[kde-linux] Opinion: KDE4 is very great, but does not deserve the version number

[Kevin Krammer]

On Thursday 06 March 2008, Frank Reifenstahl wrote:

> ... talking of flaws you're not aware off. I'm a software developer
> myself, and would never distribute software as a .0 version that's such
> a rough framework like KDE4. For me a .0 is a version ready for the
> user. If it's not, I would denominate it a RC or beta or .99. Up to now
> I've had the notion that OS people are highly label-resistant. The KDE
> crew makes me doubt.

Right, though it would be interesting how people would have reacted to a real 
version like KDE4 0.9 and how many news sources would probably have 
mistakenly reported it as KDE 4.0.9

An unfortunate situation where every available approach has its own drawbacks 
and the release team had to pick one.
Other contributors might not be very happy with the decision, e.g. I would 
have preferred a KDE4 0.x notation, but then again they (myself included) 
could have participated in the release team.

> > How else can anything get tested in the wider world?
>
> I am running a lot of very stable 0.x apps, which are lively developed
> with feedback by lively communities, apparently no need for them to
> switch to .0.

Right, see above.
At a stage where you as the software vendor basically have more than one 
version, e.g. "old" as in stable and "new" as in only for early adopters, 
more or less have to rely on the operating system vendor (Linux distribution) 
or system administrator to decide which version to take depending on their 
users' needs.

Cheers,
Kevin

-- 
Kevin Krammer, KDE developer, xdg-utils developer
KDE user support, developer mentoring
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-linux/attachments/20080306/56a6f165/attachment.sig>