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Five Years of KDE
Jacek Fedorynski writes: "Looks like KDE is five years old. Five years seems like a lot of time but just look how much they've achieved in this time." I think the hard part is just beginning - KDE has got all the basics down, and now they have to resist adding too much more crap.
KDE has got all the basics down, and now they have to resist adding too much more crap.
I think KDE team is doing their good job. What do you mean by "adding more crap"? Do you mean adding more apps into the window manager? Well, you can always only download kde-base and other necessary ones if you don't like KOffice, KDevelop, and other stuffs...
Meanwhile, I like the idea to integrating their office suite with KDE. That way, you can get consistencies in user interface so that Windoze users don't get too much shock on migration.
Moreover, they're getting better every release. More stable, speedier, and more usable to users. Five years to develop this brilliant stuff is just unbelievably short. Not even Microsoft can build their lousy Win3.1 to another lousy Win2K, that took them more than 5 years...
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And after 5 years I'll bet most KDE users are using pretty much the latest version. Nearly 7 years after its release it is not odd to find Windows 95 still in use (about 100 of the 500 boxes I support are running 95), enough so software and peripheral companies still benifit from supporting it. Why is it still in use? For one, the price of upgrading all the software, secondly, the value of not replacing old systems for many orginizations. Comparing KDE and its five years of development and any five years of development in Windows history demonstrates the strenth of free software.
A company should have a focus - instead of trying to be all things to all people (MS == content provider/os maker/game station maker/you name it). KDE is a great example of what is possible when a project is not non-competitive, and focuses on providing one thing, in this case a desktop environment. Some might argue that KDE's focus is too broad. I don't use it that much, so I couldn't say.
Anyway, good work KDE people! Keep it up!
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
A) There are way less users of KDE than of windows
B) Users of KDE tend to be the admins of their own machine
C) Installs of KDE tend to be highly isolated compared to the mass installs you will find of windows at a corporation
Anyone who does custom work on their own (especially when there is OSD dogma pushing them forward) will of course upgrade as soon as possible. Corporations always move slower.
The QT libraries continue to evolve nicely, and thanks to Troll for GPL'ing the code.
Konqueror is an excellent browser product, and I consider it to be on par with the excellent Mozilla product.
KOffice is a competitve, well integrated product for people with moderate needs. I haven't had any problems yet I could not solve with KOffice.
KDevelop is the closest thing the Visual Studio on linux.
Other lesser-known product like Qunata, Kate and KXML are starting to show real promise. I would like Kate in particular to really catch fire like Emacs has over the years - its time for an editor that it totally integrated with its visual environment.
Its the integration that keeps me using KDE over GNOME, which I admit may have some stronger individual programs but just isn't stitched together like KDE is. Its amazing that this entire system is free and has source code available. I look forward to the next five years of this fantastic set of products.
I agree that these five years worth of progress is very impressive. However comparing them to Microsoft's work isn't entirely fair. Microsoft was developing an Operating System, not just a GUI for it. KDE has the advantage of using somone else's GUI library to work with as a basis. Plus they don't have to worry about the complexities of Operating System's.
Don't get me wrong, i don't mean to not give KDE credit where credit is due...but we gotta be fair, comparing KDE to Windows is hardly an equal comparison.
Well this wasn't Matthias Ettrich's first and only accomplishment. He also gave us the first and only usable frontend to latex.
I (and many other people!) swear by lyx for their scientific papers. It is absolutely great. Only after this did Matthias Ettrich start KDE.
First he created a GUI for the best OS text processing system, then he went on to create the best GUI for the entire unix OS!
Unlike some other guys (Miguel, Bruce, ...) he did not become a poster child of slashdot kids, but he deserves our gratitude for his great work towards a linux (and BSD) for the end user and on many desktops.
THANK YOU!
Moritz