So an idiot agrees with an idiot. Not the first time that idiots have formed a mob to celebrate their own ignorance.
While you're busy villifying me as the bad guy here, you might want want to stop and consider how helpful it is to encourage someone to keep going when they're wrong. You're not helping anyone. I'm at least trying to point people to the correct understanding, albeit with a little impatience when they demonstrate willful ignorance.
They killed the brand with a massive fault and the bad publicity surrounding it. Nothing else in Zune's history needed to happen to justify scrapping the brand, just like nothing else needed to happen for IBM's Deskstar brand to be sold off after it became known as Deathstar.
No, you didn't look it up. You looked up a few pages, and scanned them for things that could be bent to support the conclusion you already came to, instead of reading to gain knowledge.
Oh, FSS, alright. Let's help you out, since you can't seem to do research on a basic topic.
From KDE.org:
KDE - The users view
For its users KDE brings out an entire barage of new ideas. Some are:
* A "Beautiful" contemporary desktop
* Complete network transparency and minimal need for configuration
* An integrated help system, thus allowing convenient and consistent access to help on the use of the desktop and applications
* Consistent look and feel
* Standardized menus, toolbars, keybindings, color-schemes, etc.
* Internationalization: KDE is available in more than 50 languages
* Centralized, consistent, dialog driven desktop configurations
* A host of useful KDE applications
The Current KDE distribution
The current official KDE distribution consists of the following packages:
* KDE-Libs: Various run-time libraries.
* KDE-Base: The base components (window-manager, desktop, panel, Konqueror)
* KDE-Plasma-Addons: Additional themes and applets for the desktop and panel
* KDE-Network: Networking applications such as an instant messenger and download manager.
* KDE-Pim: Mail client, addressbook, organizer and groupware integration.
* KDE-Graphics: Document viewer, image viewer and selected other graphics applications.
* KDE-Multimedia: Includes a video player as well as different audio players.
* Phonon: Multimedia layer that supports different backends, on different operating systems, for multimedia output.
* KDE-Accessibility: Applications to improve computer access for disabled people such as a text-to-speech system.
* KDE-Utilities: Useful utilities like an archiving tool and a calculator.
* KDE-Edu: Education and science applications.
* KDE-Games: Classic and modern games.
* KDE-Toys: KDE's fun stuff.
* KDE-Artwork: Additional icons, styles, wallpapers, screensavers and window decorations.
* KDE-Admin: Various tools to aid with system administration.
* KDE-SDK: Script and tools which simplify development of KDE applications.
* KOffice: Integrated office suite.
* KDevelop: C/C++ Integrated Development Environment.
* KDE-Bindings: bindings for various programming languages (Python, Ruby, Perl, Java...).
* KDEWebdev: Web development applications and tools.
If you think this is even roughly equivalent to "Explorer + a Window Manager", then yes, you're blind. Or ignorant.
He's also quite madly irresponsible, if he's advocating non-techie people switching to Linux in work without the support of a sympathetic admin. Sounds like a sure way to lose that promotion.
From your replies, it's clear that we're not communicating, but rather seem to be talking at each other. I'll try to be gracious and assume that's partly my fault. Either way, let's leave it here. I've already stated that I'm not really interested in a lengthy discussion on this again.
How uncool would everything be if you opened up a time capsule from the 80s and found out that it consisted of a polaroid picture of everything people wanted to put into the time capsule?
Hmm. A photo of the real thing, perfectly preserved, or the real Jessica Biel, but old, and really, really, really hungry, to the point of wanting to eat your brains. Tough call.
OK, so you've developed for GNOME and Windows. No offense, but.. well, so have a lot of people here. You are on Slashdot, and this is a technical discussion among techies, after all.
Yes, you mentioned APIs later on, which is getting closer to the truth. Your initial statement was still there though, and way off.
Granted, it's not a perfect mapping, and there is room for overlap in definitions, but if you're using statements like the one you made above to support the other guy's vastly incorrect position, you're either relatively clueless about this, or just jumping on a bandwagon.
In all fairness, "best" is one of those things that is in the eye of the beholder. When KDE 3.5 was the latest, GNOME was still "the best" for many people.
True enough, but with enough resources, I think you could have reasonably expected to conduct use-case oriented productivity test and a feature count on KDE 3.5 vs. GNOME, and be reasonably confident of KDE coming out on top back then. I'll be surprised if that's the case by the time 4.5 gets here.
Please elaborate, without using mailing list threads where these core developers get flamed endlessly because people don't like something in KDE 4.
I can't (be bothered) because what you see as devs being flamed is what I see as concerned users/developers voices being rejected on the basis that they're flaming.
Horrible?... How so? I ask because the release process is mostly unchanged since KDE 3.5, where apparently it worked well. What do you think has regressed since then?
