Install presence

[Ian Wadham]

Hi Aleix,

> On 16 Jun 2021, at 10:30 am, Aleix Pol <aleixpol at kde.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Mac, Windows,
> I'm preparing the Akademy presentation for the "KDE is All About the
> Apps" goal and I'm looking to explain a bit the state of things.
> 
> I don't have direct information about both KDE apps's Mac and Windows
> user base. Would you be able to give me some information or give me
> access to it? It would help me paint a picture of the state of things.

I don’t wish to rain on your parade and I see that your presentation to Akademy is only two or three days away, but I would like to make a couple of points which I think would be vital any change of heart by the KDE Community that could lead to the "KDE is All About the Apps” goal being achieved.

Neither point is mentioned on https://community.kde.org/Goals/All_about_the_Apps.

Firstly, the KDE Community has no strong policy on maintaining and supporting apps and keeping them running. Basically they depend upon the original author performing those functions and finding himself a suitable successor when he wishes to move on. Often the author just disappears suddenly, with no announcement. Even if he does make an announcement, there is little action from the KDE Community. I would suggest that, as a consequence, a large percentage of the 200 KDE apps, probably more than 50%, are “unmaintained”. Bugzilla is very good, but bugs sit around unsolved, wishlists are ignored and features get out of date and out of fashion when an app is “unmaintained” for several years. Users of apps do not like this. The KDE Community needs a strong policy for taking over and maintaining and supporting apps that have fallen into this state. I would be happy to make suggestions.

Secondly, would-be authors of KDE apps fall foul of what I call LGM (Library Generated Maintenance). It is obligatory that they should use KDE and Qt libraries, but those libraries are constantly changing and have little regard for backwards compatibility. Consequently developers of apps have to run hard in order to stay in the same place (i.e. have an app that is stable and reliable as a base on which to move forward and make enhancements). I was a developer on KDE Games for about 15 years and I estimate I spent about half my development time keeping up to date with library changes.

Regarding Apple Mac, in addition to what René had to say about apps like Krita that are hand-tailored by their authors to build on Apple Mac, there have historically been groups such as MacPorts and Homebrew who port and build a huge range of FOSS software to run on Apple Mac, including most KDE apps and the libraries they use. Unfortunately, the KDE apps on MacPorts are, in a word, moribund. The apps are running with KDE 4 and Qt 4 libraries (KDE 4.14.3) on MacPorts. These are compiled from snapshots of the KDE repositories. I myself use KMyMoney and KDE Games quite a lot. However that code is frozen solid - no new features or fixes available.

As far as I know, nobody has succeeded in porting to MacPorts the KF5 library and the latest versions of source code of KDE apps, although some of us tried very hard. I used to have a flourishing development setup on Apple Mac under KDE 4 and I used it for KDE app development on MacBook for about 5 years. That all came to a grinding halt when KF5 was released.

So yes, you have a LOT of work to do before you can truly say that “KDE is All About the Apps”. All the the best and I hope your talk goes well.

Cheers,
Ian W.