In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Marble gets "temperature" and "precipitation" maps, and a "stars" plugin. More work on "fuzzy searches" in Digikam. Konqueror gets support for crash session recovery and session management. Runners can now be managed using a KPluginSelector-based dialog, and attention-blinking support in Plasma. Various Plasma applets move around KDE SVN before the KDE 4.1 feature freeze takes effect, with WebKit applet support moving into kdebase. SVG stuff from WebKit starts to be integrated into KHTML. More optimisations in KHTML, with KJS/Frostbyte, a version using bytecode and other enhancements, moving back into kdelibs. Start of an implemention of the JavaScript scripting API for PDF documents in Okular, based on KJS. Continued work on KJots integration into Kontact, and creating/editing links between entries in KJots. More work on theming in Amarok 2. Various improvements in kvpnc. More configuration user interfaces in KNetworkManager. Enhancements in the KTorrent bandwidth scheduler plugin. Support for CUPS printing options in KDE printing dialogs. Mailody moves to kdereview. The "OnlineSync" plugin is merged into Akregator. Initial commit of a new MSWord-to-ODF filter for KWord, and a caligraphy tool for Karbon. KDevMon is ported to KDE 4. Development of the Shaman2 package manager is moved into KDE SVN (playground/sysadmin). The PHP-Qt bindings move from playground/bindings to the kdebindings module. KDE 4.1 Beta 1 is tagged for release. Read the rest of the Digest here.
Comments
not only was it probably not trolling, it absolutely wasn't trolling. i know because, well, i wrote it and as such i know what i was thinking at the time. if you're curious, here's what i was thinking:
"man, the icon support in 4.0.x isn't that great. people really want that stuff to be better. thank goodness we have something even better now. this is going to rock!"
when i started writing i was thinking:
"heh. first i'll note how we totally gutted the 4.0 icon support. i'm sure some will enjoy seeing that one roasted and toasted ... and then i'll show what we've replaced it with! people who hated the 4.0.x icons are going to be so much happier with this. first they'll think, 'what will i do with my icons now?' and then they'll see the screen shot, read what the new folderview can do and think, 'woah, that's really neat.'"
i was giddy with getting to play with one more piece of the puzzle that had danced in my head for years now. it's pretty intoxicating. a really wonderful experience.
as a result, i was completely over optimistic about people's patience to read an entire article before losing it, about people's ability to enjoy some playfulness and for others to keep those people in check who didn't get it.
apparently, there isn't much room granted for an error in judging the self-selected audience who read my blog. so be it.
but it wasn't trolling.
while we're sharing advice, though: the "accept the blame i envision for you in my head" game is really not a healthy one.
Hello Aaron,
what strikes me, is that indeed, telling your thoughts would have been much better than the article I read. Your playful approach is normally well appreciated, but entirely didn't come across in this case.
What didn't come across, is what a _major_ breakthrough that is, in the eyes of kdesktop users, in the eye of design beauty, in the eye of being able to throw out the 4.0 implementation of icons, in the eye of having a clear path to catch up with kdesktop.
Yours,
Kay
Aaron, as probably thousands others, I really liked your post. Not only that one, but pretty much all others as well - and not only because of the content, but also because of your blogging style. Especially the "no more icons in 4.1" post really was an amazing read. It is really a pity that there are so many people out there who are unable to read, unable to get a slight bit of joyful irony, unable to post actual comments instead of useless trolling, i could go on but you get the point.
Please, reopen your blog, keep blogging as you did before, keep ranting. Your blog was my no. 1 read in my news reader, always. Oh, and I'm just a KDE user, not a developer.
Seconded. I would love it if Aaron opened up the blog again (comments could be off, to avoid the trolls).
You *did* read the note on the comment page asking you to stay ontopic?
Why not just send Aaron an email? The commit digest has nothing to do with that.
If the comment was deleted because it was off topic, I must say things didn't work out that well did they... :|
it wasn't because it was off-topic (though it was that, too). i had the misfortune of seeing the comment before it was deleted; in it i was, again, personally likened to a dictatorship from recent history. *sigh*
godwin's law seems to have stepped in at that point.
But you are not as bad as Bush.
