Why KDE4 is called KDE?

[John]

Answering the question why kde is called kde 1st well it stands for K desktop 
environment. No idea where the K comes from. It makes software hard to find 
as many many pass are k this and k that. Why version 4 when the last version 
of 3 still has minor bugs? Well software grows like Topsy especially when 
it's open source. It's very likely that many many different people will have 
worked on it over it's lifetime. There comes a point when developers decide 
that enough is enough and it's time for a new version as the old one can not 
go any further. It often reaches a state were it's even difficult to work on. 
The goals now may be entirely different to what it was initially so all 
starts again with a fresh sheet.

As to kde4 it isn't for me yet but I would hope that I still find the un gnome 
like features that allow me to do what I want and not what the developer 
wants. Some desktops assume the user is an idiot and that's not for me. I 
hope to find that kde4 is the same but have my doubts following changes in 3. 
The root desktop is an excellent example of that. The desktop is crippled for 
no good reason. When logged in a root some care is needed and that's how it 
should be. Personally I do not want to make direct use of the kernel, it's a 
mess and want to do everything from a desktop. I also hate sudo. It's better 
to log in as root even if it's only via run as..

Going on from that I don't care what kde4 looks like as long as the facilities 
are there. I also don't see why it should remain identical to 3 and as to 
documentation problems there is nothing new there. It's always been a problem 
what is there is often useless. Seems to me that the people who write that 
are so divorced from the author that they are highly unlikely to give a user 
what they need and are also far too verbose.

As with kde3 I would also hope that power hungry features can be turned off.

My only concern with 4 is that I have seen bleats on the web and on here that 
basically say 4 has the same sort of feel as gnome. Rather sad if that's the 
case as the only real difference then would be the visual appearance. Maybe 
some one should have written a  kde mission statement bearing the kde 
philosophy in mind. That way authors and designers etc might just remain on 
track. Some how I doubt if that exists for any linux desktop but it really is 
needed if the various desktops are to retain what could be loosely called 
their character. it's the only way you will get people to think in the right 
direction.

:) Having been in software of one sort or another for 30 odd years my 
sympathies to those at the sharp end. I do understand the problems but if it 
has all gone wrong you only have yourselves to blame. Green field software is 
a very dangerous field.

John


.
On Wednesday 09 December 2009 10:30:16 Duncan wrote:
> Lydia Pintscher posted on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:26:09 +0100 as excerpted:
> > I see a fork coming in KDE. There is enough
> >
> >> revulsion for KDE 4 in the hard core KDE base too warrant a fork.
> >> Whether the fork can attract enough coders to keep it viable will be
> >> the question. Another question is which way existing KDE developers
> >> will go. Not all of them can be happy with this abomination called KDE
> >> 4. Starting to make XFCE look good.
> >
> > I don't know in which world you are living but this is simply not true.
> > (I'm not even gonna comment on the rest of your email.)
>
> Apparently, the idea isn't attracting many developers at all, or at least
> none charismatic enough to form a following, because I've seen the idea
> kicked around for some time now, but other than one individual I read
> about, it doesn't seem to be happening, and that one individual isn't
> going to be very effective at anything that big, forever, particularly
> when qt3 is also unsupported, now.
>
> It really does seem to be mostly a user-only movement, which is fine,
> but /someone's/ gotta develop it.  I suppose even a single charismatic
> user, however, could start a fund to pay for it to be done, but the Mark
> Shuttleworths of the world are rather far between.


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