Dropping kdelibs4-based applications in KDE Applications 17.12

[Christoph Feck]

On 11.11.2016 16:45, Dominik Haumann wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 11:42 PM, Albert Astals Cid <aacid at kde.org> wrote:
>> Hi, my proposal would be to make KDE Applications 17.08 the last release we
>> accept applications based on kdelibs4, that means people have a year until KDE
>> Applications 17.12 to port the applications from the list below to KF5.
>>
>> The ones that aren't ported we would just drop to unmaintained or if they have
>> an active developer team that somehow doesn't want to move to KF5 they could
>> move to "extreagear".

Will we still release the KDE4 platform for not-yet-ported extragear 
applications (Amarok etc.) with 17.12?

If we stop releasing it, then we should also move all unported 
applications to 'unmaintained'. Any developer willing to port can 
surrect it from there.

>> I know lots of you would want to see this happen *now* but remember there's
>> people using those apps so dropping them makes them no good.
>>
>> Comments?
>
> I think this is a very good idea and support this.
>
> However, the list you provided is possibly longer, for instance there
> are applications that are not part of this the Applications release. I
> *know* that this sounds like it's off-topic, but I don't think it is
> for the following reason:
>
> What do you think about having a Randa meeting (or similar) with focus
> on finishing ports to KF5? Would that make sense?

If we had developers with free time for other projects, that time would 
be better spent on helping projects such as KDEPIM, rekonq, or Calligra. 
These are applications several of our users would switch to if they worked.

> I'm thinking of apps like Kile or similar that while already ported,
> still don't have a stable release. I'm pretty sure there are many
> more.

As far as I know, Kile developer had to wait for the KF5 release of Okular.

> Such an initiative would also show that we don't simply drop old apps,
> instead, we would show that we care to bring along as many apps as we
> can.

But we also need someone caring for bugreports/regressions after the 
port. We have some applications ported (e.g. KTorrent) where the 
original developer no longer has time for bug handling, and now the 
regressions pile up.

> Of course, this would only work if we find enough developers that join
> such an event.

See above.

-- 
Christoph Feck
https://kdepepo.wordpress.com/
KDE Quality Team