Re: Hypocrisy? -> Reality!

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Re: Hypocrisy? -> Reality!
by Eric Laffoon on Tuesday 10/Apr/2001, @22:32

There is no denying that it would be nice to have all the packaging covered... but how about reality? Here is reality...

1) Pretty much every vendor modifies their KDE install. Should that be acknowleged or circumvented?

2) KDE is not just a set of applications. It is integrally tied to a user's graphical shell. This means that it has to address start up issues which vary not only between distros but often between point releases of distros. How many dozen times should you have to build your program and get it tested?

3) There are a number of dependency issues such as alsa and SSH, but these are more critical when it comes to compiled binaries. So there are lots of issues introduced here, especially if your install is not vanilla.

Here is a thought. Ximian has been at their installer idea for some time and are now heavily financed... yet they do not support (to my knowlege) at this time Mandrake or SuSE. Why? Has anyone here ever tried to make an RPM? I say tried because I know hot shot programmers who tried and gave up!

Here's a final consideration. We release Quanta Plus as source but previously had people donating RPMs. I also follow newsgroups. As I see it the biggest problems out there are with RPMs! Personally I'm getting sick of them, but grateful when I need one and it works right. Still they are so easily hosed. Files from one version move to another package... dependencies want me to install beta compilers. No thanks!

KDE is not open binary... it is open source. Doesn't that mean anything any more? I would love to see every user convenience... but I would hate to see two to three weeks of hell added to a release to do packaging and half the developers walk away because they are too busy handling support emails to program and it's no longer any fun to develop.

If you find this to be a problem I suggest you either get your money back from the KDE developers (hint, they are giving this away) or you pitch in to make your vision reality. Telling them they are hypocrits for not having the resources to pacify you and act on their every idea seems to be missing the spirit of open source!

Related Links

·   Articles on KDE Official News
·   Also by Eric Laffoon
·   Contact author

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