I wasn't comparing to 3.5 here. I was comparing to the de facto standard for FOSS releases, which is to make something reasonably stable and feature complete, and certainly ready for reasonable third-party development and deployment testing, before you tag it as a beta, never mind a.0 release. Yes, KDE PR tried to do damage control when users expected more from 4.0, but it was hardly enough to counteract such a huge step away from the usual release methodologies.
No offense but this is a troll unless you have something in particular that you're talking about.
Offense taken. You should not refer to people as trolls just because they do not cite sources or write a thesis for everything point they make. This is slashdot, and my post is personal opinion, not a thesis. More importantly, you should bear in mind that users have been telling KDE it was going wrong for a LONG time, and have been ignored. Why on earth is the burden of communication on their side, rather than the developer's side, at this stage. Users like Linus and myself are far beyond waiting for a reasonable response now, and are simply voting with their feet.
But since you did ask sincerely... what I was referring to here is a) the fact that APIs were largely hammered out en route to each release rather than being specified up front with the bindings developed in parallel b) the lack of python APIs and documentation; c) the belated API availability (of any flavor) in distros that prevented people actually porting apps; and c) the unclear, outdated, and generally flakey instructions on techbase for setting up and updating a 4.x environment. As a particularly bad example, a tutorial on writing plasma widgets in python was only posted on 18 Jan THIS YEAR. Techbase had a gap for this for a long time. I'm pretty sure there were other issues too, but I don't recall all the details (nor do I wish to at this juncture frankly).
Well there are definitely "alienated groups" but who are you talking about specifically?
Here, I'm referring to the kde-artists people who were invited to contribute ideas for 4.x in a forum. They came up with good ideas, developed them, designed mockups, voted on their favourites, etc., only to have the site disappear into thin air one day, and for KDE developers later to use some of those ideas, claiming them as their own. I'm sure this wasn't intentional; maybe people just mentioned these things and devs picked up on them without conciously realising it. A lot of "creativity" works that way. It's also possible (though unlikely) that the exact same ideas occurred to developers without them ever being influenced by the originals or people who'd seen the originals. Even so, this was badly dealt with. Finally, some of these ideas were made official, but never really implemented. If they were going to b
Your statement that the Windows shell does what KDE or Gnome do is pretty accurate.
No, it's not. This has degenerated into the blind leading the blind. Have fun. When you want to be correct, try reading more. Even just GNOME's or KDE's own definitions of what they are would be a good place to start.
Yes, you can use many shells on top of KDE. You're quite confused about terminology, and seem to mean "file manager" when you say shell. KDE is not a file manager either. Wikipedia should help straighten out the definitions for you.
Linus will be back. KDE 4.2 is turning out very nice and I'm sure he will give it a try.
He actually said he would give it a try again. But will he actually switch again, even if the situation improves? That's another question. I think you're seriously underestimating the damage done to users' confidence by this whole 4.x shambles. I *might* go back to KDE in future, but honestly, after struggling to use and believe in KDE 4.x and develop on it, I feel like I've been punched in the face a few times for my troubles. Going back will take as much convincing as going back to buy stuff from (and recommend to others) a store where I'd been punched in the face for trying to buy something.
No, KDE is not a shell. And yes, desktop environments need to know about bluetooth. Ideally the vast majority of that would be a low-level API available across the desktop (and shell too), but that hasn't happened on Linux, and KDE is cross-platform, so the option isn't there.
p.s.: GNOME has similar bluetooth capabilities, so don't be too surprised.
The die-hards keep saying that the next 4.x release will be the one that fixes the bugs and provides decent features. First the pre-4.0 betas were alphas, but we were assured it'd all be much better by 4.0 (although really, 4.2 would be the first real release -- if so, THAT should be called 4.0. I mean, ffs!) Then 4.0 was alpha crap, and 4.1 would fix it. 4.1 was alpha crap (and I switched to gnome), but 4.2 would fix it... last I looked, progress on 4.2 sucked as well. I'm thinking 4.4 might be getting SOMEWHERE. Can't see me going back to KDE unless 5.0's release is handled MUCH better though.
It doesn't shout "PLEASE CONFIGURE ME!" in your face as KDE does.
I was quite happy to configure KDE, when it had the options I needed. I was also stunned by the things that just worked without configuration in 3.x, that GNOME (and windows) still don't do.
However, with KDE 4.x, the only shouting I hear goes something like "I'm a prototype built with animated gifs and javascript. Please implement me! Preferably with standard GUI widgets instead of this silly theme stuff."
