[kde-linux] Status of KDE 4.1.2?

[david]

Anne Wilson wrote:
> On Sunday 12 October 2008 08:20:54 david wrote:
>> Beso wrote:
>>> 2008/10/11 david <gnome at hawaii.rr.com>:
>>>> Stefano Crocco wrote:
>>>>>> The new numbering system makes it hard to know when which element
>>>>>> quits development state.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thierry
>>>>> I don't think the numbering system has changed since KDE 3. What
>>>>> created confusion, I think, is that KDE 4.0.0 was released with many
>>>>> missing features with respect to KDE 3, and with a number of bugs. With
>>>>> KDE 4.1, things have improved considerably.
>>>> And I still figure it won't be until KDE 4.5 that we have a KDE4 that
>>>> offers the full functionality of KDE3. They spent far too much time
>>>> playing with the glamorous glitter and eye candy, trying to look pretty
>>>> like OS X and its other would-be, Windows Vista.
>>> what do you mean by speaking of full functionality?!
>> Just based on what I read posted here - applications that don't work,
> 
> 'Applications that don't work' are often 'applications that don't work in this 
> distro' or 'in this version'.  If I'd seen the distro I'm using at this moment 
> first, I'd probably feel the same, but I've got many broken apps here that I 
> have working under KDE 4 on different boxes, with different distros.

That seems to me be just another indicator that KDE4 wasn't ready for 
release. I've had KDE4 one many distros, on several different boxes, and 
the only consistent problems I've encountered have had nothing to do 
with KDE or KDE applications. (They've always been with X video drivers 
or the intricacies of ALSA.) I've run Debian Lenny/Sid with some 
experimental stuff tossed in, and overall had a positive and productive 
time using KDE3.5

> And do remember that satisfied customers don't write about it.

True. Never said they didn't.

>> features that should work but don't. I still think they should have
>> ported 3.5.x to QT4 and gotten it working, then started playing with the
>> glitter and eye candy.
> 
> You just don't get it do you?  That was an impossibility.  Many things simply 
> would not port to qt4 and had to be rewritten.

Why was that? Bad design decisions by Trolltech (perhaps a conscious 
decision to not provide backwards compatibility)?

> Did you use KDE3.1?

Not that I recall. I think 3.3 was my earliest encounter with straight 
KDE. Don't know what version of KDE that my first distro started with - 
what KDE did CorelLinux use in 1999?

> I'd guess that there were at least as many complaints as 
> you are reading now.  KDE3 has had years of use after release.  Give KDE4 a 
> chance.

I will. That's why I mention version numbers like KDE4.5. That should 
put it on a par with KDE3.5 (in maturity level). And (hopefully) by then 
all the applications will also have been shifted onto QT4. Right now, I 
see no reason to do anything with KDE4.

> The devs are getting the old functionality back for you as quickly as 
> possible.  Most of them do have a day job, you know.

I know that. One of my main primary applications has weird problems 
under KDE4. Its (few) developers are struggling through porting it to 
QT4. Some of its users have questioned why it is even dependent on KDE 
in the first place (I'm not one of those folk). They see KDE 
contributing no value to what they do, only needlessly consuming 
resources they would rather be using for other things. Interestingly 
enough, they often see the Gnome environment has just another waste of 
resources, too, yet they use GUI apps. Perhaps they would rather see 
apps based purely on X?

> Your sig talks about community.  Community is 'we' not 'they'

There are many communities. I'm not a developer, so I don't consider 
myself part of that community, anymore than a developer would consider 
me part of the developer community.

-- 
David
gnome at hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community