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

[Dirk Mueller]

On Fre, 05 Jul 2002, Rob Kaper wrote:

> I urge all of us to seriously think about the implications of not having a
> clear determination of the contents of KDE releases.

These modules are part of the regular KDE release: 

arts
kde-i18n
kdeaddons
kdeadmin
kdeartwork
kdebase
kdebindings
kdeedu
kdegames
kdegraphics
kdelibs
kdemultimedia
kdenetwork
kdepim
kdesdk
kdetoys
kdeutils
(kdoc)

Is this clear enough ? Should we add a little message to every commit 
message indicating if the particular commit will be part of the release 
schedule or not for further clarification ?

kdeextragear was specifically created for stuff NOT part of the release. It 
is up to the application maintainer and the module maintainer to decide if 
he wants to be part of the release schedule or not. 

> 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. 

I've never seen any app being renamed by packagers to "KDE x.y.z." 
Did you ? Who? Where? When ?

> 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.

Huh? 

See for example kdevelop. It is often released in sync with KDE, even though 
it does not use a KDE-release-schedule-compatible version number. 

Still, KDevelop is an (important) part of KDE, even though it is not 
strictly part of the KDE release schedule and believe it or not, even though 
it has not a KDE compatible version number. 

> Well, if you just moved your nifty code to kdeextragear for that purpose:
> wake up. You are not part of the KDE release.

Wake up. Nobody moved anybody's code to kdeextragear without prior consent 
(from the app maintainer that is). It wasn't even thought of or suggested 
before that anybody should get the right to remove something from KDE and 
move it to kdeextragear. 

> One that should ship with the best CD burning application and only the best.
> In case no concensus can be reach on which one that is, we should not ship
> any of them or keep the one that was there before competition appeared.

So it helps your idea of an "environment" by _not_ shipping _any_ CD burning 
app? This is... ehm... interesting. 

> If the developers of similar applications cannot cooperate and work on a
> single application that is ocmpletely integrated into out environment, they
> should not be part of the KDE release.

Consequently, "if the developers of competing desktop environments cannot 
cooperate and work on a single desktop environment that is completely 
integrated into our Operating System, they should not be part of our 
Operating System.."

This could be the consequence of above policy. Great idea. Lets start 
XFKNOMDE now instead of working on KDE. What a collection of fools we were 
before. 

> - we should continue building an environment and not just a framework,
> - we should not have duplicate applications and
> - we should get rid of kdeextragear as soon as possible because it will hurt
>   the environment,
> then please stand up.

Not happening here. kdeextragear gives KDE extra value, for good reason. 
Even slashdot kiddies understand these days that having the choice is a good 
thing. 

Having an application in kdeextragear gives the maintainer extra 
value, for good reason. He gets a working build system, his app is build and 
tested on many platforms and under many configurations. He's integrated into 
KDE's i18n and documentation teams FOR FREE and AUTOMATICALLY. 

Why exactly is it a problem to do something that help both sides ? Why do 
you judge so negatively about something you (you said it yourself) did not 
understand ?

> 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.

Please sum up for those little dumb people (i.e. me) WHY EXACTLY you want to 
FORK KDE ?

Are there some electromagnetic thunder storms currently or why is everybody 
going mad these days and starts discussing stuff over and over again that 
was decided months, even years ago with a common consensus?


Dirk

PS: For those who didn't realize yet: This was my personal opinion. Not the 
opinion of a release dude, not the opinion of KDE, not even the opinion of a 
KDE developer.