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Re: What are the plans for 3.5.x?
by Duncan on Wednesday 12/Dec/2007, @00:55
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KDE 3.5.x updates should continue for some time, according to announcements, AFAIK at least until 4.1, as many intended features and applications (especially those not in KDE-core) simply didn't make it for 4.0 and the announced plan is to allow parallel installs of KDE 3.5.x and 4.0.x so people can continue using their KDE 3.5 apps until they get migrated to 4.x, which will be 4.1 time for many of them.
This is also why there has been a heavy emphasis on making KDE 4.0 apps behave well with KDE 3.5 and vise versa, 3.5 apps with 4.0. In fact, IIANM, some of the updates in the 3.5.7 thru (the upcoming) 3.5.9 are specifically that, helping certain 3.5.x apps to work more smoothly under the 4.0 kwin and etc.
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Re: What are the plans for 3.5.x?
by David Johnson on Wednesday 12/Dec/2007, @06:16
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Not too many people will tell you this, because it's politically incorrect, but KDE 4.0 is not meant for general use by the masses. You will probably have to wait until 4.1 for something that's up to par with 3.5.
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Re: What are the plans for 3.5.x?
by Hank Miller on Wednesday 12/Dec/2007, @07:21
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The biggest question is who cares enough to maintain 3.5?
If many companies stay on 3.5 for years, updates can continue for years. Linux still sees releases of the 2.0 kernel once in a while (I haven't kept up, but I believe there was one last year, and may be more in the future), and that hasn't been the current up to date stable kernel for 10 years. (some linux distributions support releases for 5 years, so they may be forced to do some 3.5 work for several years yet just to fill customers needs)
KDE 3.5 will likely remain unlocked in SVN forever. However doing a release is a lot of work. The current release team will want to stop doing releases as soon as they can. However if someone else steps forward to do the work for more releases of 3.5 we may see them.
This is open source, in large part what happens depends on who is willing to do what.
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Re: What are the plans for 3.5.x?
by Carlo on Thursday 13/Dec/2007, @13:16
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> This is open source, in large part what happens depends on who is willing to do what.
Exactly. This is where most community driven projects unfortunately suck. And I do not mean to accuse floss or kde.org folks, stating the obvious. It all comes down to organisational and human aspects, ensuring proper maintenance over the lifetime of a "product" and accepting that its lifetime doesn't end, when the next iteration of your product is released.
Having the human ressources and the will to do at least two or three years of higher-level maintenance for KDE 3 than just crash and security fixes - no new features of course - an occassional bugfix release inclusive from now on is the point where I'd consider kde.org's organisation mature.
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Re: What are the plans for 3.5.x?
by Aaron J. Seigo on Wednesday 12/Dec/2007, @18:40
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> If KDE4 doesn't learn to treat screen real estate with respect
specifics, man, specifics. this tells us exactly nothing ...
> I'll end up back with fluxbox.
the silence you hear is all the people rushing to prevent this from happening. ;)
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Re: What are the plans for 3.5.x?
by T. J. Brumfield on Wednesday 12/Dec/2007, @20:17
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The default icon sizes all around seem to be larger. The plasma wrench in the corner of the screen is huge. The oxygen kwin decoration and style have excess space pretty much everywhere, though it is much improved as of late. The panel is huge. Kickoff is huge. Many of these items are not resizable.
Will KDE 4 provide a workable desktop? In the strictest sense, at launch, yes it will.
Will it for me? No. I can't stand to see so much wasted space. I like maximizing my work area, and giving the lion's share of my desktop space to content.
I'll check back when there is more flexibility to define the desktop exactly how I want it, which in my opinion, has always been perhaps the greatest strength of KDE as a desktop.
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Re: What are the plans for 3.5.x?
by Aaron J. Seigo on Wednesday 12/Dec/2007, @23:30
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it's called "white space", and most people are actually more efficient when it exists.
there's also the issue of higher average screen resolutions. i mean, it's not a 640x480 world anymore.
> The panel is huge.
actually, it's not. it's precisely 2px taller than kicker's default. so why is it so big? the svg that's being used has these gigantic borders. why? because it's the same one we use for the applets because the artists haven't given me anything proper to use yet.
i don't expect you to have known this, but.. yeah.. doesn't make complaining about it any more fun.
> Kickoff is huge.
lol. ok, so.. tell me this:
a) why does this matter when it's something that only appears when you use it?
b) you can have the old, cramped application menu. you don't need to complain about kickoff.
c) the #2 complaint about kickoff right now? it isn't big enough. yeesh.
> Many of these items are not resizable.
apparently many people apparently refuse to read comments to the same story they are replying to. ;)
> The plasma wrench in the corner of the screen is huge.
how big is your screen? it's a quarter circle, diameter 48px. that's not particularly ... huge.
and what is it interfering with, precisely?
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Re: What are the plans for 3.5.x?
by T. J. Brumfield on Thursday 13/Dec/2007, @20:01
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First off let me say, that you have been getting more criticism than praise. So when I say I don't care for something, also let me say, that I do appreciate all work going into the project. I'm just expressing an opinion.
Kickoff isn't resizable at all that I know of. Some applets, such as the new panel, are only resizable by reading the dot and finding which files to edit. At a glance, they appear to not be resizable. When I try a new distro, one of the first things I do is configure the panels in KDE, and I usually go with a smaller panel. The new panel is slightly larger than the old default, but I didn't care for how large the old default was either. I'm not suggesting development should pander to me.
Quite the opposite. When the desktop is finished, and it is easier to customize it to make everyone happy, then I'll switch. A big part of the appeal of KDE to me is the power of flexibility. I like having my desktop exactly how I like it, and neither Gnome, OS X, nor Windows allows me to do that.
Many of the complaints of KDE 4 aren't really faulting the work of KDE 4, but really they just speak volumes of what a great product KDE 3 is. When you do a major refactor, it takes a while to fully match your existing product. I'd be proud that the bar you set for yourself is so high, and it seems like you are close to meeting that bar.
I'm exciting for the future of KDE 4, but I don't want to use it just yet.
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Re: What are the plans for 3.5.x?
by Bobby on Thursday 13/Dec/2007, @05:36
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Exercise a little patience. Wait until the eggs are laid before you start judging what the chicken will look like. As far as I have read and understood KDE4 will be much more configurable than the present 3.5x so yes it will also be a desktop for you :)
The most of your critics are actually minor issues. you will be able to use a new theme and icon-set if you don't like oxygen, the same applies to window decoration and Kickoff, which you will be able to replace with Lancelot, Raptor or the simple KDE 3.5x menu that so many people are clinging to.
Just wait and see Mr. Brumfield...
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Re: What are the plans for 3.5.x?
by Richard on Wednesday 12/Dec/2007, @19:14
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I think you will find Novell will keep updating 3.5 for a few years as a lot of their businesses they work with will continue using that version if they use KDE
But I tend to view kde 4 in the light of windows xp. Using XP was a habit, and moving from that piece of shit to linux was a learning experience, but one full of rewards once I got the hang of it. KDE 4 appears to me the same. It looks like a monster (no offence). so many different and new aspects to it, that it will once again be a learning curve to get used to and fall back in love with it. Of course it is better than moving from XP to Vista, which is like taking a computer and wrecking it, lol
I'm looking forward to the release so I can update to it, I decided after RC1 to wait until the final release. Now if someone here can just hack into Aaron's computer, and change his calender to saying Jan 11, then maybe we can trick them into releasing it now ;)
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