KDE's rough edges... what are your experiences?

[Michael]

Hi Kevin,

Am Sun, 27 Oct 2013 13:08:10 +0100
schrieb Kevin Krammer <krammer at kde.org>:

> On Sunday, 2013-10-27, 07:54:09, Michael wrote:
> 
> > Granted, not all issues will face on every system, something
> > triggers the issues, sure. Not all users will think some stuff is
> > implemented weird and in a rather un-usable state (even if I think
> > something must be wrong with them then, as I can even understand
> > the Gnome-decisions and way of implementing things!), not everyone
> > has the same need and idea for a feature and how to implement it.
> > Some may never have any issue whatsoever, be it just coincidence or
> > they just don't use that particular feature or at least not in a
> > way that the issues would show itself.
> 
> I guess this is at the heart of the problem, i.e. issues or weird
> behavior only triggered under certain circumstances.
> Computer systems have a huge variety of aspects, each potentially
> contributing to the observed behavior.

And I guess that is not the point, at least it is not the primary
point. Especially to negate such arguments I did provide some links to
show that the issues are NOT limited to corner-cases or weird and
unusual user setups. But sure, I HAD to acknowledge that SOME issues
may be indeed caused by rather unusual setups or even localized
system / distro issues, as I can't possibly know all issues that all
users might have and the cause of those. And that's why I took great
care to phrase KDE SEEMS to have the TENDENCY for such issues compared
to other Desktop Environments rather than using somewhat more
"definitive" words. 


> It often takes a concerted effort of many people to narrow down those 
> candidates to the actually contributing factors in order to make a
> problem reproducable with enough reliability to analyse and fix it
> (including verification of the solution).


Even though that might be the case for some cases, it can't be for the
vast majority of issues, as I could easily reproduce most issues
reliable on different boxes. As a matter of fact the only one I can not
reproduce is the one where many things KDE-related took minutes to
complete. Starting from starting apps, to showing dialog-boxes and a
context-menu. Granted, some issues might be tricky to reproduce, but if
one really wants to, not a real problem. For example waiting until
ksysguard shows processes that are gone already, *might* take some
time, even though that was not an issue here. I just waited some time
and did check every now and then on a different machine if processes I
did close there are shown or not.
And yes, sometimes issues are really hard to track down. I myself know
that for a fact. But I do know that many issues are visible in the code
quite clearly too. There may be issues in one part of the stack that
only affects some applications under some circumstances but it is not
clear where in the stack the actual bug is. But for many other issues,
it is quite clear where the issue lies, or at least where it most
likely lies. Over the years I did report an abundance of different
issues, be it kernel or userspace related. I'd say 90% of them were
rather easy to track down. With some help from a friend who knows
*some* C we were able to track down one bug without having any clue
about the code itself. And it was an issue that was open for years and
it clearly showed the lack (for whatever reasons) of interest upstream
had in that issue.  


> > So, that all said, what do you guys, users and maybe even
> > developers of KDE, think? I don't want to come around as rude or
> > overly harsh, as really, I think KDE is a great Desktop
> > Environment, it just has some really rough edges. Is it just me, or
> > are others also thinking KDE could / should invest more efforts in
> > QA and maybe less in implementing new stuff? I know, "send patch"
> > yada yada... that does not apply here, at least not well enough.
> 
> It does apply here as well. While sending a patch is a particular
> form of contribution, e.g. providing a potential fix, it is generally
> a suggestion to get involved [1] in the process of finding a solution.

No it does not apply WELL! It does apply to a certain and rather
limited degree, but hell no, not on an average scale. I know and
absolutely agree that KDE and GNU/Linux in general is
contribution-driven to some degree, but that is it exactly: to some
degree! Most projects want their users to just report bugs and if
something is not clear help them to reproduce a bug and maybe even
track it down with some trial and error approach. Almost no project I
know of thinks (or expects) that most if not all users can actually
code, know any computer language or are able to fix the issues on their
own. Sure, the prjects are glad if patches come from the userbase, but
they don't *expect* it! I just guess that over 95% of users using any
given software on GNU/Linux / *BSD are not anywhere near to be able to
fix anything. So "send patch", if that is the sole kind of approach
that is applied if bugs show in KDE, well... then I am in no way
surprised about the current state and quality of KDE... well, I guess it
would be rather the other way around, KDE would be much much worse if it
would be that way.


> That process starts at, as I outline above, narrowing down
> contributing factors, ideally resulting in a situation that will show
> the faulty behavior on a development setup.

I wouldn't go so far to call my writing here as a form of contribution,
but that isn't the point. This conversation has one and only one
purpose: Getting an idea how actual users and developers think of their
choice of Desktop Environment. Especially on how the project handles
QA. One CAN draw some possible positive outcome of this effort, so it
would be a contribution after all, but that is not in my hands.

Seriously, the question stays and I hope I get a lot of feedback. Be it
agreeing or disagreeing, doesn't matter a bit.

still optimistic
Michael
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