KDE-CVS-Digest for August 29, 2003

In this week's Digest: It's been a very busy week. Some new applications: Knot,
a service location server, Kickme, a lightweight DCOP messenger and event viewer,
an LDAP kioslave, KWiFiManager, for monitoring wireless cards,
the new Plastik widget style,
an SNMP plugin for KSim.
aRts adds
Media Application Server output support.
KDevelop adds Haskell and Mozilla XUL language support.
KStars supports electrical telescope focusers. Security fixes for KDM.
KAddressBook has phone calling support.
Spell checking support in KOffice is complete, and improved elsewhere. The
KitchenSync plugin is added to Kontact.
KOrganizer printing system is improved.
Safari render_layer code is ported to KHTML.
More new CrystalSVG icons. Improvements for running KDE on laptops. And a huge number of bugfixes.

Dot Categories: 

Comments

by Datschge (not verified)

Thanks. ;)

by Kitty (not verified)

Thank you, almost scared me there, though there wouldn't be any this week :)

by Braden MacDonald (not verified)

Wow, IPv6 and SLP will be so cool.

by Pieter Bonne (not verified)

I must say I agree with the editorial comments on neal's commit.
And if everyone would start adding their local army forces to about boxes, there wouldn't be an end to it..

by wup (not verified)

Yup, me too.

Otherwise I'd like to add credits for my dog, pussy and guinny pig.

by Pieter Bonne (not verified)

I hope he'll change his stance about this.. i'm actually quite surprised he apparently doesn't understand why it can't be done.. i value his contributions (and Hayes in particular) very much..

by Neil Stevens (not verified)

All my code will continue to be maintained, so if you like what I write, you're not losing anything.

http://www.hakubi.us/kit/ (KDE 3 release already made and announced on http://freshmeat.net/)

http://www.hakubi.us/hayes/ (KDE 3 releases made for some time already, and announcements to be made on freshmeat from now on)

http://www.hakubi.us/megami/ (new release of the KDE 3 code coming soon, watch freshmeat)

http://www.hakubi.us/kaboodle/ (status undetermined, if kdemultimedia maintains this anyway, I'll rename my fork)

by Tormak (not verified)

Neil,

I actuall agree with you. It's your software, and if you want to credit the US military in it, that's your right. (And I agree w/ your sentiments about the US military too, and I'm not an american).

Cheers,
Sheldon.

by Jan (not verified)

Full ACK!
Nice to see that this project can't be taken over by some nutty freak.
I immediately removed all his apps from my hard disk. Good riddance!

Alternative slogans (don't worry - I do not plan to commit them to CVS):
(c) US Army - Turning dictatorships into civil wars world wide
USA (TM) - Feeding obese citizens by starving out the impoverished

Neil is gone, others are waiting in the queue, unfortunately.
Not that I'm especially fond of lots of things going on here in the EU,
but how the hell can one be so completely uncritical of:
Large proportions of the population imprisoned?
The world's highest per-capita energy consumption?
Death penalty for innocent black people?
No penalty whatsoever for racist police officers commiting crimes taped on video?

There has always been lots of critizism about the USA, but I rememeber only
10 years ago, America was still considered the land of the free, the
land of infinite opportunites, sth. desireable over here among large parts
of the population. After the Iraq war the shine has worn off competely.
Now they are just an ugly squid grabbing for more and more of the
world's resources for its obese population at the cost of people living elsewhere.
I'm quite disappointed...

by Derek Kite (not verified)

This isn't about Neil's ideas. An anti-american comment was removed from CVS a while ago. For the very same reason, it isn't the place for it. Nor is this forum the place for your comments.Take your politics somewhere else. If you have some code to contribute, fine.

Derek

by Neil Stevens (not verified)

Of course it's about ideas. Rather than keep KDE country-neutral and politics-free, KDE was made to take stands on pending EU laws.

And don't talk to me about patents hurting KDE until KDE cuts off all support and contact with software patenters like IBM, Red Hat, and Apple.

by AC (not verified)

Do you really not see a difference here? I'm sure that if there was a patent protest targetting North America, the response would have been the same from KDE.

What does it matter that this protest happened to be about Europe? Do you hate Europe or something?

