The "E" in "KDE" (more or less was: KDE RC Authority)

[Klas Kalass]

Am Freitag, 5. Juli 2002 14:38 schrieb Rob Kaper:
[..]
> To answer the first two questions, well, that has been made a lot trickier
> with kdeextragear. Apparently it is part of KDE, because it will be
> released as a package by us. But apparently not, because it will be
> released seperate
It is a part of KDE, but will never be released as a package. It is supposed 
to be some kind of "pool" for applications that deserve to be considered part 
of the KDE project (and are stable so they do not fit into kdenonbeta) but 
can't be in the main KDE Distribution for whatever reason. 

>
> >from the rest of KDE.
>
> I urge all of us to seriously think about the implications of not having a
> clear determination of the contents of KDE releases. If we can not agree on
> this, we're fscked. Different packagers will include different applications
> and they will all call it KDE x.y.z. Some might even make intermediate
> releases with application updates and create "KDE" version numbers never
> present in *our* development and release cycle.
The clear determination of the contents of a KDE release is the goal for which 
I proposed the extra gear. See above.

>
> This would make the only part of KDE where we have control over releasing
> it the way we want it kdelibs and I fear that this might lead to a
> situation where the project as we now know it will focus on developing the
> API, the framework, the core.

>
> kdeextragear sounds like a step towards that scenario. It does not resolve
> "what applications are part of KDE", it rather dodges the question
> alltogether by leaving the decision up to the packagers. Right now this is
I hope that this will never happen, because that is certainly not the idea 
behind it.

> about CD burners, but it might soon affect network (kit vs. Kopete for
> example) and as KDE continues to grow in size we will only get more and
> more application maintainers who would like to be part of the official
> release.
To be part of the release they still have to be in one of the "old" modules.

[...]
>
> Again, my fears of KDE degrading into an API instead of an environment
> might not be justified. If you agree with me that
>
> - we should continue building an environment and not just a framework,
Agree
> - we should not have duplicate applications and
Agree
> - we should get rid of kdeextragear as soon as possible because it will
> hurt the environment,
I hope you don't think that anymore, after clearing up the idea behind the 
extra gear.

>
> then please stand up.
>
> If you don't think this is important, also please stand up. If the majority
> feels like the current situation is not a serious problem, that is fine by
> me. I am convinced that those who do remember Matthias' vision will create
> a very succesful fork to release a desktop environment instead of a
> framework which might or might not include certain applications.
>
> To underline how serious this issue is to me: if anyone feels Atlantik is
> not suitable for the KDE environment because it uses it's own framework
> (for monopd compatibility) instead of KGame, I will pull it from kdegames
> immediately and make third-party releases only. The quality of the KDE
> environment is more important to me than the ego-boost of having my
> application on all those shiny CDs carrying KDE.
>
> Thanks for reading. Thanks in advance for responding objectively.
>
> Rob

Rob, 
I feel guilty of not having communicated the idea of extra gear clearly 
enough. As I understand your post you are asking for exactly the thing the 
extra gear was created for: Keep KDE Releases clean. So I hope you take the 
"get rid of extragear" part out of your list now and we are all happy :)

Quote from a different mail of yours:
> Released independent of KDE -> not packaged for release -> kdenonbeta
AFAIK kdenonbeta is for unstable apps.

And the gear has no release cycle.

The benefit of the extra gear over nonbeta is that all apps are either close 
to a stable version or between two stable version and that there is someone 
(me) who will try to address the problems that occur when making a release 
out of KDE cvs and trying to make some PR for those apps. The extra gear is 
intended to add value to the project and allow the project to focus on one 
distribution that is somewhat consistent in the apps it includes.

Greetings,
Klas