Yours,
Kay
I, for my part, am sorry for the bad joke, didn't expected it hurt your feelings. The joke was so ABSURD I tought no one would take it seriously, but I was mistaken.
And I do not care you told "fsck" myself :)
Hitler, Tom Green... :D I guess it comes with being popular. But don't let it get over your head just yet. You'll know you're getting there when people start coming up with cartoons and caricatures instead of just writing it in message boards :)
I was never blaming you personally. I was stating that "Aaron sucks! Plasma sucks! You're doing it wrong!" types of posts are what need to be moderated.
Bullshit! It is not necessary to _silence_ anyone at all! Removing comments is a bad thing. On the other hand, having a message board full of crap is also pretty bad. There has to be some balance.
A moderation system in which scores below a (configurable) threshold are not visible by default would do the trick just fine. It would also be good to have a login system, non anonymous messages with initial score above default threshold, and the others below.
Furthermore accounts given to developers could be set so that their initial score is higher than regular accounts. And also so that it never goes below the default threshold or even below its initial score.
The mandate to delete is temporary - we're working on replacing the dot software to permit proper moderation. In the meantime, we either delete or we don't.
OK then, that's good to know. Well guess my answer to your other post, which I just submitted, just became obsolete. I would delete it myself if I could ;)
The slashdot code is open, isn't it?
It'll probably be drupal that replaces it - right now our biggest issue is migration of data as the dot was pretty heavily customized when it was first created.
Those suggestions make sense. The problem is that you tell us what to do, rather than offering help doing it or just plain putting work into it. That's what we call "armchair developers", and this whole problem is partly a consequence of this attitude you're exposing. Get involved, earn your privilege to tell others what to do.
Before you even consider that, please get rid of your abusive way of diminishing other people's comment in public. Another step in the right direction would be to stand behind your words and not post anonymously.
"The problem is that you tell us what to do"
IMHO this would be a problem only if the poster (ad) had posted the same suggestions over and over again, without offering to help. Posting constructive suggestions *once* should always be allowed, and encouraged, no?
Granted, ad did start his post with the word "Bullshit", but then went on to be constructive. That's my impression. Let's all try to read each other's posts favorably!
> Posting constructive suggestions *once* should always be allowed, and encouraged, no?
This makes sense, yes. Just be very sure that once means one time total, not one time per user. With a million users using something that a thousand developers created this little distinction makes a lot of sense.
> Just be very sure that once means one time total, not one time per user
I disagree. this will never happen and you know and understand why -- we are not a hive mind where everyone automatically knows what has been thought and said so it is not accidentally said again.
I am more than happy to have many people suggest the same thing over and over. that is great feedback -- here is something that is so important, enough people feel they wish to speak out about it.
bravo for speaking out.
I am more than happy for one person to say the same thing over and over. and hope that s/he takes it further to (motivated internally or by kde dev encouragement) to detail their thoughts and how it could be implemented, its potential benefit to KDE and the difficulties it would introduce to implement
bravo for speaking out and being encouraged to become a contributor.
and I, maybe one of the rare few, consider "users", by the mere act of using KDE, to be contributors.
bravo to those using KDE.
those with a bee in their bonnet? Sadly they haven't been effectively dealt with in this incident. no, I do not now what would have been effective.
desktop wise, saying "this is how its going to be" wasn't the best means of communicating a new way of thinking.
jumping down the throat of those who have vision, was overly rude and cowardly.
taking your ball and going home? not the best response for someone in a public position.
calling (some) users poisonous? wait till those with an axe to grind get wind of this - you ain't seen nothing yet.
we need a time-out, everyone in their separate corners to do some reflection.
> taking your ball and going home?
> not the best response for someone in a public position.
taking your ball and going home is when you don't like something and decide the best way to deal with it is not to deal with it.
however when someone walks away from a long term relationship that is repeatedly and without resolution abusive? that's not even close to the same thing.
thanks, though.