Patents affect KDE, so they would care about any large patent protest. Armed forces do not directly affect KDE.

by User (not verified)

> Nice to see that this project can't be taken over by some nutty freak.
I immediately removed all his apps from my hard disk. Good riddance!

Sorry, but this is not the appropriate place for blatantly anti-American (or any kind) of politics. Thanks. Okay. Bye.

by Navindra Umanee (not verified)

You are the crossing the line here, with the above post.

by Ryan (not verified)

Dont veil your threats. If you plan to sanction people who post political views on a forum site (as opposed to KDE application credits), then you should atleast have the guts to state what the line is and what you will do if they cross it. This isnt the first time Ive seen you pass empty threats like theyre wind.

by Navindra Umanee (not verified)

Sure, email me if you want to be banned. I'll be glad to take care of it, since I'm sure you can find elsewhere to play the idiot.

by Ryan (not verified)
by James Richard Tyrer (not verified)

I do not find Neil's comment to be political, if taken in the proper context.

This context it the winning of WWII and the defeat of the USSR (the government) in the Cold War. Does anyone disagree with this?

On the other hand your comments *are* political. And I note that I somewhat agree with some of them, but you go too far.

On the other hand, I do not think such comments are appropriate in an application. But, OTOH, a patriotic wallpaper would be a good idea.

--
JRT

by Jojo (not verified)

Why don't you worms spend more time on reducing the memory footprint of kdeinit!

by anon (not verified)

kdeinit's memory usage is around 86k.. it's just a wrapper

by dth (not verified)

> This context it the winning of WWII and the defeat of the USSR (the government) in the Cold War. Does anyone disagree with this?

I do! Because the USSR actually won WWII. The Russians would have won, with or without US support. The US on the other hand could not have done it without the USSR. So therefore we should credit Stalin! No?

> On the other hand, I do not think such comments are appropriate in an application. But, OTOH, a patriotic wallpaper would be a good idea.

No, it wouldn't! KDE is an international project. Any given patriotic wallpaper will with certainty stir anger in another country. In some countries, most notably the KDE-centric Germany and Austria, the very concept of patriotism is despised. A couple of years ago, a german politician proclaimed: "I'm proud to be german!". He got tarred and feathered for that.

by SHiFT (not verified)

Well, the question is not about, that it is not allowed to add some entities as contributors list -- for example, if i wrote some application, I would gladly add my cat to contributors list for maintaing my good mood :-) -- and i would be sure that it would not offend any1's feelings -- since my cat influences only my mood, by letting me to caress it -- i am not forcing every one else to do it or like it -- and my good mood is the key success factor in writing applications :-) -- so i just stated it source

If the US army was the finansial sponsor of those projects -- that would matter. But the author of that comit stated, that the US army did "Preserving the freedom that made this software possible". That is an arguable political sentence, which can offend someone's feeling about US and their army. For example, I am quite sure, that US army preserved none of my freedoms, and that on the contrary, whole my life i tought that our (Russian) army is preserving my freedoms and rights against potential threats, including US as the grates possible one, all those numerous terrorists, and so on -- i was tought that if Soviet Union did not have nukes by the end of 40s, there would be no such country already by the 50s.

I know that other people may have other oppinion -- there are people here from Poland, Hungary or Chech Reoublic, for whom the Soviet Army the symbol of communist's dictature in their countries, rather than the symbol of freedom from the Hitler's invasion (reminder: it was the Soviet army which liberated the eastern europe, while US&UK were liberating the western part) -- and IT IS their right to think so -- i have no right to force them thinking in another way!

OK. now imagine, what a big flame can start right now about each of statements i've made -- that is why things like 'thaks to US army for "Preserving the freedom that made this software possible"' should not be in credit lists of about boxes of internationally-distibutable software.

by Evan "JabberWok... (not verified)

From a certain standpoint, your cat and the US Army are identical in the credits. They are both cited by the coder as secondary contributors.

Realisically, the credit should have been removed and a strict "primary contributors only" policy stated, i.e., no spouses, pets, fathers, or other inspirational or supporting groups or individuals should be allowed.

