posted Nov 9, 2013 8:12 UTC (Sat)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link]
Now you are just being grumpy again. There are vastly more than three users, and vastly more than three improvements, both thoroughly documented in this thread already. Try upping the quality of your posts a couple of notches ;)
Posted Nov 8, 2013 23:24 UTC (Fri)
by sorpigal (guest, #36106)
[Link] (4 responses)
Are you listening to yourself? Users do *not* care about libraries. I'm sure the rewrite was justifiable if you are a developer.
> I believe users do enjoy the improvements.
> An all in effort on KDE3 would do shit about Vista,
>and only serve to keep KDE on a dead end Qt3 for several years.
What toolkit does Windows use? How many generations have there been and how many times were applications totally rewritten because a new toolkit version was available?
The lesson here is that you don't have to throw it all out to improve it. No, *really*, you don't.
> Personally I believe GNU/Linux is in a much better position today than back then, and I am afraid we need another couple of years before we really have a viable desktop alternative.
> In system settings of course, you have always found all settings there
Posted Nov 9, 2013 0:49 UTC (Sat)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link]
FTR, I remember it and I used KDE4 from 4.0.3 until 4.4 or so. So it has been here for years as well.
Posted Nov 9, 2013 8:14 UTC (Sat)
by peter-b (guest, #66996)
[Link]
I've used KDE4 since 4.0.0 and I'm *know* that there's been a convenient GUI for making keyboard layout modifications since then (I swap Ctrl and Caps Lock and I've never had to muck around with xmodmap on a KDE system).
Posted Nov 9, 2013 8:45 UTC (Sat)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link]
Sure, join the Trinity crew then and see how far Qt3 will bring you. Qt4 enables technology that users do care about. The development speed of Rekonq given it was a one developer hobby for a long time is a good example. Yes that is an application, but it equally goes for the desktop infrastructure as well. Qt has made great strides the last years. Users do care about platform independence too. I love the fact that VLC is available on Android, and I look forward to getting Kontact on touch screens. Yes many of us would like to see plasma on devices now, so it does related to the desktop too.
Most of it was not attainable on Qt3 in any sane manner.
> It would have saved more user from the tyranny of closed software. Even one more would be worth it.
I think it is fair to conclude that I have much higher hopes for GNU/Linux, and disagree strongly that a few more users would warrant staying on Qt3. I don't even see why this is an issue. Debian stayed with KDE3 until 2011, Red Hat did too. The only reason for average Joe to jump on KDE4 was because some nerd told him it would be better. I am afraid I cannot make any sense out of what you are saying.
> What toolkit does Windows use?
You should ask Microsoft that, it is closed source so I don't care. However, you cannot seriously believe that they handled the destkop issue better? Both Vista and Win8 have been catastrophes. What saves them is billions of dollars in revenue with vast resources of full time programmers. KDE has nothing even remotely comparable.
> how many times were applications totally rewritten
Quite a few actually, the (forced) transition from Visual Basic to .Net springs to mind. Almost killed some software companies in my vicinity.
> "Another couple years" is where we've been since 1998 at least.
Not close. I would say the first time I felt it was with Ubuntu 7.04, even more strongly with Ubuntu 10.04. So I installed it on computers for several of my acquaintances that were not computer savvy. I quickly concluded that the statement was false, but it has nothing to do with the KDE4 ordeal.
To give you a hint, we just about now starts to have solid wireless drivers, stable suspend/hibernate (a necessity for productive use of Activities, did you get that Cyberaxe?). We see much better support for critical third party apps (think Spotify, Skype), we have just started on providing gaming (Valve will need at least one more year before Steam is a viable alternative on linux). Graphics drivers will still need a couple of years. No, Nvidia doesn't cut it, Linus was right in giving them the finger. Optimus alone was enough to keep linux away from the desktop the last two years. Now you may understand why linux never before really was an option on the desktop for the masses. For us nerds it became an alternative with ubuntu 7.04, before that it was just painful. You may brand me a masochist.
Posted Nov 9, 2013 11:51 UTC (Sat)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link]
This is only partially true.
While users of course do not care about libraries themselves, they care a lot about what applications developers can deliver given those libraries.
This is especially true for applications created by KDE developers because of KDE's wide range of libraries which provide a significant part of what users perceive to be application features.
Improvements in libraries can both yield direct improvements in applications and free up application developer resources for domain specific work. Both things that users care about, independent of whether they are about libraries as program building blocks themselves.
Posted Nov 9, 2013 11:41 UTC (Sat)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link]
Since the thread uses very vague terms it is hard to judge and conflicting statements make it even worse.
"rewrite" would indicate that the item in question is KDE's desktop shell, which was rewritten using Plasma technologies.
"across the board", on the other hand, sounds more like referring to KDE's wide range of products, which, contradictingly, have mostly not been rewritten, just simply ported.
Since the comment you are replying to sounds like it is addressing the first option (desktop), I think a more accurate assessment would be that the rewrite was necessary because of the old code base having reached an unmaintainable state.
While the comment asserts that regular users would have not run into any problems, reality looked very different back then.
Given the option of rewriting the same thing again or trying something new, the developers option for the latter.
It is debatable whether that second choice was the best possible or whether rewriting KDesktop and Kicker from scratch would have yielded better results.
But I think it is important to understand that the rewrite itself of at least some of the involved desktop components was inevitable unless one wanted to face dropping the desktop shell product completely after a couple of months of increasingly painful maintenance work.
Posted Nov 13, 2013 20:26 UTC (Wed)
by ThinkRob (guest, #64513)
[Link] (1 responses)
What do you mean "priced Ubuntu licensing"? It's free, not licensed, isn't it?