> to detail their thoughts and how it could be implemented,
> its potential benefit to KDE and the difficulties it would
> introduce to implement
and when that happens, it is indeed welcome. it isn't the issue here, though, because that isn't even remotely close to what was happening that got us here.
and, because some people seem to be getting lost in this aspect of the conversation: it wasn't "the users". in that sense i feel for those making a case to cut "the users" some slack. see, it was a minority of people who are users, not all of them. but it was also others who are contributors who contributed significantly to the situation.
so while some are busy pointing fingers at individuals, perhaps everyone would be better served by looking at the entire system that causes this to happen.. where "what happened" is burning through the good will of the most committed people going.
> you ain't seen nothing yet.
and you haven't been reading my inbox for the last few years, either. ;)
> we need a time-out, everyone in their
> separate corners to do some reflection.
that's exactly what i'm trying to do. not sure everyone has arrived at that realization yet, though.
Unlike you, I'm not happy to see comments removed--especially ones that contained honest questioning. As a long time reader of Aaron's blog I found it curious that all of the sudden that you couldn't even *read* the thing--no explanation, no nothing. *Something* would have been better, even if it was just a lone sentence with comments locked out. Not everyone is privy to what goes on the behind the scenes; quite frankly I had no idea that things had gotten so bad until I started poking around the mailing lists.
It's sad, but the reason that this kind of thing happens is that the society we have been given is ego-syntonic--everybody only looks out for themselves, and to hell with the rest. And, to me, that's is unbelievably, utterly sad because it's the antithesis of everything that KDE and open source stands for.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I hope that what's normal for cultures around the world doesn't creep into the open source arena. I feel bad for Aaron and everyone else who has to put up with a bunch of stuff that they really shouldn't have to. It makes me profoundly to sad to even think about it. :-(
The mailing lists, his blog comments, the dot, even *fricking* bug reports. Being called dictator just once in a public forum can hurt. Having that happen to you day in and out? I honestly don't know how he took it.
I think ervin's explanation on planet is sufficient.
I noticed it was down just now too.
It really is appalling the attitude that has been displayed towards someone who has put a hell of a lot of time an effort into KDE. Work on the UI is always controversial because it's the one thing that everyone has to get along with. But that same point is exactly the reason why this work is so important. Without this redesign KDE4 would be a back-end of exciting innovative technologies plastered over with a Win95 era interface.
Some people seriously lack vision. That's not their fault of course but what is their fault is using beta / unrecommended software and expecting it to be finished. You don't move into a half built house and then complain it leaks when it rains. That's plain stupid. What is even more ridiculous is when these same people then complain that they're not being listened to adequately - as if idiots make good counsel.
We don't know what Plasma will become. We do know that the developers are putting more work into this than any number of armchair experts. We also know that the reality is improving an incredible rate. We also know that worst comes to the worst we realise it's going nowhere and we do something else. Shit happens, especially when you're not paying for it.
Aaron: Your hard work and innovation in KDE4 is really appreciated. Look forward to seeing what's still to come.
Thanks
Perhaps Aaron's move to shut most of his communication with us end-users down for a while will help to calm down the situation. I *really* hope it won't be forever. I, for my part, have always liked to read his blog, read about the vision for plasma etc. even if I didn't always understand all his plans. The whole "dictator" stuff is really ridiculous, and perhaps all this was necessary to make this point crystal clear for everyone - even I needed some time to fully understand: It's just completely unrealistic to think that Open Source software will work like this: "Hello community - Do you want feature A, B, C? Vote yes/no. OK, 60% yes - feature in." This doesn't work too well in society and it doesn't work with open source development. So, why are so many people surprised about this fact? Please be honest: If Aaron would have asked right before starting the development of plasma: "Do you want to have most of the KDE3 features removed for an uncertain amount of time - I want to rearrange things?" I certainly would have voted "No". I'm honest enough to admit this. I'm an end-user, using KDE at home and at work and I for sure wouldn't have liked all the features going away with KDE 4.0. But it was probably necessary, as we can all see right now. KDE 4.0 really was a bit shocking for me. Today, I'm writing this on KDE 4.1 beta 2, and there are not many things I still miss and - more important - I enjoy the new features a lot, having comic strips, folder views and what not on my desktop. Thanks Aaron for all this!
So, if non-community decisions are required - is Open Source just as "bad" (i.e. closed) as commercial software? I think it's quite important to think about how to answer this question as well, because we should be aware what we really like about Open Source to avoid such unnecessary discussions in the feature. IMHO the answer is: Open Source software is better, because if things go completely in the wrong direction or not moving forward at all, after some time things will auto-correct themselves, because developers are able to fork and/or to write alternative & compatible software. If Aaron wants say the cashew button in, but all other 1000 developers not, what would happen? Those developers wouldn't even need to write a new KDE, not even a new plasma. They would simply replace this single component - or write an alternative one. You can't do that by far as easily with commercial software. Obviously, this didn't happen with the cashew so it's just plain wrong to state that the direction the desktop is taken is determined by 1 person. An analogy to the democracy we live in: Not every single decision is voted upon by the public (Do you want us to raise taxes?). But if taxes are raised by 5000% they probably wouldn't last another election. If there is a king or dictator that wouldn't happen. You could really say a lot about our politicians, but not that it's a dictatorship. Looking at the cashew, even looking close - it just doesn't look like a 5000% tax raise, does it? ;-) So, perhaps everyone should keep his cool and instead enjoy all the new things in KDE 4.1 we get for free, because Aaron is working hard for months on end on them. Thanks again for this and to all the other developers. It's the fault of us very content end-users that we are not more vocal about what we like, leaving the playing field to all the naysayers.
second...
+1 Amen my brother
+1 Amen my brother
Hello,
I totally don't mind that "he who codes gets to decide".
With Plasma, it was Aarons rightful decision as maintainer to not port kicker anymore. I think the mistake was not to start work on Plasma (or a new kicker) until very short before the release after having monopolized the buzz about it, which I think prevented others from doing it instead. Remember plasma.kde.org and then nothing at all, for very long time. Many months I have wondered when work will start.
So, if there was a plan to have KDE 4.0.0 with a meaningful Plasma, a mistake was made here. Of course, it's not like other things were less important. I am not decided, if the lack of Plasma working prevented others from developing more actively on KDE4 and its applications. I tend to think a damage was done to the project with this.
But the important mistakes were to pretend that Plasma 4.0.0 would be good, or that Plasma 4.1.0 will be, and to prevent others from working in the area while he was not.
I could imagine that somebody may have ported kicker, if it had not been ruled out so early. And with kdesktop/kicker OR Plasma as a choice, no problem would have existed, other than that Plasma would be developed much slower. That would be a possible damage too, because Plasma would have to compete with the old code without an all or nothing approach. Now I can only use Plasma if I like the new window manager better.
I leave it up to Aaron to decide this. I can only make guesses, and I have to assume (likely correctly so) that he and others know KDE better that me. But I think, the tension around KDE 4 was created artificially, and at the discretion of the KDE president.
If KDE had wanted, and some parts probably did, a much more graceful migration would have been possible for the core user experience.
But as I said in other postings, discussion about mistakes has become impossible. I doubt that Aaron believes that I admire him, and would take a signature gladly from him. I doubt that I can think he makes mistakes and still be good. And I doubt he considers he made mistakes. But that limits my admiration though. Probably because I have seen how harmful that can be in other contexts.
Yours,
Kay
> I think the mistake was not to start work on Plasma (or a new kicker) until very short before the release
It is a common misunderstanding that software engineering results in immediate output of some kind. Good software enigneering will get to coding at a very late state, after (often several iterations of) brainstorming, designing, review and evalution.
Especially such a huge and novel undertaking as Plasma needs months of planning, concept prototypes, etc. before the first line of real code can be committed.
> I am not decided, if the lack of Plasma working prevented others from developing more actively on KDE4 and its applications.
It is more the other way around. Plasma developers made a sacrifice in allowing a release with only the basic feature set finished, so that other project contributors wouldn't be delayed any longer.
It is a pity that the decision which gave us tons of awesome applications as early as January and will give us the first improvement iteration of these apps in July gets interpreted as being harmful to the project.
> and to prevent others from working in the area
Nobody was ever prevented from working on features in Plasma or creating KDE4 based versions of a desktop handler and a panel.
> And with kdesktop/kicker OR Plasma as a choice, no problem would have existed, other than that Plasma would be developed much slower.
Plasma development wouldn't have been impacted at all, its developers would still worked on it. In fact the absence of anyone wanting to try a port or new implementation of Kicker/KDesktop shows nicely that all people interested in this part of the KDE workspace felt that their time would be better sent on working on Plasma.
> If KDE had wanted, and some parts probably did, a much more graceful migration would have been possible for the core user experience.
We all know that the alternative would have been delaying *all* of KDE4 for in the worst case another year, probably delaying integrative work (like getting Nepomuk support into applications) even more.
From my point of view an iterative approach of continuous improvements is the lesser of the two evils.
> > I think the mistake was not to start work on Plasma (or a new kicker) until > > very short before the release
> It is a common misunderstanding that software engineering results in immediate > output of some kind. Good software enigneering will get to coding at a very
> late state, after (often several iterations of) brainstorming, designing,
> review and evalution.
> Especially such a huge and novel undertaking as Plasma needs months of
> planning, concept prototypes, etc. before the first line of real code can be
> committed.
Not quite. It's certainly a folly to think that one can sit down and code things without designing. But it's also a folly to think that one can get a complex design right w/o trying to implement it.
> But it's also a folly to think that one can get a complex design right w/o trying to implement it.
Right, this is what I meant with "concept prototypes".
"It is a common misunderstanding that software engineering results in immediate output of some kind. Good software enigneering will get to coding at a very late state, after (often several iterations of) brainstorming, designing, review and evalution.
Especially such a huge and novel undertaking as Plasma needs months of planning, concept prototypes, etc. before the first line of real code can be committed."
This is what gets me. The Plasma website goes up and promises a revolution in how people use their desktop. Years go by in silence, and then Plasma is announced as a scripting framework for widgets.
A good design starts by targeting the user's needs. What does the software need to be able to do? Then figure out how you intend to implement it, and then begin coding.
We have this flexible framework, which admittedly is nice to be flexible, but how much planning was their early on for this vision of Plasma? You heard early on about the concepts for Nepomuk, Akondi, Solid, etc. How come no one ever publicly talked about this grand vision for Plasma other than widgets, and even that seemed a little later in the overall development.
On kde-look.org people were submitting some ideas on how to radically approach the desktop. Not once did I see developers respond positively or negatively on how these types of concepts might work into the KDE 4 scheme. My complaint isn't that coding was late because of massive planning, but rather the impression I get (which may be flawed as someone outside the development process) is that Plasma didn't have as much of the planning as the other areas, yet Plasma is the most visible.
I warned for months leading up to the KDE 4 release that there would be a lot of negative reactions. I didn't say that to be mean, but rather to temper developer expectations. I read on the Planet that several developers seem offended by user reactions. I wrote last year that of all the exciting KDE 4 technologies I was excited about, most of them would be overlooked and forgotten. People would (and did) focus on Plasma. It was the most hyped, and most visible. It directly affects the users the most.
Then I saw developers late in the game discuss the concept of icons around icons, an experiment which I guess didn't work. At least they tried, which is fine, but that concept seemed to appear after plasma was reality in code. Shouldn't that type of brainstorming largely have occured a few years back when Plasma was first a concept? The same with folderview now.
If Plasma had been designed in concept years back more solidly, then many of the usability details could have been hashed out. Documentation could have been laid out. Users would have a better idea of the end goal, and expectations might be better structured around working towards that end.
If there was a grand scheme for the Plasma desktop years back, I'm really curious to hear what it was. I believe everyone is.
> Then I saw developers late in the game discuss the concept of icons around
> icons, an experiment which I guess didn't work. At least they tried, which is
> fine, but that concept seemed to appear after plasma was reality in code.
> Shouldn't that type of brainstorming largely have occured a few years back
> when Plasma was first a concept?
this was first prototyped at the Appeal meeting some 3 years ago in Berlin. you can ask the other attendees, and maybe even be able to find the mockup somewhere online still somewhere? anyways, that was where i first pitched on a small whiteboard one evening.
the trash uses to show its menu arrow on the desktop, dolphin uses the concept for selection ... and i'd be very surprised if we don't see it pop up in more places.
so .. yes, you are right that brainstorming should have happened a few years back. in fact, it did.
the rest of your comment is similarly accurate. i hope you excuse me not refuting it point by point.