If the US Army contributes code, artwork or translation, then they should be credited. If not, then no. If the German government does the same, they should be credited. If not, then no. If the Presbyterian church contributes code, the same applies.

Slapping down one person's inspiration (Neal's US Army) and not another (your cat[1]) is not depoliticizing the KDE codebase - it is politicizing it. One person might be inspired by God, another by RMS (some would claim 'what's the difference :P ). Unless either has actually written the code, then they shouldn't get credit. If they did, they SHOULD be able to, no matter how much somebody thinks it may be "wrong". An equal playing field for contributors, and equal credit.

[1] I get the idea your cat is a fictional example, but let me use it for this too :)

by Pieter Bonne (not verified)

The thought about only adding direct/active contributors to a contributions list also crossed my mind :)
I think it would solve this problem and maybe others to make it a policy indeed, and help keeping people objective.

by Pieter Bonne (not verified)

I agree the statement should not be added for the reasons you are giving in your post.. i also think the bottomline is that (at least kde) shouldn't contain political texts, because
1) politics have no place in this project and
2) flamewars (about politics :p) have no place in this project.

But as I stated in the reply on my post, I'm also very concerned about why Neil made this statement and more importantly, why he almost begged for a discussion about this by moving his contributions from kde cvs..

So bottomline for me is, let's stop flaming, the relevant points have been made, and get back to work! (and hope (hopefully not in vain..) Neil changes his mind because of something we said here..)

by anon (not verified)

> And if everyone would start adding their local army forces to about boxes, there wouldn't be an end to it..

I think you're misunderstanding Neil's commit. He was simply protesting the political comment made on kde.org about patents.

See relevent links to Neil's blog ( http://the-amazing.us/simplyamerican/2172/ ) and also Rob Kaper's blog ( http://capzilla.net/blog/2171/ )

It's a shame this thing blew up so big. Perhaps a small link to the protest or a dot.kde.org editorial would have been good, but removing kde.org for a day was not.

by ac (not verified)

Um. Reading http://the-amazing.us/simplyamerican/2172/ and http://the-amazing.us/simplyamerican/ only convinces me more that some people are nuts...

by CE (not verified)

Being for freedom and for softwate patents isn't really possible...
It seems they don't mind that.

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

> but removing kde.org for a day was not.

KDE was not alone in this; it was a community-wide effort. It lasted just one day, not exactly a horrific disruption of service.

But most importantly, software patents are probably the biggest threat to Free / Open Source software today. They happen to threaten KDE directly. We can stick our heads in the sand until it is too late, or we can say something and do something about it now in the hopes that the scenarios we all hope will never happen don't ever happen.

This wasn't about taking up some random political stance, but about ensuring KDE and other Free Software projects can survive. Most of the KDE developers happened to understand and agree with the action taken.

by Pieter Bonne (not verified)

I still find it very disturbing he removed all his contributions because they contained a political statement. He apparently wanted them to contain it very badly, which I don't understand. Firstly, it's obvious kde shouldn't contain political stuff because it's an international project. Secondly, the us army it hardly an active contributor (but there's no rule against that in principle) and thirdly I disagree with the statement itself. I doubt that what americans are doing right now will reduce terrorism.

by ac (not verified)

> I still find it very disturbing he removed all his contributions because they contained a political statement. He apparently wanted them to contain it very badly, which I don't understand.

No, he didn't remove his code because they wouldn't let him keep the ridiculous credit line in his about box. He removed his code because of what he perceived as a double-standard in KDE commit policies, which he highlighted by putting a ridiculous credit line in his apps. This is standard procedure for Neil, if you follow the lists.

To wit: Someone does A. Neil says, well if they can do A, then surely I can do ridiculous-and-obliquely-related thing B! Everyone says: uh, no. Neil says why NOT?! What follows next is a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

by not ac (not verified)

So essentially it was a childish tantrum?

by Evan "JabberWok... (not verified)

I gather (without having been through all of this in detail) that the following occured:

Somebody spoke for KDE saying that Software Patents were wrong, and that KDE opposed them (it may have even been said in the CVS tree... I'm not sure).

Neil said "That's political, and should not be in KDE".

