Plasma alternative

[Duncan]

Thomas Olsen posted on Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:14:36 +0200 as excerpted:

> On 17/10-2009 14:38 Anne Wilson <cannewilson at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> On Saturday 17 October 2009 11:36:57 Thomas Olsen wrote:
>> >
>> > I started out customizing it to act and look like KDE3 but now I have
>> > a heavily customized workplace which serves my needs. The strength
>> > and weakness of KDE. I prefer the strength!
>> >
>> > (and I know the developers are trying to limit the options of
>> > customization but users demand it - it's a sharp edge to walk on)
>> 
>> The funny thing is that in the past the criticism was often that it had
>>  just too many options - IOW was too configurable.  My own feeling has
>>  that KDE has always appealed to individualists, who want maximum
>>  possibilities ;-)
> 
> My sentiment too, but I haven't really much to compare with bc I've used
> KDE exclusively since about 3 months after Matthias Ettrich started the
> project :-)  '96-'97?

One of my feeds recently featured a "Two elephants" article, the thesis 
of which was that significant new functionality is one "elephant", while 
existing users are another, and the problem becomes one of trying to fit 
them both in the same room at the same time, without forcing the old one 
out in ordered to accommodate the new one.  The author then proposed 
three methods of trying to do this, including building a bigger room to 
hold two elephants and trying to move them both in.  KDE was the example 
here, but the danger is that the original users won't like their new home 
and will refuse to make the move, which is he said the problem KDE4 had, 
that it's just now beginning to overcome.

... Unfortunately it seems Google hasn't picked up the piece yet (or my 
googlefoo is bad today) as I don't find it, or I'd post the link.

But this the configurability is definitely one of the elements of old kde 
that the old "elephant" enjoyed, in part because unlike the biggest 
alternative, gnome, kde wasn't apologetic about making things 
configurable.  As a result, those that wanted to keep things simple and 
have the developers choose sufficient defaults so it "just worked" tended 
to gravitate toward gnome or something else, while those who seldom found 
defaults that met their needs and weren't shy about changing them, and 
demanding that the knobs and levers be available TO change them, 
gravitated toward kde.

It's no secret, therefore, that most of the long-time kde users will NOT 
be happy if they find configuration options disappearing on them, or even 
if new features arrive without what they consider an appropriate level of 
knobs and levers available to configure them.  Should they get mad about 
it, that elephant will simply pickup and leave...

-- 
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

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