KDE 3.2 release cycle

[Bernhard Reiter]

On Monday 19 May 2003 21:33, Cornelius Schumacher wrote:
> On Monday 19 May 2003 17:28, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
> > On Saturday 17 May 2003 10:19, Cornelius Schumacher wrote:
> > > On Friday 16 May 2003 18:18, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
> > > > On Tuesday 13 May 2003 20:54, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > > > > the KDE PIM stuff is more important than all the other
> > > > > applications you mentioned put together from the standpoint of
> > > > > user benefit. this is not to put down those other apps, since i
> > > > > think they are all great and strategically important. rather,
> > > > > this speaks to the overwhelming importance of a solid PIM
> > > > > infrastructure and application set in KDE.
> > > >
> > > > I can second this as many coporate users hope
> > > > that KDE 3.2 will be able to natively act as a Kolab client.
> > >
> > > This still requires quite some work.
> >
> > Yes I know.
> > Still the expectations seem to be there.
> > I didn't raise them and this might show a bit
> > of a discrepancy between KDE marketing
> > (no 1 desktop, ready for the workplace)
> > and what promise it actually can hold.
>
> I'm not aware of any KDE marketing for 3.2 regarding the ability of
> kdepim to act as Kolab client.

It would be interesting to find out how that expectation
get raised, but it probably is interaction of several messages.

> > > If there are many corporate users which are interested in that
> > > feature it might be a good idea, if they would help with that, e.g.
> > > by providing developers or paying developers to do the work.
> >
> > True, but this is a chicken-egg problem.
> > If KDE does not get many corporate users,
> > chances are lower they get interested and involved.
> > On the other hand, if they don't get involved they
> > might never have anything they can use.
>
> But in this case we already have a chicken, because there is a Kolab
> client and I suspect there also are some users of it, right? 

Yes, though not many. 

> In order to secure the investion into the kroupware project it would be very
> sensible to take care that the result of the project is properly
> integrated into the main KDE development. You already did some
> important steps towards this goal, but it's still not done.

The contract by the BSI does not allow us to 
to completely develop Kontact into a functional robust Kolab client.
That is simply too much an effort. 
We were glad that the contract explicitly required us that we give
our development back and integrate our improvements,
which we mainly already did. That already is quite some contribution
and I have the feeling we should be grateful for it.
The concept of long term "investing" into a stable Free Software
project is quite impossible with current government structures
when it comes to IT solutions.

> > I believe that it is interesting to non-corporate users, too.
> > PIM is a high profile desktop application.
>
> Agreed, but a Kolab client is only a small subset of PIM, which is
> targeted to a very specific group of users because it requires a Kolab
> server. The scope of KDE PIM is much broader than that and most of the
> work currently done addresses much more general needs than acting as a
> client to a special server.

I was only using Kolab as one example why PIM is important.
You are fully correct in stating that PIM is much broader.

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