From kde-core-devel  Fri Sep 14 21:27:29 2007
From: Thiago Macieira <thiago () kde ! org>
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:27:29 +0000
To: kde-core-devel
Subject: Re: Consider me sceptical if we rely on Trolltech's qprinter only,
Message-Id: <200709142327.52054.thiago () kde ! org>
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Kurt Pfeifle wrote:
>But how long will TT devote resources into this? They may leave it
>bit-rotting as soon as it "somehow" works. As they did with the rest
>of the "print stuff" support in their toolkit since KDE 1.0 was relea-
>sed...

You said it yourself: printing isn't sexy. Yes. And people don't print=20
that much anymore.

It is a low-priority feature compared to other big-shots like Graphics=20
View, Network or XML.

But it's also a very low-maintenance one. KDEPrint has gone basically=20
without changes other than bugfixes here and there for 3-4 years. Why do=20
you suddenly expect there to be a lot of work in the next 2-3 years? Past=20
experience shows that it is not the case.

I give you a couple of reasons why we should go on this track:
1) it's the only realistic option. But even with that aside:

2) less duplication of efforts. We won't need to keep adding all the=20
latest features in QPrinter and the KDE equivalent, as well as the=20
dialogs. For all platforms.

3) Trolltech is a radically different company compared to 10 years ago.=20
The engineering department is much, much larger. And growing at a fast=20
pace.

4) There's no reason why community-contributed code as well as feature=20
requests can't be added. Remember that KDE is the most proeminent user of=20
Qt. If Qt's printing system was sub-par so far, maybe it was because KDE=20
wasn't using it? (therefore, less exposure; therefore, less feature=20
requests, etc.)

5) The Printing System is in our roadmap. And when I say that, it means we=
=20
want to have a good printing system and we will dedicate the resources to=20
doing it.
(No, I'm not saying TT will dedicate someone to doing every whim the KDE=20
community asks for)


We had the very same discussion two years ago on QtNetwork and KNetwork. I=
=20
was the one arguing for KNetwork. In the end, two things convinced me for=20
the other side, and that happened after my starting at Trolltech:

=2D the incredible mess that supporting a huge amount of platforms is,=20
especially Windows's broken idea of sockets
=2D the amount of time required to maintain such an API -- I couldn't do it=
=20
on my own

=2D-=20
=A0 Thiago Macieira =A0- =A0thiago (AT) macieira.info - thiago (AT) kde.org
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