Interview with Sebastian Kuegler, KDE Developer

invisibastard writes "Linux Tech Daily has an interview with KDE's Sebastian Kuegler. Sebastian talks about the KDE 4.0 release event, goes into detail about how KDE has improved its processes and much more. '[...] there are many easy ways to help. The most obvious is helping people installing KDE, answering questions on forums, IRC and other media. Lately, we're getting also an increased amount of requests for speakers. Often local LUGs are interested in talks by KDE knowledgeable people. It might sound a bit scary, representing KDE in your local LUG, but it's really what KDE is about. Everybody comes from a local community, that is where our grassroots are. People often don't think that they are entitled to represent KDE, but that's just not the case at all. In fact, the marketing and promo team have a hard time finding enough speakers for all events. Slides are usually available, so it doesn't need all that much preparation.'

Re:New processes

[oever]

Personally, I was skeptical about the KDE 4.0 release too, initially. But given the scope and size of the project it was unavoidable and did not turn out bad at all. You should compare KDE 4.0 with Linux 2.6.0. There too, the problem of chicken (stable finished code) and egg (large userbase) caused delays which led Linus to make a release. The label '2.6.0' finally got distros to shift to the new release and accelerated stabilization.

We are now seeing the same for KDE. Before the schedule became so strict, people were working on the libraries mainly. Since last November progress towards stable and compelling applications went very fast and currently KDE 4.0 is not complete in terms of ported applications, but is a very nice environment to develop for and is perfectly nice to use. This desktop has high potential for the well-integrated sexyness that is the hallmark of KDE.

Re:

[dlevitan]

Personally, I was skeptical about the KDE 4.0 release too, initially. But given the scope and size of the project it was unavoidable and did not turn out bad at all. You should compare KDE 4.0 with Linux 2.6.0. There too, the problem of chicken (stable finished code) and egg (large userbase) caused delays which led Linus to make a release. The label '2.6.0' finally got distros to shift to the new release and accelerated stabilization.

dWe are now seeing the same for KDE. Before the schedule became so strict, people were working on the libraries mainly. Since last November progress towards stable and compelling applications went very fast and currently KDE 4.0 is not complete in terms of ported applications, but is a very nice environment to develop for and is perfectly nice to use. This desktop has high potential for the well-integrated sexyness that is the hallmark of KDE.

Unfortunately releasing 4.0 like this makes KDE look bad. I really doubt distributions will include it as a default option until it becomes more polished. Granted, I never used KDE much before 3.0, but IIRC, 3.0 was a big improvement over 2.0 in functionality and elegance. No, it wasn't perfect, but it was much more polished than 4.0. The problem is that KDE did so well with the 3.5 branch that no users except for developers are going to want to switch over to something that is not as stable or as polished

Re:New processes

[pizzach]

To summarize: The closer something is to perfection, the easier it is to screw it up when trying to improve it.

Re:

[pherthyl]

IIRC, 3.0 was a big improvement over 2.0 in functionality and elegance

You're looking back with rose coloured glasses. KDE 3.0 had a hideous default look and wasn't terribly stable. The only reason it was reasonably featureful was because not a lot of the core changed from KDE 2. But then it turned into a great series, just like KDE 4 will eventually.

Re:

[KugelKurt]

Unfortunately releasing 4.0 like this makes KDE look bad. I really doubt distributions will include it as a default option until it becomes more polished.

KDE 4.0 was not intended by the KDE team to become the default desktop in any distro (AFAIK the next Fedora-KDE release ship with 4.0 as default).

Granted, I never used KDE much before 3.0, but IIRC, 3.0 was a big improvement over 2.0 in functionality and elegance. No, it wasn't perfect, but it was much more polished than 4.0.

KDE 3.0 was mainly a port of KDE 2.x to Qt 3. In KDE 4.0 major components have been rewritten. That wasn't the case with KDE 3.0 -- with one (AFAIK just one) notable major exception: KDevelop. KDevelop 3.0 wasn't released until IIRC KDE 3.2.
KDE 4.0 can better be compared with KDE 2.0 and GNOME 2.0.

Now, in a year 4.1 and 4.2 will probably get close to the 3.5 branch, but I'm just worried that KDE's reputation might suffer in the mean time.

Does GNOME's reputation suffer because of the 2.0 release?

