[kde-linux] Another KDE 4.x print problem?

[Duncan]

Anne Wilson posted on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:26:22 +0000 as excerpted:

> On Monday 02 November 2009 10:14:33 Dale wrote:
>> > I have no idea where Gentoo gets their source. I can only assume that
>> > it's not  from the enterprise branch.   Do you really think that RHEL
>> > is using broken 3.5?
>> >   
>> >   
>> Gentoo is a source based distro so the sources for KDE come from KDE.
>> It is not like Redhat or Mandrake which is binary based.  According to
>> the discussions on the developers mailing list, KDE is not releasing
>> updates or fixes for KDE 3.5.  That is the reason they give for
>> removing packages that are broken.
>> 
> In that case they are not using the enterprise branch.  This is not so
> surprising, as enterprise users have a specific set of needs.  The
> problem comes when a user wants the latest and greatest.  The enterprise
> releases are focused 100% on stability.

I'm wondering... "the enterprise branch" of /what/?

KDE?  Does it have an enterprise branch?  That would be news to me.  
Presumably they'd be releasing 3.5.11 source tarballs at some point with 
changes appropriate to compile with whatever the current release versions 
of gcc and etc are.

Or do you mean the enterprise branch of some distro, like CentOS/RedHat?  
That's those distros with their own patches, not upstream KDE.  While 
peer distributions can and do often incorporate each other's patches, 
it's quite a different process from getting original source tarballs from 
the upstream developers, KDE in this case.  The more these patches 
diverge from original upstream sources, the harder it is for a 
distribution to continue maintaining them.  For something as basic and 
singular as grub, which hasn't had an official stable upstream release 
since 0.97 years ago, maintaining those patch sets is worth the trouble.  
For something as huge, complex and optional as the entire KDE desktop, at 
some point, it's no longer worth that trouble.  Of course, enterprise 
customers willing to pay wheelbarrow-loads of money to their distribution 
of choice for the level of support necessary to continue such complicated 
undertakings extend that point well beyond that at which it will become 
an unproductive undertaking for the community in general, but even making 
use of the patches they provide to the community becomes more and more 
difficult as they diverge from an increasingly stale upstream, as the 
patches tend to become more and more distribution implementation 
specific, and with no common upstream to provide centering forces any 
longer, within a couple years after original upstream ceases to update, 
the patch sets are becoming increasingly distribution-proprietary and are 
no longer cost-effect justified to maintain outside that meta-
distribution family, especially for something as huge, complex and 
optional as kde.

What we're talking about is kde upstream sources.  What I believe you're 
talking about is enterprise branches of distribution sources.  They're 
two entirely different things, and if kde upstream isn't providing that 
support, it's effectively unprovided for those remaining kde users, as so 
publicly promised by asegio.

But perhaps I'm wrong and there's now a continuing upstream kde kde-v3 
branch I've not read of, yet.  I /am/ somewhat behind on my news feeds, 
ATM.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman