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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.
After all of the people recently complaining about the possiblity that previously open sourced software might have to succumb to the relentless tide of capitalism, I find it somewhat confusing that they are willing to find fault with KDE.
Right now, KDE looks to be the best hope for Linux to enter mainstream as a desktop OS. A VERY major portion of the impetus for users to not change is a lack of familiarity with the desktop. They don't care how it works, or what it does. They need their computer screen to be familiar to them the first time they experience their new OS. Once they're comfortable with it, they might abandon the "Windows look", but until then it will get users.
KDE could probably use not criticsism, but instead help from able computer scientists who want to see the open source movement triumph
KDE3 is early beta software.. Take a look at his first comments
1) Packages missing from the release entirely (1)
2) Rampant compile problems
3) Last-minute changes to build requirements that cannot be met by
many developers without an operating system upgrade (2)
4) Many outstanding bugs (3)
of course there's going to be problems with the software.
no one has made a post about the development of Woody and there are a lot more problems in it than KDE3. isn't this all part of the sotware development proccess? (emphasis on development)
The best part of developing free software is that it is low stress. People tend to get all bent out of shape about it. I think this is a pretty good example of what happens when people get stressed out about something that people are for the most part doing because they enjoy it.
So the KDE guys got together and were inspired to perform lots of last minute hacking. More power to them! So what if the 3.0 release is delayed or has a few issues. I think these three guys who signed the letter were just jealous because they weren't involved in the process.
I don't use KDE, and never liked it, but I have to stand up for the developers here. Just enjoy developing the software and stop bitching because there aren't 'hard freezes' before a release.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
It's a failing of leadership (if the criticism is true). I think it's important to remember 2 things here:
In light of this lack of management discovery, maybe a couple programers will start to see all the recent criticizm's of software managers (as in recent stories here) may be not as useful as trying to actually support managers of projects (espically OSS ones) a little more.
This is in no way unique to KDE; large development projects sometimes stumble even with the best of intentions by those involved. The Open Source community is unique in that everyones dirty laundry gets aired in public. This can make the process seem unruly, haphazard and chaotic compared to closed development - the truth is that the same kind of conflicts, friction and occasional disasters occur there as well, but hidden from view.
I'm not a KDE user myself (I prefer gnome), but I'm confident and hopeful that the KDE development team will get past these problems and produce another good release. They've done very good releases in the past, and there's no reason for them not to do it again.
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
... I'm glad Gnome is perfect.
:)
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/
Professionalism is a Good Thing(tm). However what your PHP calls professionalism might just be artificial. Sticking to a release date no matter the state of the code is unprofessional.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
This is Neil blowing things out of proportion again. It's honestly nothing new. He has long history of lambasting anything to do with KDE3.
Others are having *excellent* experiences with KDE3. Just check the "fucking amazing" (sic) post, for example.
So yes, there are two sides to the story
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
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.)
This guy has been moaning about KDE since ages. He may contribute to KDE a bit, but by God he pisses off nearly every developer.
lists.kde.org and dot.kde.org are where he trolls most.
He has:
Criticized *many* KDE developers good work, even though they are working for free in their spare time.
Would rather see Microsoft go off scott free and end up killing KDE than have Microsoft be punished for being a monopoly.
Has sabotaged KDE CVS because people didn't agree with him.
He now wants to lead KDE.
The guy has an agenda to cripple KDE anyway he can, by sowing discord and criticizing everyone. He shows no respect for peoples work and never apologizes even when he is completely wrong. Its a miracle KDE has put up with him so far.
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))"
"A VERY major portion of the impetus for users to not change is a lack of familiarity with the desktop..."
I just wanted to mention that it wasn't the interface so much that makes me not us Linux, it's that I have no clue how to get hardware to work. Windows has me that spoiled. I'm so used to having neat little menu driven things I can run that allow me to get things up and running, that when I went to use Linux (KDE on Redhat, I believe), I was unable to find what I needed to get network and sound going.
You may chalk this up to me being a helpless newbie, but I don't have this problem with Windows or even Mac. I guess what I'm really saying is that KDE at 2.0 was fine, but tinkering with the hardware to make everything work was what turned me off. I admit that I didn't put all that much effort into it, but I only have so much time, you know?
Apple got the idea right, though. Look at what they did with OSX. They built upon the BSD Kernel (I think it was BSD... don't shoot me if I got it wrong. Please feel free to correct me, though) and made the interface with a target audience in mind. The result? I have a coworker who is able to tinker with his Mac, but he's never needed to know the root password to his machine.
Redhat's gotten close to this in 7.0. I really feel like 8 or 9 may be enough to get me going in the Linux world. A new version of KDE is icing on the cake.
"Derp de derp."
> ./configure; make; make install
/usr/local/kde3
/usr/local/ /usr/local/qt-copy-XXX /usr/local/qt3
>>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
export QTDIR=/usr/local/qt3
export KDEDIR=/usr/local/kde3
cp qt-copy-XXX.tar
tar xvf qt-copy-XXX.tar
ln -s
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?
When you run into problems with GUI speed, consider your video adapter. Most of the processing needed to make things jump onto the screen is done by the video processor.
I consider Matrox to be the best video adapter for business (non-game) use. (Hitachi monitors are very sharp.)
I have a 200 MHz Pentium II with a Matrox adapter that is acceptably fast with KDE 2.
Bush's education improvements were