My very small suggestion:
next time, instead of trying to surprise users with features, be more open (again, to users) about features and put them also in the brainstorm.
I know developers do not want users placing ideas before they can implemente theirs first, but I believe much of KDE4 problems could be avoided if users had a small participation in the discussion.
Probably 4.0 would be called 4.0-preview-edition, we would not launch 4.0 before the panel/desktop was not at the 3.X level of features, we would have no top-right plasma icon, etc.
Some would loose (having their ideas removed or hidden), but overall, I think everyone would be happier.
So, instead of pointing guilties, and keep complying here is my question:
- how can I help?
I think, at least I can create some kind of KDE IDEAS site, like the ones from Dell and Ubuntu, in PHP+SQL, if KDE team os OK with it - even if it is not official. It would give voice to USERS that I think, is the root of all recent discussion problems (not being heard).
Thanks.
I think you missed the forest for the trees with my comment.
I suggested that it appears from the outside (which may be a faulty perception) that overall there was not a grand design for the finished Plasma desktop from the beginning. The fact that someone mentioned the icon-around-icon thing three years ago does not clarify if such an overall design for Plasma exists or not.
"the rest of your comment is similarly accurate."
I wasn't aware questions and opinions were easily quantified as being accurate.
> On kde-look.org people were submitting some ideas on how to radically
> approach the desktop. Not once did I see developers respond positively
> or negatively on how these types of concepts might work into the KDE 4
> scheme.
yay. I don't know about you but I've a list of bookmarks of my personal top10-concepts aka KDE4 brainstorm ideas. The funny thing is, if you talk with others everyone has his own top candidates and some of them are very different implementation and usage wise. Well, the good thing is, that you don't need to find a consense there and pick only one of them while others are ignored. Per design it's easy to replace the application-launcher with your favorite one - may it be the classic KDE3-like menu, Lancelot, Raptor or whatever else - as well as the panel, the desktop, etc., etc.
That is where things start to rock for me since I am allowed to choose my favorite proposal, implement and use it just like I am able to choose my favorite icon-theme, splash screen, color theme, etc. and nobody does to agree there with my personal taste. That's the freedom and flexibility those architecture does provide to me :-)
> This is what gets me. The Plasma website goes up and promises a revolution in how people use their desktop. Years go by in silence, and then Plasma is announced as a scripting framework for widgets.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't "a scripting framework for widgets" provide most (or all) of what the Plasma home page describes? For example:
> Plasma will deliver new looks for most traditional panel elements, an extensions system designed for beautiful results and graphic treatments that will firmly cement it as the desktop by which others are measured.
Okay, I'll give a few examples of how Plasma does this:
1) SVG theming: Obviously, this allows for people to make things look "cool"
2) an extension system: not only can people create widgets for the panel and desktop, but they can _also_ make new ways to present those widgets (new containments). This allows for a lot of completely different desktop designs without adding them to the Plasma core.
> In Plasma, the desktop is not a file manager view. Icons will still be able to be placed there, just as you can put application launchers and links to files and locations you are working with, but that will not be the grand purpose of Plasma's desktop. Instead, the desktop layer will be a place to interact with your system and a place for the system to interact with you. This means providing an exensible user interface. It shouldn't be busy, but it should be useful.
All of this is true today, including the basic fact: the desktop is not a folder view. The folder view applet is. Why is anyone complaining about what is announced long before.
And more importantly, Plasma does allow people to deviate from the designs Plasma comes stock with. The widgets, and the widget's presentational form, are hot-swappable.
Hello Kevin,
the plan for Plasma implementation didn't reflect that it will take time. There was no way that Plasma could be finished before release, and every month that went by without code, added to it. In fact, there were months without any public dicussion of Plasma, and without any code being written.
And with that release. My memory tells me that KDE 4.0.0 got delayed from October to Dezember, because of Plasma not being ready. The fact that at the time of the last release candidate, Aaron claimed that nobody could judge the final Plasma of 4.0.0 based on that RC, is still present in my memory. At the time, everybody should have been aware that another delay was due, except that it wasn't possible anymore.
