Bero Quits Red Hat Over Treatment of KDE

Vicegrip writes "In an article on leaked release notes on Redhat 8.0 CNet also revealed that Bernhard Rosenkraenzer, known here on Slashdot as berorh, has quit over objections he has on what Redhat is doing to KDE in the new release. Bero says that the new version of KDE in Redhat 8.0 is going to be crippleware. I know I always found Bero's comments here on Slashdot helpful and insightful. His worries about what Redhat is doing to KDE for 8.0 have me rather concerned and thinking of switching distributions."

Comments

I agree.

[aussersterne]

This story has already been covered once or twice on Slashdot, and a lot of users have said "This is good, it makes GNOME and KDE consistent, and if a user wants real KDE, he/she can always edit the configuration back to use the default KDE applications, etc."

But I've been using Red Hat 8 betas and it's not at all clear just how many things been changed... only that many aspects of the KDE environment in Red Hat are not configured in the same way as the 'real' KDE 3.x environment downloaded from kde.org. Yes, I could try and edit the configuration back to what looks like the real default KDE environment, but it would be a pain (many, many things would have to be changed) and I've no doubt that some things would remain broken or 'disconnected' from the KDE environment and replaced by GNOME applications, etc., in interesting RedHat-ish ways.

I'll be switching to another distribution next upgrade, because I want the KDE environment on my computer, not just kicker and kwm with a lot of GNOME apps and Red Hat apps connected to them.

Re:Amen

[go-nix.ca]

Think before you flame: He wasn't talking about forcing a choice on you. He was talking about creating a whole new desktop, not from scratch, necessarily, but better than both. This way, fewer efforts are duplicated (for instance, forcing a new window manager to support both GNOME and KDE integration). You would still have choice, unless, for some reason you like one technology over the other. In that case, remember: We're dealing with desktop features here. This means that the technology is not the focus - as long as it works properly and efficiently.

Suppose all GNOME and KDE developers all of a sudden decided to combine their efforts and come up with a unified desktop. You can rest asured that it will have enough flexibility to satisfy the most twisted of imaginations as far as desktop arrangement is concerned. You say that Windows is a bad example of a single desktop ? Of course it is ! But it's not bad because of lack of competition. It's bad because Microsoft doesn't listen to its users as much as the Open Source community does. After all, the users of Open Source Software are often its very developers, who are not restricted by Corporate Guidelines in coming up with imaginative new interface elments and artwork. Want more proof ? Windows is trying to catch up to the Linux desktops in flexibility, because more and more users want their icons just so, or they want their menus to do a little dance before disappearing.

Bero's email to the KDE list

[Vicegrip]

I should probably have included it in my submission to Slashdot. My humble apologies to the maintainers of that website for any inconvenience caused by the traffic. I just linked to the site the way CNet did :-(

List: kde-devel
Subject: New address
From: Bernhard Rosenkraenzer
Date: 2002-09-25 7:36:31
[Download message RAW]

Hi,
Effective immediately, I've left Red Hat (mostly in mutual agreement - I
don't want to work on crippling KDE, and they don't want an employee who
admits RH 8.0's KDE is crippleware).

If anyone needs/wants to contact me, please use the addresses
bero@berolinux.org or bero@kde.org.

For any RH specific KDE issues, please contact Than Ngo .

LLaP
bero