[KDE/Mac] KMyMoney, KCrash and more on KF5

[Mario Fux]

Am Sonntag, 24. August 2014, 07.48:16 schrieb Ian Wadham:
> Hello Mario,

Morning Ian

Sorry that I just now found the time to read and answer these emails.

> On 23/08/2014, at 10:14 PM, Mario Fux wrote:
> > Am Samstag, 23. August 2014, 11.09:57 schrieb Marko Käning:
> I guess by now you have seen my replies to Marko and René.
> 
> >> Since the discussion about placement of DrKonqi [2] lead to the decision
> >> to put it into plasma-workspace we now DO HAVE A PROBLEM for KF5 on
> >> OSX, as we won’t ever build plasma-workspace!
> > 
> > Strange. But that means KDE Windows has in the end the same problem.
> 
> So do Gnome and other Linux-based desktops.  The problem will come home
> to roost at the KDE end, i.e. inadequate crash reports from every platform
> except Plasma.
> 
> I hope the KDE developers will not regard the absence of such reports with

Honestly (and this might be a bit rude) I think this is part of the problem. 
You are a KDE developer. It's not them and us. You can expect somebody who has 
no clue of Mac OS X or Windows or Android the check their code on these 
platforms. It's the KDE-Windows people that know this stuff and the app or lib 
maintainer should help where they can. Some for Mac or Android or Co.

> deep satisfaction, believing that they "got things right" on every
> non-Plasma platform… :-)

I think this would definitely be bad and we (or you ;-) who know about Mac 
should tell them constructively but not expecting too much.

> The OS X platform has been the victim of that
> delusion for years already… :-)
> 
> > But to  cite Kevin from the email in [2]:
> > "If not available then kcrash could provide a default very basic one."
> > 
> > Wouldn't this be possible for the native Mac crash handler?
> 
> And how would KDE developers react to receiving such a report? 

Tell me? It's you and all of us on this Mac list that are the KDE developers 
that know best about KDE software on Mac. And we are the people that need to 
react on such bug reports. A guy or girl maintaining a KDE application on 
Linux, developing on Linux can't be expected to know other platforms and fix 
code there. What I hope (expecting is probably too much) is that they are open 
to fixes and features for other platforms like Mac or Windows or Co. But if 
they don't want it then it get's difficult (but in the end KDE is as well 
about sharing ownership of code and such "ignorant" people would have it 
difficult sooner or later anyway).

> The whole
> Dr Konqi thrust is aimed at getting the maximum information from users in
> the form that KDE developers need to see it.  Otherwise, progress is
> delayed.
> 
> The only crash report the MacPorts developers were ever able to get for the
> meinproc4 crashes was a native one and AFAIK nobody from KDE read it.

I think people that bring KDE software to Macports are KDE people (I don't 
like the distinction of upstream and downstream etc.) and thus KDE developers 
read it. But I obviously couldn't be fixed (probably not a technical problem 
but just to establish the right connection, channels of communication, post on 
the correct or best mailing list. Stuff that needs to be learned and can be 
learned).

> That whole bug report is still open after several years.

No only Mac specific reports are open for years ;-).

> > Otherwise we'd need to ask if it's possible to move DrKonqi back to KF5.
> > I'll try to ask the KDE Windows guys about their opinion.
> 
> I would say that it should be -mandatory- to move it, along with any other
> items that most KDE apps need on every platform, such as KHelpCenter.

Sounds reasonable. Plasma 5 is still struggling with their first releases so 
don't expect everything is set in stone. But we need to tell them, 
communicate. They don't know about our needs but most of the KDE people are 
open for constructive communication.

> Furthermore, it is important to free those things of dependencies on KDE
> core processes and libraries that might not exist on other platforms. 
> They need to be "Frameworkized".
> 
> But such work is not "sexy" and tends to get swept under the carpet unless
> there is strong professional leadership to make it happen.  See the first
> few posts on reference [2].  Those posts are now 4 months old and AFAIK
> nothing further has been done.

As I wrote in another email. KF5 hasn't too many people working on it as well. 
Just tell them what "needs to be done" won't work, ever. And no, I don't say 
you and we didn't do anything on ourselves. Just that we should expect less 
and be a bit more patient and communicative probably.

> Dr K and others should not be left in the "too hard basket" and then get a
> hasty patch-up job before some future KF 5 release.  They are apps that
> need to be ported to Frameworks, just like many others.  And they should
> be among the FIRST to be ported, because other apps depend on them, as
> does future KF 5 support, from the first release onwards.

I think they are ported to KF5 already. But I'm not sure what you mean by 
frameworkify above. And IIRC the DrKonqi maintainer is quite inactive atm as 
well. So the knowledge there is missing. Similar problem as with kdeinit.

> >> Any ideas how to tackle this? Looks like we need a light-weight version
> >> of plasma-workspace which doesn’t require X11 but including DrKonqi, or
> >> suggest to move DrKonqi someplace else??
> > 
> > I don't think that building and using plasma-workspace on Mac is the
> > solution. If that'd be necessary there is something really broken.
> 
> I agree wholeheartedly with you, Mario.  Let's do something about it.

Great. I'll do what I can and where I find time to communicate. Unfortunately 
I'm not the guy which will help to fix lib problems. Probably in 5 years or so 
but not atm ;-).

Thx
Mario

> Cheers, Ian W.
> 
> > Plasma-workspace is a workspace and thus not thought for Windows or Mac
> > OS X and the work to port it  to Wayland just started.
> > 
> >> [1]
> >> http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-frameworks-devel/2014-August/018142.ht
> >> ml [2]
> >> http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-frameworks-devel/2014-April/014384.htm
> >> l
> 
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