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List:       kde-linux
Subject:    Re: [kde-linux] KDE 3.1 is out
From:       David Legg <david_legg () tiscali ! co ! uk>
Date:       2003-01-29 20:08:00
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Had a quick browse over the features for 3.1 and slated for > 3.1 and I
have to say this looks very cool in the most useful sense of the word. 

As a business user the lock down features will be extremely useful.
Although these features are actually, largely, already available being
able to more easily administrate them will be great. Not had the time to
look at this in more detail but I do hope that KDE ends up providing a
good, solid secure framework for remote administration of desktops.
Might be interesting to see what is being thought of along these lines
and what ideas other people have. 
That's what has really impressed me about a project like KDE. In a
commercial company you put the features into a product that YOU want to
see (you don't even realise it most of the time) despite your
protestations to the contrary. You might listen to feedback during the
beta stage but in reality you don't really act on it as you can't be
bothered to re-code things unless its absolutely necessary. It is
interesting to see how open source projects such as KDE have totally
bucked this trend and been able to accommodate the views of others
throughout the development cycle to create a product that people really
do want, but just didn't realise that they wanted it to begin with. 

As a user and a developer I have watched the debate on KBasic with
interest and I don't understand the fear that some people have of the
speed and efficiency issues, 'script kiddies' and accusations of being
too Microsoft. Script kiddies have been able to exist because Microsoft
products have a habit of executing code without you as a user or an
administrator actually knowing about it. You can't actually do anything
to stop it apart from downloading half a dozen patches. Just a bit of
thought in developing applications like Outlook in this area would
dramatically cut the amount of time I regularly waste stressing over
restoring a machine to working order and is why Microsoft doesn't get
Trustworthy Computing - it now thinks it can encrypt everything and all
its problems will go away. It's not about code per se but about
philosophy, and the last time I looked KDE and open source people did
not have Microsoft's philosophy on things. Security and education first,
and then we'll look at the ease of use thing. 

Speed and efficiency issues exist because, although Basic on Windows is
now compiled, Visual Basic leaves in a great deal of rubbish and
overhead that isn't really necessary because of Microsoft's haste to get
the product out the door and to ensure the product has less development
bugs in it. If KBasic can be developed in a sensible way, not pretend
that it can do everything and educate users in developing proper layered
programs (Visual Basic developers are very guilty of lumping everything
into one click function and if someone asks me to make another awful
Access database available online...) then I think it will be great for
Rapid Development and encourage it's use in call centres, universities,
offices and alike where small applications such as database front-ends
etc. are prevalent. I hope it will encourage and educate everyone, not
just IT people, to program properly and to THINK. 

Longer term I hope that KBasic and KDevelop would merge and allow
development in virtually any language (Basic, Python (a favourite of
mine), Java) with native compiled code, portable Dot GNU and Java
bytecode applications and perhaps standards could be established between
different toolkits that do the same thing - Qt, GTK etc.? As a user and
a developer I would love a Gnome/IceWM (*insert WM here*) program when
run under KDE to take on the characteristics and look-and-feel of a KDE
program and vice versa. However, we are a long way from this and I think
its something that should be talked about. Might be interesting to hear
what KDE people think of this as the goal of 'free' software is to let
people do what suits them best. There will never be a 'standard'
linux/unix desktop (and I can't imagine why some people have picked
Gnome) as everyone is different, however 'concepts' and 'ways of doing
things' are the same. Harnessing this commonality and developing
standards will be the key as programmers cannot develop for every
desktop environment and toolkit and users find it confusing. 

I find a great deal of people have misunderstood about project Mono. It
is not '.NET on Linux' that is the goal of the Dot GNU project. Mono is
being used by Ximian to essentially cut time and to ease development of
their products. I'm sure there will be collaboration between Dot GNU and
Mono but its not all about Mono. I've read far too much hogwash and hype
from idiotic analysts like Giga and Gartner. 

Although this might be a bit blue-sky at the moment if the 'K Family'
can move in this direction you'll have one hell of a desktop environment
which does NOT replicate the mistakes made by a certain other software
company and will allow a platform of debate and development for the next
steps of real innovation - speech recognition, AI..... 

On another note - people love the dragon! Does he/she have a name? Do
you sell merchandise?! 


Cheers and thanks, 

David 



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