KDE Developers Discuss Merging Libraries With Qt

An anonymous reader writes "A proposal has been brought up with KDE developers by Cornelius Schumacher to merge the KDE libraries with the upstream Qt project. This could potentially lead to KDE5 coming about sooner than anticipated, but there's very mixed views on whether merging kdelibs with Qt would actually be beneficial to the KDE project, which has already led to two lengthy mailing list talks (the first and second threads). What do you think?"

Comments

Focus on the now.

[Tamran]

Keep the specifications as they are. Fix all the current issues and make a SOLID product. It's good, but could be a LOT more stable and tight. When that's done, then go for the big merge and add new features.

Tamran

Quanta?

[JoeCommodore]

Why don't we finish some unfinished projects (Quanta) that many people are waiting for before changing things again.

Re:Quanta?

[billcopc]

Because if you've paid any attention to the KDE project since 4.0 betas, you'd have realized they don't give a rat's ass about completeness, performance, stability and usability. They just want to change everything all the fucking time until all the users flock to something less flashy and more productive, and then the KDE devs will be free to play Starcraft all day long.

At least that's how it looks like from my perspective, as a developer who has been royally pissed ever since KDE 3.5 was deprecated. I lose gobs of time to bugs and crashes, but am also terrified to update for fear of breakage, as has been the tendency with every minor release of 4.x. I still can't make reliable use of something as fundamental as FTP and SSH kioslaves. You think Quanta's fucked ? I've reverted to a Kate + kioslave workflow and I still run into issues - screw debugging, I can't even tell if my file is going to save properly.

I think the KDE devs need to call for a feature freeze, get what's already in there into a usable and stable condition, long before contemplating superficial topics like merging libs. Necessity trumps vanity.

What about Qt?

[bieber]

I'm sure it would be convenient for the KDE folks, but wouldn't this be a little superfluous for everyone using Qt on non-KDE platforms? Qt is a pretty massive runtime as-is...piling in the KDE libraries seems to me like it would be adding a lot of weight for relatively little benefit to anyone other than KDE. I don't use KDE myself, but I have been developing for Qt for a while...anyone who knows more about the KDE libs feel free to correct me if there's actually some great benefit I'd yield from having the KDE libs included in Qt...

Re:What about Qt?

[KugelKurt]

I'm sure it would be convenient for the KDE folks

If you read the mailing list threads, you'll see that many KDE people don't find that proposal convenient at all because it has the consequences of massive restructuring, different release cycles that don't match SC's, Nokia's currently lacking code submission process, etc.

Maybe and just maybe some select KDE components may end up in Qt but that can legally only happen if Nokia moves away from the currently mandatory "right to relicense" (not the same as copyright assignment but similar in practical terms).

Re:What about Qt?

[Carewolf]

The idea was to merge the parts that would be usefull in Qt, so that answers the questions: Yes, for the parts that makes sense it would be a benefit: Better datetime classes, better config system, asynchronous IO, MIME parsing etc.

It is also obvious that some parts of kdelibs (especially runtime parts, such as ), really wouldn't make sense in Qt anyway.

Oh, hey, look --

[aussersterne]

KDE considers yet another massive reorganization and new version! Certainly this won't affect usability or the long term future of the project at all, just like the transition from KDE3 to KDE4 didn't!

Re:Oh, hey, look --

[KugelKurt]

"KDE" considers nothing. A few people from within the KDE community play mind games but nothing is an official consideration by the whole KDE community.

Re:KDE4 = Windows Vista

[Fri13]

You do not know what you are talking about.

First of all, Windows Vista and KDE SC 4.0 has lots of differencies. KDE SC 4.0 was first release of the fourth generation of the KDE Software Compilation (KDE Plasma Desktop, KDE Platform, KDE Applications, KDE Development Platform. Does not include OS, System libraries, application libraries and most of the KDE or Non-KDE Apps) and in other corner, Windows Vista was a software system with NT operating system, Desktop, Application programs, Application libraries, System programs etc.

It is like comparing a motorcycle and bicycle which one is faster!

Secondly, Amarok does not belong to the KDE SC. It does not neither follow the KDE's own release schedule or release numbering. KDE and Amarok developers are two different communities, where Amarok developers just use what KDE developes itself and release in KDE SC.

You should drop down that stupid "KDE 4.0" whining and about Amarok 2.3 whining as well.

KDE idea to mimic a Windows Vista or Windows 7 is as saying that Leonardo Da Vinci was copying a 2000 century modern artists when doing a Mona Lisa painting. Both use(d) paint and canvas and thats it.

Not yet...

[Lord Kano]

How about they fix the steaming bloat-fest that is KDE4 before thinking about KDE5?

LK

Re:Not yet...

[QCompson]

There is no "KDE4". What do you mean by "KDE4"? Platform 4(.5)? Plasma Workspaces 4(.5)? The whole Software Compilation 4(.5)?

Uh yeah, that's part of the problem. Enough with the silly names. Did you really not know what he meant?

Re:KDE needs some competition.

[evJeremy]

Using imagemagick:
for f in *.jpg; do mogrify -profile sRGB.icc $f; mv $f `basename $f .jpg`.jpeg; done;

You'll need to supply sRGB.icc, but otherwise it seems to work just fine for me.