As for the no kicker/kdesktop port, I am not entirely convinced that there was no interest, given that it had been made clear so early, that it's supposed to be dead, nobody dared to speak up. Same as with Plasma on Windows or MacOS X, I am 100% sure, people (will) want it, but have been discouraged.
And please tell me, how is kicker vs. Plasma any issue for any other KDE tech in apps? And see above, Plasma caused delays. That's my major critique, that Plasma was put on a critical path for 4.0.0 release, when there was no need to do that. Plasma perfectly could have been ready with 4.1 or 4.2 release, while the rest had progressed unhindered.
As I see it, the quality of kdelibs 4.0.0 was amazingly good. It's a pity that adoption was not positively enforced with a desktop shell concept that was proven and universally accepted, and implemented.
How much time would it have taken to port kdesktop and kicker? Having read Aarons blog, I understand that the code was not worth it. But then I (and others) would have been KDE 4 users from the start.
I see a chance that this option of a port is only a fantasy I had, but I also see a chance, that it was needlessly discouraged.
Yours,
Kay
"My memory tells me that KDE 4.0.0 got delayed from October to Dezember, because of Plasma not being ready"
There were a whole bunch of things that were "not ready" in October - KConfig and some other important subsystem (mime-types, IIRC) being just two examples. Singling out Plasma to be the whipping boy is unfair.
Hello,
it's not about fairness, is it? But it's rather absurd the say that Plasma "allowed an release", isn't it?
More than that, it prevented release for some time and then it prevented release adoption at any larger scale.
Yours,
Kay
"it's not about fairness, is it?"
I don't want to get in to a discussion about fairness, so I'll put it much more factually: If Plasma had been 100% working, 4.0.0 would still have been delayed. Core elements like the aforementioned KConfig weren't ready and were blockers.
"But it's rather absurd the say that Plasma "allowed an release", isn't it?"
Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by this, and cannot find the quote you are referring to :)
> As for the no kicker/kdesktop port, I am not entirely convinced that there was > no interest, given that it had been made clear so early, that it's supposed to > be dead, nobody dared to speak up. Same as with Plasma on Windows or MacOS X, > I am 100% sure, people (will) want it, but have been discouraged.
It's actually not true that they weren't ported. Kicker was actually somewhat functional and working quite close to 4.0 release. It was however, also very buggy, crashy, etc.; since it made no sense to spend time on fixing something
that would be replaced.
KDesktop is a trickier matter, however, since it shared quite some code with konqueror's iconviews, which were (sensibly) removed in favor of sharing things with Dolphin.
Hello,
a transition plan would have made sense, but implementing it, would have been no fun, so I can hardly blame anybody for not doing it. I do find it bad that it was actively discouraged from the start. The vaporware (for a long time) Plasma took away all its mindshare at least, and public announcements were made, that sort of stopped the (natural) idea in its bed.
As it stands now, KDE 4 can't be the default desktop for another while, since standard distributions just can't migrate their users to the old icons, but won't have the new icons before yet another 6 months.
If you (for a moment in your mind) remove Plasma from the mix, it would be hard to find a reason why KDE 4 adoption shouldn't be as fast as it was for KDE 3. That was as I recall it, immediate. Big distributions were fighting to be the first ones, you won't see that yet.
I'd like to see an open discussion that results in an agreement that makes statements like "kicker shall not be ported to KDE 4", or newer "Plasma shall not be ported to other platforms", unacceptable, because the thing that hurts our community. Both of these are examples where politics gets in the way of what people want to have/do.
If there really was no way to have a usable KDE 4.0.0 release, fine. If that kind of statement (and decision process) was part of it, it must be done away with.
That's the worthwhile lesson of KDE 4 history so far. I can perfectly accept to wait for Plasma to finish, and KDE 4 to be finally adopted, even if later that needed to be. It would just be nice to know that things are not prevented at the discretion of (even prominent) nay-sayers.
Yours,
Kay
> since standard distributions just can't migrate their users to the old icons, but won't have the new icons before yet another 6 months.
I don't think many people would have a problem with using the folderview in windowed mode, especially since a distribtor could use a Plasma theme with very thin borders.