Not quite. Back when Linus advocated KDE over GNOME, he was right on. KDE3.5 or so was vastly superior to GNOME in terms of features and polish. However, KDE 4.x has taken a step backwards, and shows no convincing signs of progress, which is why I've switched back to GNOME as well (having not used it since about 2.2). Linus is promoting the best option available at the time, without bias. Which is perfectly sane, and valid.
Basically, KDE has great tech. BUT core developers seem to have some sort of arrogance about listening to the community and some sort of project-deathwish which manifests in a horrible release process, minor versions that don't work until x.4 or so, and poor support for non-core developers. Moreover they've alienated some of the very groups they tried to encourage early in the KDE 4 brainstorming process. Finally, they generally seem to suffer from lack of manpower, which they have never really tried to solve. If you believed the hype the core devs were spouting, KDE 4 was going well, and no help was needed, until the product actually appeared as a release and everyone saw the real situation. KDE technology is great. If 4.4+ rocks the way 3.4+ did, and they don't make the same mistakes with 5.[0123], then they still have a chance. But for now, frankly, it's been terribly mismanaged.
Slashdot Mirror
So an idiot agrees with an idiot. Not the first time that idiots have formed a mob to celebrate their own ignorance.
While you're busy villifying me as the bad guy here, you might want want to stop and consider how helpful it is to encourage someone to keep going when they're wrong. You're not helping anyone. I'm at least trying to point people to the correct understanding, albeit with a little impatience when they demonstrate willful ignorance.
Now you're just being deliberately stubborn.
Oh god, I don't have your approval to be right? I'm so sorry.
They killed the brand with a massive fault and the bad publicity surrounding it. Nothing else in Zune's history needed to happen to justify scrapping the brand, just like nothing else needed to happen for IBM's Deskstar brand to be sold off after it became known as Deathstar.
No, you didn't look it up. You looked up a few pages, and scanned them for things that could be bent to support the conclusion you already came to, instead of reading to gain knowledge.
Oh, FSS, alright. Let's help you out, since you can't seem to do research on a basic topic.
From KDE.org:
If you think this is even roughly equivalent to "Explorer + a Window Manager", then yes, you're blind. Or ignorant.
Nope. I was replying to myself, thinking of Jessica Biel, but then realised the previous poster was talking about the 80s, not current.
You do raise interesting points about the plot of Flashdance and the consequences though :D
Congratulations. You've managed to decipher the DE of KDE.
No, but I did suggest looking it up. I'm not going to do your homework. It shouldn't be that tough.
He's also quite madly irresponsible, if he's advocating non-techie people switching to Linux in work without the support of a sympathetic admin. Sounds like a sure way to lose that promotion.
From your replies, it's clear that we're not communicating, but rather seem to be talking at each other. I'll try to be gracious and assume that's partly my fault. Either way, let's leave it here. I've already stated that I'm not really interested in a lengthy discussion on this again.
Err.. the 80s. Right. Jessica Biel would have been pretty young in the 80s. Substitute Star from Lost Boys or something, I dunno ;)
Hmm. A photo of the real thing, perfectly preserved, or the real Jessica Biel, but old, and really, really, really hungry, to the point of wanting to eat your brains. Tough call.
OK, so you've developed for GNOME and Windows. No offense, but.. well, so have a lot of people here. You are on Slashdot, and this is a technical discussion among techies, after all.
Yes, you mentioned APIs later on, which is getting closer to the truth. Your initial statement was still there though, and way off.
Granted, it's not a perfect mapping, and there is room for overlap in definitions, but if you're using statements like the one you made above to support the other guy's vastly incorrect position, you're either relatively clueless about this, or just jumping on a bandwagon.
Good luck using your phone or your keyboard then.
True enough, but with enough resources, I think you could have reasonably expected to conduct use-case oriented productivity test and a feature count on KDE 3.5 vs. GNOME, and be reasonably confident of KDE coming out on top back then. I'll be surprised if that's the case by the time 4.5 gets here.
I can't (be bothered) because what you see as devs being flamed is what I see as concerned users/developers voices being rejected on the basis that they're flaming.
I wasn't comparing to 3.5 here. I was comparing to the de facto standard for FOSS releases, which is to make something reasonably stable and feature complete, and certainly ready for reasonable third-party development and deployment testing, before you tag it as a beta, never mind a .0 release. Yes, KDE PR tried to do damage control when users expected more from 4.0, but it was hardly enough to counteract such a huge step away from the usual release methodologies.
Offense taken. You should not refer to people as trolls just because they do not cite sources or write a thesis for everything point they make. This is slashdot, and my post is personal opinion, not a thesis. More importantly, you should bear in mind that users have been telling KDE it was going wrong for a LONG time, and have been ignored. Why on earth is the burden of communication on their side, rather than the developer's side, at this stage. Users like Linus and myself are far beyond waiting for a reasonable response now, and are simply voting with their feet.