The consensus was "No, we *all* believe it (even though Neil was objecting), so it's okay. Besides, who cares about politics".

Whereupon, Neil, who is, I believe, a US Army veteran, posted credit to the US Army for his code - an inspirational credit.

Suddenly, it became a case of "well, politics against software patents is Goodthink, and supporting an army is Badthink".

IMO, both should be either fully allowed (i.e., KDE is a group of varied contributors with personalities), or neither should be (i.e., KDE is a simply codebase and no more).

If anybody can correct me or fill in the details, please feel free. I've read here and there and tried to keep an open mind to both sides.

by Neil Stevens (not verified)

Your summary seems accurate to me.

One correction: I have never served in the Army.

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

> The consensus was "No, we *all* believe it (even though Neil was objecting),
> so it's okay. Besides, who cares about politics".

no, the consensus was that enough people agreed with the change to do so, and that the change was directly related to KDE's future existence. there were others besides Neil who disagreed with the change, and they made their voice heard. but KDE isn't a project that requires 100% agreement by everyone to do something, as that would make ANY decision impossible to reach (too many people in the project). so things are done that not everyone agrees with (sometimes that includes me, so i'm not being hypocritical or unsympathetic here).

but most who said they didn't agree made their case in a civil and socially acceptable manner, a path that Neil decided not to follow. and it wasn't the first time, either. this, as one one might imagine, causes problems as it unfortunately escalated the issue into the stratosphere.

> Suddenly, it became a case of "well, politics against software patents is Goodthink,
> and supporting an army is Badthink".

it wasn't about "Goodthink" and all the 1984-Orwellien-esque implications the use of that phrase has. it was about using common sense and arriving at what was generally considered to be a majority consensus on a relevant topic.

or do you think KDE is a conspiracy of fools?

by Evan "JabberWok... (not verified)

:: no, the consensus was that enough people agreed with the change to do so, and that the change was directly related to KDE's future existence

I did not read the change that applied to software patents; I do not know the circumstances of the agreement. Perhaps my characterization of it as "Goodthink vs. Badthink" was connotative of 1984, but it was not intended to be. It was (and is) intended to indicate the group 'feel' on the issue (ignoring vocal individuals in either direction).

:: or do you think KDE is a conspiracy of fools?

I do not think KDE is a conspiracy, nor fools. Nor do I think that this was handled poorly. In fact, I went to great lengths to try an portray an evenhanded version of what I skimmed out of the lists. Basically, my only point in the whole issue was that the best thing to do to move forward is to agree on a way of handling credits. I then put forward the (common sense, likely already in the minds of most people) idea of 'primary contributors only'.

Incidently, I don't think Neil was out of line either. He was not in agreement with the majority, he spoke his mind, was overruled, and he walked away. He still has a good set of code on his website, I get the feeling he will continue to update it as he sees fit, and life goes on. Since it was specifically CVS commits that were the sticking point, it makes sense that he retract his code from CVS so he can take it in the direction he wishes.

At the end of the day, Hayes is still around, still maintained, and the author is happy. It's a bit less centralized, but that's okay... things out of KDE CVS get the advantage of being able to be a bit more edgy (in features or goals... or simply credits, apparantly in this case). KDE's still working fine, everything compiles, and the KDE core is free from any strings that might cause bad publicity or bad feelings on the part of some users or press (and I am making a common sense guess that that's a large portion of the reason people objected). So, KDE's a bit less edgy, a bit more stable, and a bit more palatable to users all over the world.

Everybody wins, at the slight cost of a bit more work downloading. KDE went by the group dynamic, and Neil chose to stick to his individual choice, and went off on his own. That's what volunteering is all about.

by Dnx (not verified)

Yes but if everybody starts acting like this then soon it will be a problem.
There is something that I'd really like to understand.
Did Neil acted that way only because he felt this was mixing KDE with politics or did the subject itself (patents in europe) had anything to do with it?

If it is the 1st one, then what if a worldwide law, one that allowed companies not to respect the GPL, was going to be voted? Would he still think KDE shouldn't protest? Sorry, I might be wrong, but I find it really hard to believe that anyone in KDE thinks so.

