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KDE Responds To Misconceptions About KDE 4
Jiilik Oiolosse writes "PJ at Groklaw speaks with a member of the KDE team about some of the common myths circulating about KDE 4. 'There has been a bit of a dustup about KDE 4.0. A lot of opinions have been expressed, but I thought you might like to hear from KDE. So I wrote to them and asked if they'd be willing to explain their choices and answer the main complaints. They graciously agreed.' Among the topics discussed are: 'Releasing KDE 4.0 was a mistake,' 'I cannot put files on my desktop,' and 'KDE should just have ported KDE 3.5 to Qt 4 and not add all that other experimental stuff right away.'"
The OSS community have managed to build a better browser than IE, but how come they haven't been able to duplicate the Apple GUI experience? Is it just a case of OSS lagging behind commercial companies etc., and soon Linux will be on par with OS X. Or is there more to it than that, such as difference philosophies or lack of people with good a understanding of user psychology and graphic design principles?
The first impression I get, after a quick skim of the article, is that it sounds like they are having the same kind of problems with KDE 4 acceptance that Microsoft is having with Vista. Their users like the previous version a lot, don't see the value of the changes, and so on.
Problems with what? You're running around like a geek trying to run a piece of software that hasn't been out for even a few months and you're complaining it has shortcomings and some things missing? Stop press, news at 11.
Meanwhile, back on planet Earth people are still using KDE 3.5.x, they will probably use successive versions of it as well, and when the general consensus is that KDE 4.x looks OK then you'll start to see a natural move to it. That's what naturally tends to happen with these things. You just......................stop worrying. If you're an early adopter then that's exactly what you are. I hear that people actually pay for licenses for that privilege, and they complain less than the furore we've had with KDE 4. Go figure.
What distribution ships with KDE4 as the desktop by default? I'm not aware of any.
I didn't expect a feature complete KDE4.0, but that is because I actually read the announcements by the KDE team.
How does Vista have less features than XP and where does it lack functionality where XP has?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
However I firmly believe that KDE really messed up when it comes to mamaging user expectations.
Call something KDE 4.0 and people will believe it's fully functional ready to roll. And find themselves sorely disappointed. Call it "KDE 4.0 Developer Release" and people will understand what it is and is not.
One thing that irks me in KDE's reply though is that they give the impression that they clearly communicated what KDE 4.0 was and was not. I disagree. I visited kde.org a few times to find precisely that information, and it simply wasn't there.
That's why I was so happy with SuSE's honest and up-front statement about KDE 4.0 (see http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=528652&cid=23135548 ) that told me everything KDE.org didn't. No amount of post-furor explanations will take that away.
Isn't that the whole point of the distro though? They should do some testing to ensure that packages they release with their distro are really up to snuff. Just because somebody decides to call something ready, doesn't mean it should be included in the distro. Different distros take different approaches with what they consider ready. Debian stable usually stays well behind the curve, while Fedora seems to be quite bleeding edge. I also think KDE should have made it really clear that it wasn't feature complete, and also not stable, but the distros shouldn't blindly pick it up and push it on users, regardless of what KDE says about it.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
But are they on the right path? From what I have seen in KDE4.0, it seems to me that everything they have done is a step backwards.
Basically, the problem is: if it's working fine, why change? For instance, I'm still using the KDE-classic icon set because I see no reason to get glossier icons, I recognize instantly the old icons and that's what matters.
The big point about KDE has always been its capability for personal configuration. I prefer to use just one desktop, so I don't have a desktop selector applet in my taskbar. I prefer not to put icons on my desktop, since the desktop is always covered by the windows I'm using, so I have my favorite apps icons in my taskbar and use konqueror in the file management mode to open documents. That's the way I prefer, other people think differently, but KDE3.5 lets everyone be happy with their choices.
I've never adapted to Gnome, because the philosophy is different there, it seems to be about making it easier to do things, at the expense of configurability. Well, for me the easiest way to do things is to do them the way I find easier, not the way someone else prefers.
I can hear people telling me, "OK, if you don't like things as they are, just go ahead and change them, the source code is there". Well, I have neither the time nor the inclination to start developing the KDE user interface. I'm not complaining, they were under no obligation to develop KDE for me anyhow, but let's say I'm lamenting the way things are going.
