From kde-devel  Wed Jun 11 02:10:49 2008
From: "Mark A. Taff" <marktaff () comcast ! net>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:10:49 +0000
To: kde-devel
Subject: Re: Fork of KDE4/Qt3?
Message-Id: <200806101910.50024.marktaff () comcast ! net>
X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-devel&m=121315037431923

On Tuesday 10 June 2008 05:34:28 Mauricio Piacentini wrote:
> I think there is a wide unexplored area between "Plasma is THE solution
> to everything desktop related" and "Let us fork KDE4", and we are
> somewhere in it, slowly moving to stabilization.
> But it is clear to me that there is a problem, and sometimes it takes
> extreme reactions for us to recognize it.
> I agree 100% with Ian Wadham's message. I do not consider myself a
> newbie, but I am completely lost with Plasma terminology and
> implementation details. Looking back, I can see that this is a
> consequence of choosing not to work in this particular module, but this
> should be ok. I prefer to concentrate on kdeedu and kdegames , as I
> consider that my limited experience is coding is better used there. But
> what I am seeing is that KDE4 is losing energy and momentum in these
> modules. We used to have lots of developers active 6 to 18 months ago. I
> think this is caused at least a little bit by the lack of what users
> (and developers not involved directly with Plasma) perceive as a stable
> desktop. It seems all this is fixable, but we have to recognize that
> this puts strain in other areas of the project. Several developers from
> games and edu have jumped in to help the desktop efforts, which is
> commendable. But it still creates a sense of "void" in our little
> communitities.
>
> So, the first step is to recognize that there is/was a problem with
> Plasma, including management and scheduling decisions in 4.0, and this
> lead us to a situation where the project will spend 1 year or more (from
> 4.0 to 4.2) with a semi-usable desktop. And that this creates
> frustration and directly affects our ability to develop new applications
> and motivate our developers and users. It affects our ability to deploy
> our 4.x applications to some big users. It affects my ability to install
> KDE 4 in my mom's machine. See the recent Debian discussion for example,
> it appears 4.1 will not make it in Lenny as the default, though gladly
> it would possibly be available in backports.
>
> So, something was wrong with Plasma deployment. Part of it was known,
> part of it was not expected, and a course correction was taken after 4.0
> shipped. This is not a bad position to recognize. It creates sympathy.
> It generates understanding and the will to help. And with it, comes the
> realization that, after 4.0 shipped, lots of developers understood this
> need and flocked to help (from games/edu I can see at least milliams,
> jpwhiting, fregl, annma and others.) So our community has recognized
> this problem, knows that it needs to be fixed, and is doing the best it
> can to help (including the sprint, for example.) Constructive criticism
> (constructive is the keyword) needs to be accepted, so this thread, at
> least to me, has some value, in recognizing that maybe we are not yet
> managing the desktop expectations with the humbleness necessary to
> gather support from the community outside KDE.
>
> Regards,
> Mauricio Piacentini

Well said, Mauricio, and also to Ian.  Thanks.

--Mark

 
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