And if I'm right, then his problem is the subject itself. Patents in Europe.
I could speculate about the whys but I prefer not to. What matters here is that if that is the problem, the subject, then he simply doesn't agree with some position assumed by the KDE team in this case (not really the behaviour in it's essence), so IMO it is childish to do all that fuss. Like it has been said before, you cannot expect everybody to agree 100% on everything in every matter in such a big groups.

Dnx

by Alex (not verified)

> you cannot expect everybody to agree 100% on everything in every matter in such a big groups.

Sounds like decision by democtratic voting.

by Thomas (not verified)

Some days ago there has been a thread here on the dot about a chinese distribution including kde as its first-choice desktop...Of course, the question was raised what to do if there would be commits from a communist party(yes i know, it's _not_ communism over there in china). Different political views can easily break a community like ours (or others in the OpenSource universe).

Still there are European and US companies acting and working together with staff from around the globe... Heck, how many US companies have dependencies in china, how many European companies?.... I doubt they all agree on their political views, still they manage to work together (in most cases very friendly)... In big companies acting worldwide there's always this rule:

No Politics.

If these people can work together despite their different political background OpenSource projects can do this too....

by CE (not verified)

No politics, but KDE cannot ignore the threat to itself caused by patents on software.

by Kitty (not verified)

Don't fuck up the credits!

Only list people who contributed one fo these things: http://kde.org/support/

Moral support, encouragement this REALLY shouldn't go here or we will have a very long list wth many people that have no relation to the project.

AND POLITIICS DEFINITeLY SHOULDN'T BE HERE!

by Rat Tank (not verified)

I've just uninstalled any past and present versions of his software. I will not be implicitly supporting the army of a FASCIST STATE that invades countries to *steal their oil* and murder their civilians. The USA and its redneck blind patriot supporters disgust me.
It's good software, and I'm said to see it go from my system, but people like RMS and Linux Torvalds have taught me that righteous principle can sometimes be more important than functionality.

RT

by David L (not verified)

Well, I think that this message sums it all up. Not only software patants can be a threat to KDE, also political views are a threat.

Perhaps we have to let the OS advocates do their job of pushing europe and the world to the abolishment of software patents, and let the coders do their coding.

I wonder if it's wise to include in *a* release of KDE in *every* about box a message against software patents ? (this app may be abolished by ...)

by Eric Laffoon (not verified)

> I've just uninstalled any past and present versions of his software.

Don't forget Quanta Plus. I head that project and am a US Navy veteran so you have plenty of reason to hate me too.

> I will not be implicitly supporting the army of a FASCIST STATE that invades countries to *steal their oil* and murder their civilians.

Interesting. Did you support an intervention in the genocide in Bosnia or was that an invasion too? Did any state refusing to back the UN resolution have any multi billion dollar trade deals with Saddam at stake? Now that the Americans are going to have to spend over a hundred billion dollars rebuilding Iraq to steal a few billion dollars worth of oil we also know that they are stupid, right? I mean how much oil do they produce per year and how much can be diverted past any oversight so that they will not have to pay the going rate per barrel back to Iraq?

> The USA and its redneck blind patriot supporters disgust me.

Okay, what if they're NOT blind, grew their hair long to cover their red neck and are involved in open source projects? never mind. Your statement was about patriotic Americans without regard to whether that is inclusive of OSS developers.

> It's good software, and I'm said to see it go from my system, but people like RMS and Linux Torvalds have taught me that righteous principle can sometimes be more important than functionality.

But they live in America! Stallman even modelled a software declaration of independence after the US Declaration of Independence. Don't forget DARPA. DARPA is the Defense Advanced Research Agency responsible for the initial development of the internet and helping the W3C get started so we need to get you off the internet right away! Internet standards are managed by the W3C and I have provided the credit page below that is all the excuse you need.
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Prospectus/DARPA.html

There you have it. Neil Stevens credited the US Army and you removed his software. DARPA is part of the US military and is credited with both technology and standards as well as funding for the creation of the internet... and an ongoing involvement. If you're not a hypocrite disconnect! If you're disconnecting now let me be the first to say.. Buh-bye!

by nobody (not verified)

> I mean how much oil do they produce per year and how much can be diverted past any oversight so that they will not have to pay the going rate per barrel back to Iraq?