So when Vista is first released and nothing really works and a lot of programs aren't compatible - Microsoft doesn't know what they are doing and the OS is labeled a failure.
When KDE releases the same type of program - there are 'misconceptions' and you have look at it in the 'Grand Scheme of Things to Come'.
Give me a break.
(Yes, I realize the two are functionally different pieces of software, I'm not comparing that. I'm comparing the level of criticism and PR cover-up here.)
This particular line is especially pathetic — even if truthful. Yes, according to others, we royally screwed up, but, fortunately, we had our own definitions of the goals.
To see this guys try to wriggle out of this shame is as unpleasant as trying to use their software. They've "redefined" an alpha pre-release as a "4.0". They've followed up with several minor post-releases (it is at 4.0.4 right now, is not it?) — which continue to be both feature-incomplete and buggy. But, I guess, if none of that was among their "clearly stated goals", things are dandy...
To call release of Plasma — the "new development from the ground up" — a "success" by any definition is a bad joke. The software screws itself up every once in a while so badly, the Internet-forums are already full of of advises, like this "just delete .kde/share/config/plasmarc".
KDE appears to have grown a serious marketing department some time ago — I noticed this during their pre-release "tension build-up", which was not unlike that of a new X-Box or iPhone. Heck, their "release party" was Google-sponsored! Except the new X-Box and iPhone work (save, maybe, for a few glitches). KDE4, on the other hand, does not — by anybody's definition, except, maybe, their own.
This most recent "gracious" response is just another marketing spin-attempt...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
They didn't know, but should have known.
A number of people on kde-devel@ made exactly this argument -- calling it 4.0 would mislead people into thinking it was ready for end users when it's not.
It's not enough to say "Yay, KDE 4.0!", and then follow up with "oh, by the way, this is a technology preview/developer release".
Go read the KDE 4.0 Press Release. There is not one mention of the fact that 4.0 is intended for anything but the general user population. Saying it's "the beginning of the KDE4 era" implies nothing about the quality of the 4.0 release; it only indicates there are more features in the pipeline.
If KDE wanted to send a clear message that 4.0 was not ready for anyone but early-adopters, the press release was the definitive place to do it. But they didn't, and all this angst is the result.
PR mistakes aside, I still think that KDE is, and has been, a great desktop. I've been using trunk as my main desktop for several weeks now, and now that 4.1 has been branched, I'm really looking forward to what 4.2 has to offer.
"I haven't lost my mind -- it's just backed up on tape somewhere."
I'm a developer on a major Linux distribution. I can tell that everytime more people shows up on the official IRC channels with the "Feature X is b0rken, you suck!" attitude.
That's the price one pays for taking Linux mainstream.
Mainstream users do not care about opensourseness - they just want their system work and do what they want to do it. And with KDE4 at moment nothing works as people expect - if it works at all.
In Windows land it is different: there is nobody you can complain. Normally you have to call support or local technician or friend hoping that they can fix it for you. Linux at moment lacks such "local technician or friend" option. Also, people do not want to pay for support (which comes bundled with Windows).
Add here the overall mess PC hardware market is and you have recipe for huge long-term problems.
And KDE4 shows clearly the conceptual divide between what mainstream expects and how F/LOSS function. On one side they published raw unfinished environment as they had to as open source project ("talk is cheap. show me the code." thing). On another side many distros to get on a bleeding edge rushed to include it as KDE3 replacement. This is dead-end for normal PC users - and Ubuntu already has bunch of them. It would take some serious explaining that they can go back to KDE3, because for them what is installed is what they get.
The only solution I can see (and it was suggested many times already) is for Ubuntu (and other Linux vendors) start selling PCs/laptops under their own brand. I could never understand what held Red Hat in past - nor do I understand now why Novell/Ubuntu (while keeping desktop on their roadmaps) do not want to go vertical. After all their primary focus (and Linux focus at large) remains server space where it is not critical. For desktop to know precisely whom you can report your problem is crucial: end-users do know little about IRC, forums and mail lists - nor do they want to get involved. They just want it to work.
After all, vertical integration worked (and works) for YDL (from TerraSoft) and YDL is older than Ubuntu and has many users. And hey - it really works well.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.