[kde-linux] Thought in desperation

[Dale]

Duncan wrote:
> Gmail posted on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:37:30 +0800 as excerpted:
>
>   
>> I know we might have the wrong distribution but we use the same base for
>> our office computers as for all our developed embedded systems. We have
>> used SuSE and now openSUSE for more than 10 years now. From time to time
>> we look at other distributions, but no.
>>     
>
> That's an impressive lot of stuff you have running on SuSE and KDE...
>
> I'm about to ask a question that could be taken the wrong way.  Please 
> don't.  As much as you're doing with FLOSS, you should be held up as a 
> success story for the community, not criticized for it, regardless of 
> what the details are.
> << SNIP >>
>
> I do expect that by 4.5, kde4 will be getting finally comparable to kde3 
> in usefulness and availability of kde-based non-core apps, and by 4.6, I 
> fully expect they'll be on the way toward leaving the competition in the 
> dust, but unfortunately, that /does/ leave a 1.5-2 year gap between when 
> kde dropped its own support for the still-working kde3, and a /really/ 
> usable and comparable kde4.  That gap is a huge problem!  Fortunately 
> there are a few options, but they certainly don't compare well to simply 
> supporting the old version until the new one is a working (not just 
> playing) replacement for it.
>
>   

I'm not running a business off Linux or anything, just my little home 
system but I do understand where Lars is coming from.  Basically his 
point is this, he's trying to run a business with a GUI that is not 
working yet or has buggy software.  I run Gentoo here and Gentoo gets 
its sources from KDE.  I just updated KDE 4 yesterday and went to check 
on some things to see if it was usable just for my normal home use.  It 
still has things that are not working that I have to have.  I'm back to 
KDE 3.5 because it is a GUI that I can do my normal everyday things with 
and not have to work around bugs and broken stuff.

I also think the point that Lars is trying to make is this, don't take 
away what works just fine and then replace it with something that 
doesn't and just expect people to wait until it does.  It appears to me 
that Lars is trying to run a business with his computer.  The payroll 
doesn't stop just because KDE 4 still has some bugs to work out and 
features to work on.  Lars needs computers and a desktop that works not 
just a promise for the future.

Does anyone remember when Microsoft released a service pack that brought 
millions of computers to a slow crawl?  Does anyone remember what that 
cost companies that couldn't get their work done?  For me at least, 
Linux should be better than that.  I would love to see people using 
Linux because it is better and because the developers are more careful 
with their releases.  When that happened, I would never have dreamed 
that anything Linux would do the same as Microsoft.  It appears to me 
that it can happen.  I'm glad KDE 4 is coming out but as I have said 
before, KDE 3 should have been maintained until at least KDE 4.4 and 
maybe even KDE 4.5 comes out.  At least provide security and bug fixes 
so that people that need to use it still can.

Hate me or not, this is where I am.  KDE 4 is not ready.  KDE 3.5 should 
be maintained until KDE 4 is ready.

Dale

:-)  :-)