Criticisms of KDE 3 Release Process

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.

Comments

Management issues

[Alien54]

God, sounds like a management problem, or more accurately, a management system failure, more than anything else.

Sort of gives the lie to the idea that good engineers will make good managers. Not often enough that you can always count on it. Although it is good if the managers do understand the technical issues, of course.

Now they have to go debug the management system.

ouch.

Re:Take it Easy on KDE!

[modulus]

What developers (and 'computer scientists', if they really must) should do... is support GNOME. It disgusts me that people think KDE is somehow good, even more that they think it is "the best hope for Linux". Wake up and smell the GNOME!

KDE is the most unstable thing in the Linux world

[Zapdos]

That is as the API goes, spend a few hundred hours making your apps work on kde2, a few months later have to spend a few hundred hours making your apps work on kde3, a few months later....... This is bad for kde and bad for linux.

YOUZ THE LLAMA, BISH

[Dr Kool, PhD]

I posted the parent post AND the reply!! hAHAhahaha!! I was troling you!! And you fwll for it!! hHAhaahahaa

Re:This happens in large projects.

[j3110]

Funny that open source software has problems with release method, isn't it? From the kernel to KDE, any large OSS has release problems. There are larger projects that don't have these problems in the real world. It's a scalability issue. Millions of developers need better coordination through planning and standardizing. Funny how that directly contradicts Linus's logic in the evolutionary programming model. Not only is half the software under-documented, but the code looks like a million monkeys' code as well because fast code and quick fixes are the core of the Linux principal. Sure you can make boat float that way, but it will never be as good as a well designed battleship. Someday, they'll learn that the million monkey aproach just doesn't cut it compared to having set standards of coding style and well thought out, near static API's. I look at XFS code for the kernel, and I see good clean code; whereas, almost anywhere else has scabs and scar tissue from all the duct tape and patches.

I would quote some funny stuff from the kernel, but I'm on a qwerty keyboard and it has frustrated me enough. It's a bottomless bag of humor and pain.

I've seen things like
a=b;
while(a==b);
a=b;

Don't get me wrong, it's better than other OS's with intentional obfiscation, but it can be a lot better, and shouldn't be compared to alternatives by developers. Windows sucks, shoot for the best possible, not the best on the market. I can compare a bowl of oatmeal to windows and give a favorable review for the oatmeal. And oatmeal is just a hearty bowl of self-hatred.

Nothing burns karma like the truth.