> that makes statements like "kicker shall not be ported to KDE 4", or newer "Plasma shall not be ported to other platforms", unacceptable
Nobody would ever make such statements in the first place, since this is a Free Software project.
Some developers might explicitly state that *they* are not going to work on something, which doesn't mean anybody else can.
Hello,
about the statements: Were a Aaron's persons blog still public, I am sure I would try to cite it. Your words were exactly my thoughts (and comment) then.
And you know, if the kicker or later Plasma maintainer says these things, they do have a different weight. You would have to port Plasma to Windows and get into tension with Aaron, you probably has some almost consensus behind him, that people just don't want that politically.
And about that folderview in windowed mode, hopefully that will work. I have no basis for my assumption that mass migration will only happen once people can get the "traditional" KDE desktop shell just with more options.
Yours,
Kay
> about the statements: Were a Aaron's persons blog still public, I am sure I would try to cite it. Your words were exactly my thoughts (and comment) then.
You have me confused now.
Since we both agree that Aaron never made such over generalized statements like "shall not" and you even commented on them back then, why are you looking for a process that avoids them, if they do not come up with the current one?
> And you know, if the kicker or later Plasma maintainer says these things, they do have a different weight.
Sure, if a subsystem maintainer says he won't do something, other developers usually understand this as "it would mean tons of unsatisfactory work".
Of course of others prefer it over the maintainer's own solution, they will still work on it, see the various projects for alternative launchers (traditional K-Menu, Lancelot, Raptor)
KDE's history has quite some occasions where alternatives got developed with full support of KDE's infrastructure and eventually became the solution most people use (e.g. Amarok).
> You would have to port Plasma to Windows and get into tension with Aaron
Actually parts of Plasma, e.g. libplasma, are available for Windows as well, since applications like Amarok are using it.
Regarding tensions, I don't think so. As long as support for new operating systems does not harm the functionality and stability of the main target (Free Software OS), patches will be accepted.
Hello,
it's simple to lift the confusion: I think Aaron said "Plasma shall not be ported to Windows or MacOS X" in some blog.
I remember a time when Aaron e.g. said "Free Software/KDE should not be ported to Windows, it will hurt". And later he said the above (or similar in meaning). He hasn't commented on it lately I think, but I think he felt at the time that Plasma should be a killer app and therefore for Linux only, and it would be his decision.
Note: I googled up "Plasma will not be ported to Windows" from his blog, but I suppose, Google is going to quickly forget about it. The cache didn't work already. Oh my god, I likely violated the DMCA. ;-) Anyway, I concur, this hardly any proof of anything. That's only a memory now.
I am glad anyway, that if such a thing has been said or not, it's agreed that it's unacceptable. That's all that matters.
Yours,
Kay
Hi Kay,
> My memory tells me that KDE 4.0.0 got delayed from October to Dezember, because of Plasma not being ready.
There were more areas still unfinished at that time because several people had less time available than they had originally anticipated.
Other, e.g. KDE PIM, had the advantage of not being as essential, so it could even skip the 4.0 release.
> That's my major critique, that Plasma was put on a critical path for 4.0.0 release, when there was no need to do that.
Well, of course we could have just released platform and apps without workspace, but since we see how the basic implementation triggered negative responses, can you imagine what having no workspace (desktop, panel, etc) at all would have triggered?
I am not sure a "KDE apps 4.0" release would have been understood any better.
> It's a pity that adoption was not positively enforced with a desktop shell concept that was proven and universally accepted, and implemented.
I am not so sure that making a release which actually depends on certain KDE3 components would have been accepted either.
> even if it was just a lone sentence with comments locked out
as there was no safe haven for a public discussion of these matters, i decided to quite simply withdraw from the public. such a parting message did not seem to be useful in resolving any of the pertinent issues.
now while it was not my immediate intention to inspire change (i just wanted to be rid of pain and waste of energy, tbh; anything beyond that was mere hoping), it seems that this has started some wheels turning that had been quite stuck in the past.
if these efforts begin to work out, i will consider re-emerging into public life with regards to the KDE project.
more importantly to KDE than just little old me, if these efforts work out we will retain far more contributors in the future than we have the in past.
we'll see.