Re:New processes

[cp.tar]

Does GNOME's reputation suffer because of the 2.0 release?

Yes. It does.

I loved Gnome back in the days of 1.4, which was the last good version in my book.
Ever since 2.0, Gnome has started turning into a confining environment, restricting more choices with every release.

First they made a new window manager; I'm sorry, but until this day I don't see what Metacity has that Sawfish did not. But I immediately noticed all the options it did not have.
Then they started dropping options from various configuration dialogs, basically turning applications from tweakable tools to one-size-fits-no-one crap.

I know I'm not the only one who hates what Gnome is turning into, and while I do keep trying out different UIs (and I'm very partial to E17, BTW), KDE 4 may prove to be interesting and comfortable enough for me to convert.

Then again, I'm less likely to mind the "yeah, sorry, we haven't had the time to implemet $OPTION properly, but we'll have it in the next version" attitude than the "it was confusing some users, so we removed it" one.

Re:

[garvon]

Are you saying I am not the only one who feels that way? I liked gnome 1.4 It could be configured to how YOU wanted it as a desktop. It also played nice with most window mangers (at that time). I wonder if the code base could be updated.

Re:

[pherthyl]

Then again, I'm less likely to mind the "yeah, sorry, we haven't had the time to implemet $OPTION properly, but we'll have it in the next version" attitude than the "it was confusing some users, so we removed it" one.

That's the key right there. Features missing in KDE 4.0 aren't there because although the devs tried their best, they just didn't have time to add everything. Most of these features will be added back in due course.

Re:New processes

[cp.tar]

That's the key right there. Features missing in KDE 4.0 aren't there because although the devs tried their best, they just didn't have time to add everything. Most of these features will be added back in due course.

... which is why many people here bitch about them releasing the 4.0 version.

While I do understand the sentiment, I feel this release was kind of jumping in the cold water — not very pleasant, but now it's done, it had to be done either way, and let's please move on. The product is here, bugs are being taken care of, features are being added, just keep swimming... You had been warned anyway.

Re:

[cp.tar]

Maybe you should get work done instead of masturbating with your desktop environment. Other than changing the background image and window color scheme, how much more diddling do you need?

Why, have I just been honoured by a reply by Miguel de Icaza himself? Looking at your profile, I'd guess not, but a nice troll anyway.

FWIW, if backgrounds and colour schemes were all there is to desktop environments, we'd all still be using fvwm, which I recall as being way better than Metacity.

And while I haven't used Gnome in quite a while, I don't recall being able to put different background images on different viewports, which is a very quick and convenient way of telling them apart visually. Not s

Re:

[erikdalen]

but I wish they had at least stated that 4.0 was a developer release and that users should not switch until 4.1 - it would make things much smoother in my opinion.

KDE developers did state that. [kdedevelopers.org]

Quote:
# KDE 4.0 is only expected to be used by early adopters, not every KDE 3.5 user (and IMHO KDE 4.0 shouldn't be pushed onto other user types like planned for Kubuntu ShipIt [btw said to have only 6 months support for its packages]).
# KDE 4.1 development will not require the same amount of time as the big

Re:

[arodland]

I've got to agree... 4.0 really disappointed me. I guess it's a balancing act -- do you delay the release and risk people losing interest, or do you release unfinished product and risk people getting a bad impression? Personally, I wish they would have waited. I looked at 4.0 and there's some cool stuff in there, but it's definitely not good enough for me to use regularly. I would have gone to check out 4.0 even if it came out in January of 2009 instead of January of 2008.

Goals and expectations (was Re:New processes)

[sowth]

Microsoft didn't really mess up with Vista, at least not in the way you said. Their goal is to get people to pay for the upgrade and new installs of their OS. Though they may not have the adoption level they wanted, eventually many people will likely upgrade to Vista or buy a new computer with Vista. (Sad but true) Either way Microsoft has their money, even if those people decide to go with XP. I've heard some noise about people switching to nonMS OSes, but I doubt Joe User even knows any reason to choose s

Re:

[setagllib]

A similar thing happened with FreeBSD 4->5. FreeBSD 4 was at some point the fastest, most stable and most administratively sane operating system for the x86. Linux 2.4 was already ahead in SMP scalability, but since this did not affect many users back then, not many people cared.

