Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities [LWN.net]

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 6, 2013 17:41 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
In reply to: Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities by Del-
Parent article: Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

> 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.
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.

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.

to post comments

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 6, 2013 17:53 UTC (Wed) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link] (1 responses)

Not that it changes much, but KDE 4.0.0 was released January 2008 ( http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.0/ ). So it took only three years. ;-)

Your comments about the limited manpower and its effects are obviously right.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 6, 2013 18:08 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

I'm talking about the start of the development. And I distinctly remember that the first beta versions of KDE were available before the Vista release (in 2006).

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 7, 2013 7:58 UTC (Thu) by Del- (guest, #72641) [Link] (25 responses)

> Folder view is not that much different from just putting a folder on the desktop, which is supported by pretty much everyone.

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.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 7, 2013 13:29 UTC (Thu) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (21 responses)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 7, 2013 17:58 UTC (Thu) by Del- (guest, #72641) [Link] (20 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?

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.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 7, 2013 20:44 UTC (Thu) by dvdeug (subscriber, #10998) [Link]

> 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.

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.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 7, 2013 21:02 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (2 responses)

So... You're telling us that KDE3 was too complex for regular users? Funny, but I know tens of people who used KDE3 just fine. It wasn't that much different from Other desktop environments.

On the other hand, I don't know anybody who used KDE4 with all of its Plasma and Activities functionality.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 7, 2013 22:27 UTC (Thu) by Del- (guest, #72641) [Link] (1 responses)

> So... You're telling us that KDE3 was too complex for regular users?

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.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 8, 2013 0:06 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Well, as a KDE fan, I find "discoverability" pretty crap. Is it a plasmoid I've got on my desktop? With things like firefox and thunderbird and other stuff in? Pretty nifty, I'll admit, but it took me absolutely ages to work out how to put stuff in it (and there's probably an easier way ...)

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,
Wol

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 7, 2013 23:39 UTC (Thu) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (1 responses)

Indeed, so users will need to have the brains necessary to populate their desktop with widgets.

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.

Your logic doesn't make sense. There was no way in hell KDE3 would make it out to average Joe.

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.

Even KDE4 is probably too advanced to make it out to a majority of users.

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?

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 8, 2013 7:17 UTC (Fri) by Del- (guest, #72641) [Link]

> And you might want to tone down your assessment of users "having the brains necessary",

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.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 8, 2013 14:41 UTC (Fri) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link] (13 responses)

> 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.

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.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 8, 2013 15:23 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

> 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.

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.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 8, 2013 22:03 UTC (Fri) by Del- (guest, #72641) [Link] (11 responses)

> 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

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.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 8, 2013 22:23 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (2 responses)

>I believe users do enjoy the improvements.
All three of them?

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).

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 9, 2013 0:11 UTC (Sat) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link]

I actually use the "activities" feature, with mixed results for now (some tasks are costlier/more difficult/slower, others the opposite).

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 9, 2013 8:12 UTC (Sat) by Del- (guest, #72641) [Link]

> All three of them?

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 ;)

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 8, 2013 23:24 UTC (Fri) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link] (4 responses)

> 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.

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.
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.

> An all in effort on KDE3 would do shit about Vista,
It would have saved more user from the tyranny of closed software. Even one more would be worth it.

>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.
"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.

> In system settings of course, you have always found all settings there
I stand corrected, but it took many years to arrive.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 9, 2013 0:49 UTC (Sat) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

> I stand corrected, but it took many years to arrive.

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.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 9, 2013 8:14 UTC (Sat) by peter-b (guest, #66996) [Link]

>> In system settings of course, you have always found all settings there
>I stand corrected, but it took many years to arrive.

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).

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 9, 2013 8:45 UTC (Sat) by Del- (guest, #72641) [Link]

> Users do *not* care about libraries. I'm sure the rewrite was justifiable if you are a developer.

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.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 9, 2013 11:51 UTC (Sat) by krake (guest, #55996) [Link]

> Are you listening to yourself? Users do *not* care about libraries.

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.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 9, 2013 11:41 UTC (Sat) by krake (guest, #55996) [Link]

> or even necessitate a rewrite across the board.

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.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 13, 2013 20:26 UTC (Wed) by ThinkRob (guest, #64513) [Link] (1 responses)

> From my sources Canonical priced Ubuntu licensing way to high, pusing the likes of ASUS to ship Linpus and Xandros on netbooks.

What do you mean "priced Ubuntu licensing"? It's free, not licensed, isn't it?

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 13, 2013 21:45 UTC (Wed) by Del- (guest, #72641) [Link]

For users who are ok with doing their own support, not for oem's like Asus who wants somebody to provide them with a ready made image and handle issues that arises. Why do you think they all went with custom made versions of xandros and linpus for the netbooks? They paid, and it was probably cheap. Why do you think Red Hat has paying customers when centos is free?

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 7, 2013 17:28 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (2 responses)

> Indeed, quite a fantastic feat don't you think?
I think it's quite pathetic.

>Google with all it's funding and developers needed about the same time to get Android decent.
Not comparable. KDE3 had most of features that users actually want.

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 7, 2013 18:01 UTC (Thu) by Del- (guest, #72641) [Link] (1 responses)

> I think it's quite pathetic.

Now you are just being grumpy. Come over to KDE and taste the kool-aid ;)

Seigo: on introducing new ideas to free software communities

Posted Nov 11, 2013 0:14 UTC (Mon) by efitton (guest, #93063) [Link]

I'm grumpy about it. A beautiful desktop stagnated. About the nicest thing I have heard about KDE since I left around 4.4 is that it is now good enough that people barely miss KDE 3.

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.