Posted Nov 13, 2013 21:45 UTC (Wed)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link]
Posted Nov 7, 2013 17:28 UTC (Thu)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (2 responses)
>Google with all it's funding and developers needed about the same time to get Android decent.
Posted Nov 7, 2013 18:01 UTC (Thu)
by Del- (guest, #72641)
[Link] (1 responses)
Now you are just being grumpy. Come over to KDE and taste the kool-aid ;)
Posted Nov 11, 2013 0:14 UTC (Mon)
by efitton (guest, #93063)
[Link]
As for the kool-aid, I know the story of Jonestown. ;-). More honestly, I think after feeling disappointed repeatedly many of us just aren't willing to take the time to look at KDE anymore. Maybe if kasbar was back I'd sneak a peak, but without that killer feature? No thanks.
Posted Nov 6, 2013 1:11 UTC (Wed)
by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Nov 6, 2013 5:59 UTC (Wed)
by rqosa (subscriber, #24136)
[Link]
Up until last year, I regularly used KDE on my 5 year old desktop (now 6 years old) with decent performance — and now, on my 1 year old notebook it runs really fast. (Also, I generally configure it to disable the full file indexer, but leave Nepomuk enabled.)
Posted Nov 6, 2013 17:50 UTC (Wed)
by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742)
[Link]
This was really more or less the least suitable point in time to switch away from KDE4.
Posted Nov 7, 2013 10:13 UTC (Thu)
by ovitters (guest, #27950)
[Link]
As mentioned and requested various times before: This is ancient history, discussed many times in the past. Reraising this so many times in this article is kind of obnoxious, especially when trying to expand your scope (KDE4, GNOME3, etc).
Again: please stop.
Thanks.
Posted Nov 6, 2013 6:10 UTC (Wed)
by rqosa (subscriber, #24136)
[Link] (3 responses)
> KDE4, GNOME3, Unity were all developed in the Steve Jobs mode of "users don't know what they want." KDE4 had problems with being too buggy (especially in earlier versions) and performance regressions on older hardware, but it did not make major changes to the user interface like the others have done.
Posted Nov 6, 2013 6:36 UTC (Wed)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Nov 6, 2013 7:32 UTC (Wed)
by rqosa (subscriber, #24136)
[Link] (1 responses)
> they were optional Disabled by default, too — run Plasma Desktop for the first time in a new user's home directory, and the default desktop configuration that appears will be similar in appearance to that of KDE3. Plus, it seems to me that Activities are basically just a variation on the theme of "virtual desktops", and similarly Plasmoids are (at least in the context of Plasma Desktop rather than Plasma Active) basically KDE's implementation of the "panel applets / desktop applets" concept; so, the main user-visible features that are new to KDE4 don't really seem like huge changes from the user's perspective.
Posted Nov 6, 2013 17:58 UTC (Wed)
by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742)
[Link]
They add another layer of separation, at least. In the meantime I find it very useful to have an activity for work and an activity for private stuff, so this is nicely separated.
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Aaron, I am sorry to blow your dream, but at least popcon.debian.org
is a large scale user survey that shows quite the opposite:
Anecdoctically, popcon reports currently 144 installs of kdelibs-data-trinity.
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
At least I did a couple of years ago.
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
can we discuss the actual content of the blog entry instead of re-hashing an unrelated topic?
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
To offer this advice and praise it tells me that developers still have not gotten the message and are still more focused on 'Ohhh, shiny!' than on writing solid software that does not eat its own tail. This is massive fail and takes me out of the mood of trying KDE again for the foreseeable future.
I do not, and software that forces that sort of "fix" on me gets replaced on my system by an alternative in short order. We can and should be doing be doing better, much better than the proprietary competition.
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Emblemically the Wrong Answer
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Not the issue ... At all
First if I wanted software that rotted on the vine, I would have chosen the Original - Windows,
Not the issue ... At all
Not the issue ... At all
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
And what everyone forgets ...
Wol
And what everyone forgets ...
And what everyone forgets ...
And what everyone forgets ...
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
So I'm not surprised that XFce and a Qt based desktop(non KDE) seems to gather momentum.
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Each to their own ...
Wol
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Personally, I keep my desktop uncluttered with only a couple of icons. Folder view is not that much different from just putting a folder on the desktop, which is supported by pretty much everyone.
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
It is a neat way to organize, distribute and maintain all my shortcuts across all my desktops. I haven't put any icons on any of my desktops in years.
Indeed, quite a fantastic feat don't you think? Google with all it's funding and developers needed about the same time to get Android decent.
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Wol
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Indeed, so users will need to have the brains necessary to populate their desktop with widgets.
Your logic doesn't make sense. There was no way in hell KDE3 would make it out to average Joe.
Even KDE4 is probably too advanced to make it out to a majority of users.
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
All three of them?
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Let's back up and look again. *Some* users probably like *some* of the features that were built atop the better infrastructure, but very little of it was unattainable with the old base (just not as pleasant) and none of it required a clean break.
It would have saved more user from the tyranny of closed software. Even one more would be worth it.
"Another couple years" is where we've been since 1998 at least. I read it as code for "Never." If we have a thriving desktop in terms of popularty in two years feel free to hit me up for a traditional "I win" subscription to Playboy.
I stand corrected, but it took many years to arrive.
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
>I stand corrected, but it took many years to arrive.
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
I think it's quite pathetic.
Not comparable. KDE3 had most of features that users actually want.
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
I was using KDE3 until KDE 4.5 came out, before I didn't consider it a real replacement. Since then I'm perfectly happy, it's much nicer than before. Also no crashes or anything.
Stop beating a dead horse!
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities
Ideally this should be supported by all applications, so that e.g. in the "work" text editor you get a different list of recent files than in the "private" text editor, etc.