Pre 1990-production was slightly above 1 billion barrels per year. That's definitely less than the current costs of the allies, but not exactly peanuts either. Iraq has the second largest proven oil-resources in the world. Having at least some control over those resources is definitely interesting, esp. if you think Saudi-Arabia (largest oil-resources in the world) to be a potentially unreliable producer in the mid-term.
Now, saying oil was the one and only reason the allies invaded Iraq is ridiculous. Yet, I do think, it's part of the difference between e.g. North Korea (who admit to be running a military nuclear program) and Iraq (who have been found to have (illegally) kept the option of one day re-instating their military nuclear program). Yet other reasons make the difference between e.g. Pakistan and Iraq. Few of those are perfectly moralic.
That said, whoever thinks, "Old Europe" was opposing the war for solely moral reasons must be blind. The division lines corresponded remarkably well to who could be expected to gain or lose economic influence in Iraq due to the war. Personally, I happen to think France and Germany chose the "right" position in opposing this war. But they definitely did so for the wrong reasons.
Personally, I do think, the US and GB administrations were acting imorally. Saying they're generally more imoral than any other ambitious power (such as Germany and France no doubt are) is stupid and biased, however.
Condemming the US as a nation, therefore, makes no sense at all. But not only recent experience has shown that you should _always_ be suspicious of somebody who likes power enough to run for president in any country of the world. And in particular there's quite often reason to question the motivation for their politics. The true division lines are generally between economic interests, not between nations.
Not like any of this was related to KDE...

by anonymous coward (not verified)

Eric,

As a proud american, I thank you for your service to our country, and I will continue to use quanta to grow my website business.

Also, I didn't hear any complaints when the US decided to spend some money and resources in Liberia to stop genocide. And how convienent is it that so many trade deals existed with "Saddam" from our "allies"? I wish the media would report about that a bit more.

thanks..

by CE (not verified)

Yes, the killed children in Iraq thank the US for their help.

There is a difference, the US don't need to lie for reasons in helping Liberians.

by CE (not verified)

I don't think that modern politicians are really interested in the spirit of US Declaration of Independence.

Perhaps it would be better not to answer such comments.

PS: Remember, several people said that the war against Iraq would be stupid.
The US made no friends with it.
I'm very sure that there would have been better solutions.
I also believe that the reasons weren't directly economical, but power and Christian fanaticism.

by Ed Moyse (not verified)

Hmm. Eric, whilst I agree that the parent post you replied to was inflammatory, and frankly racist, I think you've gone a little over the top.

Most people who object to the US's (& Britain's) invasion of Iraq do not object to the US in general (at least most people I speak to don't), so listing the good things the US has done in the past, and the good people who live there, is not strictly relevant. This is a new president, and a new government, and it's THEIR actions that a large segment of the world (including me by the way) objects to.

Also, I believe that most of the US companies involved in re-building have said that they won't make a profit, but will take enough money from oil to cover their losses. This is an extremely important point (if it's true - can't find a link right now).

Finally, comparisons with Bosnia aren't fair. The invasion of Iraq was NOT primarily about saving the lives of the citizens of Iraq (it was part of the war on terror remember, and the - completely unsubstantiated - suggestion was that Iraq was a threat to the US) and was not carried out with the backing of most of the world. Effectively the current US government has said "we know best, and the laws we hold the rest of the world to don't apply to us* " It's this attitude that is so upsetting, and frankly frightening.

My natural inclination is to back america ... I have american cousins, and many, many american friends. San Francisco is one of the great cities I've been to. I love the place ... Bearing all that in mind, it should worry americans that someone like me now considers the US the greatest current threat to world peace. Not through overt malice, but more a sort of collosal arrogance that only one point of view is valid, and by resorting to force far too easily.

Ed

* I guess you'll object to this statement, but imagine that Russia invaded a neighbour to stop "terrorism" and did so without the backing of the security council. The US would surely object? Also, remember that there has been a big push towards an international court of war crimes, which has been totally derailed by the US's insistence that this is fine and dandy, as long as US troops are immune from presecution!