But since you did ask sincerely... what I was referring to here is a) the fact that APIs were largely hammered out en route to each release rather than being specified up front with the bindings developed in parallel b) the lack of python APIs and documentation; c) the belated API availability (of any flavor) in distros that prevented people actually porting apps; and c) the unclear, outdated, and generally flakey instructions on techbase for setting up and updating a 4.x environment. As a particularly bad example, a tutorial on writing plasma widgets in python was only posted on 18 Jan THIS YEAR. Techbase had a gap for this for a long time. I'm pretty sure there were other issues too, but I don't recall all the details (nor do I wish to at this juncture frankly).
Here, I'm referring to the kde-artists people who were invited to contribute ideas for 4.x in a forum. They came up with good ideas, developed them, designed mockups, voted on their favourites, etc., only to have the site disappear into thin air one day, and for KDE developers later to use some of those ideas, claiming them as their own. I'm sure this wasn't intentional; maybe people just mentioned these things and devs picked up on them without conciously realising it. A lot of "creativity" works that way. It's also possible (though unlikely) that the exact same ideas occurred to developers without them ever being influenced by the originals or people who'd seen the originals. Even so, this was badly dealt with. Finally, some of these ideas were made official, but never really implemented. If they were going to b
No, it's not. This has degenerated into the blind leading the blind. Have fun. When you want to be correct, try reading more. Even just GNOME's or KDE's own definitions of what they are would be a good place to start.
Dude, stop trying to act smart. You clearly don't know what you're talking about, so it would be much wiser to listen than speak.
Well read until you're less confused. This isn't rocket science.
Yes, you can use many shells on top of KDE. You're quite confused about terminology, and seem to mean "file manager" when you say shell. KDE is not a file manager either. Wikipedia should help straighten out the definitions for you.
He actually said he would give it a try again. But will he actually switch again, even if the situation improves? That's another question. I think you're seriously underestimating the damage done to users' confidence by this whole 4.x shambles. I *might* go back to KDE in future, but honestly, after struggling to use and believe in KDE 4.x and develop on it, I feel like I've been punched in the face a few times for my troubles. Going back will take as much convincing as going back to buy stuff from (and recommend to others) a store where I'd been punched in the face for trying to buy something.
No, KDE is not a shell. And yes, desktop environments need to know about bluetooth. Ideally the vast majority of that would be a low-level API available across the desktop (and shell too), but that hasn't happened on Linux, and KDE is cross-platform, so the option isn't there.
p.s.: GNOME has similar bluetooth capabilities, so don't be too surprised.
No one said he was pressured. Perhaps he simply lost faith in the future of KDE and didn't want to keep flogging a dead horse.
Oh man, that just sums things up perfectly. Well said :)
The die-hards keep saying that the next 4.x release will be the one that fixes the bugs and provides decent features. First the pre-4.0 betas were alphas, but we were assured it'd all be much better by 4.0 (although really, 4.2 would be the first real release -- if so, THAT should be called 4.0. I mean, ffs!) Then 4.0 was alpha crap, and 4.1 would fix it. 4.1 was alpha crap (and I switched to gnome), but 4.2 would fix it... last I looked, progress on 4.2 sucked as well. I'm thinking 4.4 might be getting SOMEWHERE. Can't see me going back to KDE unless 5.0's release is handled MUCH better though.
I was quite happy to configure KDE, when it had the options I needed. I was also stunned by the things that just worked without configuration in 3.x, that GNOME (and windows) still don't do.
However, with KDE 4.x, the only shouting I hear goes something like "I'm a prototype built with animated gifs and javascript. Please implement me! Preferably with standard GUI widgets instead of this silly theme stuff."
Not quite. Back when Linus advocated KDE over GNOME, he was right on. KDE3.5 or so was vastly superior to GNOME in terms of features and polish. However, KDE 4.x has taken a step backwards, and shows no convincing signs of progress, which is why I've switched back to GNOME as well (having not used it since about 2.2). Linus is promoting the best option available at the time, without bias. Which is perfectly sane, and valid.
Basically, KDE has great tech. BUT core developers seem to have some sort of arrogance about listening to the community and some sort of project-deathwish which manifests in a horrible release process, minor versions that don't work until x.4 or so, and poor support for non-core developers. Moreover they've alienated some of the very groups they tried to encourage early in the KDE 4 brainstorming process. Finally, they generally seem to suffer from lack of manpower, which they have never really tried to solve. If you believed the hype the core devs were spouting, KDE 4 was going well, and no help was needed, until the product actually appeared as a release and everyone saw the real situation. KDE technology is great. If 4.4+ rocks the way 3.4+ did, and they don't make the same mistakes with 5.[0123], then they still have a chance. But for now, frankly, it's been terribly mismanaged.