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Criticisms of KDE 3 Release Process

Posted by michael on from the few-raindrops-must-fall dept.

An anonymous submitter sent in a link to a recent email from the kde-devel list, criticizing the release process. Hopefully the KDE guys can work out any problems and keep up the good work that we've seen in the past. Update: 03/10 14:20 GMT by M : One of the comments below points out that another KDE developer has made an extensive response to the original criticisms.

7 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. Make sure to get both sides of the story by klieber · · Score: 5, Informative
    The post linked to in the /. article is one side of the story. To get both (all) sides of the story, check out this thread:

    http://lists.kde.org/?t=101566017800001&r=1&w=2

    And specifically, Dirk Mueller's response:

    http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=101567612 207504&w=2

    I'm not saying one side is more right than the other -- merely that there are certainly two sides to this issue.

    --
    Gentoo Linux http://gentoo.org/
  2. Re:Take it Easy on KDE! by AirWulf666 · · Score: 3, Informative

    The mail was a rant from 3 core-developers who don't feel compfortable about the changes to the "release-policies", made for the 3.0-cycle. It sure helps to see the disadvantages of a procedure to optimze it. That's, what is happening in the thread on the list right now and it's not even worth a slashdot-message, because it's absolutely no big deal. KDE will not suffer from it, quite the contrary, work-processes gain much, if the workers are capable of constructive criticizm.

  3. word of reason from waldo bastian: by Karma+Sucks · · Score: 5, Informative

    From: Waldo Bastian
    To: kde-core-devel@mail.kde.org
    Subject: Thoughts about releases.
    Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 15:47:53 -0800

    Releases are a funny thing, you know, we love them and we hate them. Before a
    release everyone tends to get all excited and some people see a bunch of bugs
    and problems and then go into panic-mode. I have seen it happening with about
    every KDE release. Psychology must be playing tricks on the human mind.
    Looking back though, KDE releases have all been pretty ok. 2.0 could have
    been a bit more stable, but it is questionable whether delaying it would have
    helped much.

    Instead of going in panic-mode it is usually more constructive to check for
    remaining problems and either fix them yourself, or report them to one of the
    lists. Based on such reports a release coordinator will be able to get an
    impression of the overall quality and make an informed decission whether to
    release or to postpone.

    Unlike popular believe there is no shame in delaying a release till it has
    reached a quality that is desirable. It is up to the release coordinator to
    decide when that point has been reached. The sole purpose of release
    schedules is to coordinate develoment _WITHIN_ KDE itself. Distro's like
    Conectiva, Mandrake or SuSE may find it inconvenient that a KDE release
    happens later than originally planned but quite frankly that's their problem,
    not KDE's.
    (And in my case that's partly my problem because I happen to work for SuSE,
    but I disgress).

    I would also like to make use of the opportunity to thank Dirk for his hard
    work on this release. Thank you Dirk!

    And now let's have some fun finding those last remaining bugs....

    Cheers,
    Waldo
    --
    Advanced technology only happens when people take a basic idea and add to it.
    -- Bob Bemer

    --
    (Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
  4. I don't buy it by dimator · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't buy it (the complaint that is). The reasons for the changes seem to be for the long term good of KDE, and to keep the breakage of going from 3.0 to 3.1 in the future to a minimum.

    I have found the KDE guys' release scheduling and management of high quality in the past, and judging from the minimum of hiccups I got building 3.0 RC1, I can say they're still top notch.

    --
    python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
  5. Re:Professionalism == Bad by Fourier · · Score: 3, Informative

    Also there's that whole QT thingy.

    What exactly is the "thingy" about Qt? Some of us happen to think that Qt is a very professional, elegantly designed toolkit. It's been GPL'd for something like 1.5 years, so FSF zealotry shouldn't be an issue either...

    Seriously, I have a hard time figuring out why so many people bash Qt. Maybe someone can enlighten me.

  6. Uninstalling is Easy :-) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    > ./configure; make; make install

    >>How do you uninstall?

    This is a good question. It's really pretty easy,
    acutally to try out things like this without interfering
    with the package management system you use.
    The key is using the "--prefix" configure option to
    choose the target install directory.

    1) Create your own target location
    mkdir /usr/local/kde3
    export QTDIR=/usr/local/qt3
    export KDEDIR=/usr/local/kde3

    cp qt-copy-XXX.tar /usr/local/
    tar xvf qt-copy-XXX.tar
    ln -s /usr/local/qt-copy-XXX /usr/local/qt3

    cd $QTDIR
    ./configure (+ options listed in README.qt-copy)
    ./make

    tar xvf (kde-whatever-pkg.tar)
    cd kde-whatever-pkg
    ./configure --prefix=$KDEDIR
    make
    make install

    Now all the kde3 software you install like this goes
    under $KDEDIR

    If you want to uninstall it, just delete everything in
    that directory. Simple, eh?

  7. Re:Bah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    .. and not only that.. but his app (KIT), makes kinkatta not be in KDE.

    for everyone who has used both of them, kinkatta is a SHITLOAD better.