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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Death of KRN
From:       Roberto Alsina <ralsina () conectiva ! com ! ar>
Date:       2000-12-29 4:24:18
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Ok, it's almost 1:30 AM, and I write this with such a terrible pain inside
I can't quite express it. But hey, it's time to do it.

I want to declare KRN dead. Or at least my involvement with it.

In case some of you don't know what it is, KRN is a newsreader. It came
standard on kdenetwork on KDE 1.x and earlier.

I know this is going to be boring for everyone, but let me go back to when
it all began. It was early 1997, and KDE was starting to look like
something doable. There were about 10 programs or so, and I was a 
programmer who had never tackled a large project in public.

So, I hacked in a weekend the early beginning of a newsreader. That was
KRN 0.0.0, whose version number caused trouble to Martin's scripts for
updating the ftp site and was summarily renamed 0.0.1.

These three years have been a lot of fun, and I have enjoyed greatly
working on KRN all this time. I think the program was useful, and I think
it did some things well (it still does). I have met some people I consider
friends, I have learned a lot. I have argued a lot, too ;-)

However, in the last year or so, I have been unable to support KRN
adequately. New versions have appeared, slowly. At least two attempts to
bring it to KDE2 have failed, because I just don't seem to have the energy
in me to do it.

Several rewrites to provide it with interesting "cool" stuff have
failed. The only part of it that is still arguably better than knode's is
the database backend (please everyone, consider using something like that
for kmail and/or knode).

And, well, after three weeks of having some contributed patches I still
can't bring out a new release, I suppose it means I will never be able to.

So, I really feel like crap, I feel like a creep for doing this, but I
must say that it seems I just don't have it in me to push KRN further to a
place where it's a useful program anymore.

KDE already has in KNode a fine newsreader, so KRN is not really
NECESSARY, either.

So, hopefully, I will find ways to bring something into KDE again in the
future. Right now, and since months, I have felt guilty of even thinking
of coding other stuff, since KRN was so neglected.

Thanks to all those who have helped me with it during these years,
hopefully it was worth as much for you as it was for me.

If anyone wants to take over, he can count on me to help him as much as I
can, I could even code some, probably.

 ("\''/").__..-''"`-. .         Roberto Alsina
 `9_ 9  )   `-. (    ).`-._.`)  ralsina@conectiva.com.ar
 (_Y_.)' ._   ) `._`.  " -.-'   Director técnico
  _..`-'_..-_/ /-'_.'           Conectiva SA
(l)-'' ((i).' ((!.'             Buenos Aires - Argentina
                                KDE Developer (MFCH)
"Those who serve the revolution plough the sea" Bolivar


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