Then FreeBSD 5 was planned to include a major architecture shift to modern parallel programming, which required changing almost all of the kernel code sooner or later. FreeBSD 5 was downright unusuable until the 5.3 "stable" rele

Re:New processes

[Kjella]

Since last November progress towards stable and compelling applications went very fast and currently KDE 4.0 is not complete in terms of ported applications, but is a very nice environment to develop for and is perfectly nice to use.

Well, the "very nice environment to develop for" is because Qt4 is something like 2+ years old. Qt 4.0.0 was rather terrrible, the current version is great (kde libs on top or not). As for nice to use, that's not what I heard. I'm sure it'll get there, and I think the design goals are vastly superior to GTKs, but it's not quite there for the end user yet. Unless Nokia really screws up Trolltech, I think QT will be the dominating toolkit for Linux very soon.

Re:

[kamatsu]

Mod Parent Up! Mod Parent Up!

I used to love KDE (v3 this is) but I found myself constantly redesigning and reworking my desktop layout, themes etc. because I could be happy with what I had.

After a while I figured out that KDE itself just lacks any artistic style at all, and no matter how much work you put into it, it doesn't look good.

There are a few reasons for this:

1) Everything is too big. Way too big. GNOME is the master of unobtrusive interfaces (which is exactly what an interface should be), but KDE g

Re:

[junglee_iitk]

Oh come on! Open early, open often is the mantra of open source, remember? All the problems with KDE 4 being "unprofessional", "incomplete" etc. are only coming from people who expected that KDE 4 will be awesome and revolutionary. Although it has a lot to do with marketing (the same kind of marketing that is being discussed in TFA), but also the fact that KDE is THE desktop environment for Linux newbies.

Or do you want them to follow enlightenment release cycle instead? "Until everything is finished" - tada

Re:

[RiotingPacifist]

but also the fact that KDE is THE desktop environment for Linux newbies.

While i am a linux newbie, is this really true?
i switched because i found that gnome limited me too much (although this was before i was confident with the CLI) and xfce was well ugly ( having tested it recently i realise that this isnt true but i still think that kde looks nice *disclaimer* for me *disclaimer* )

also i recently suggested kde over gnome to a newer newbie and he felt that gnome was better, i think its not a question of newness but taste. ( although stupidly i said that xfce probably wasn't w

Re:

[junglee_iitk]

I personally haven't tried Gnome much. Everytime I wanted to use it, I felt like my productivity is being hindered.

All my friends have used KDE exclusively. Those who know, install kde as first thing when they get Ubuntu. Those who know more, install kubuntu.

Ofcourse there are people using Gnome, and rise in Ubuntu means a lot for Gnome users, but look at these results from linuxquestions.org:
1) http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/2006-linuxquestions.org-members-choice-awards-76/desktop-environment-of-t [linuxquestions.org]

Re:

[TeacherOfHeroes]

Stats are a funny thing. For example, the 2007 Desktop Linux survey showed more people using GNOME than KDE.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS8454912761.html [desktoplinux.com]

I know way more GNOME users than KDE users (I prefer GNOME myself (I guess I don't know :P)), so I can't really put a lot of stock in your anecdotal evidence, either.

Meh, just use whatever you prefer.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

All the problems with KDE 4 being "unprofessional", "incomplete" etc. are only coming from people who expected that KDE 4 will be awesome and revolutionary.

The KDE developers themselves have flat out stated that KDE 4.0 is not intended for end users as it is incomplete.

Or do you want them to follow enlightenment release cycle instead?

No, I expect them to be honest with their release processes. The reasons stated for releasing KDE 4.0 in an incomplete state was that the framework was complete and tha

Re:

[Kjella]

One thing is release early, release often. Another thing is trying to bluff that this more stable and complete than it really it. I saw many wonderful cases of rationalization going on when KDE4 was released. If you want "KDE 4.0.0 final" to mean "somewhat working compile" then that's fine, Microsoft does it all the time. Just don't ever blab about Microsoft's or Google's devaluation of "beta", "release candidate" or "release" if we're going to be worse ourselves. It's the inverse of crying wolf, it's cryin

Re:

[cheater512]

Its the libraries which are mostly finished.
The actual bits of the UI are actively being developed.

I like being on the bleeding edge and its stable enough for me.
Few graphic glitches and stuff like that but nothing really bad.

Okular makes it all worth while. ;)

Re:New processes

[Bogtha]

Open early, open often is the mantra of open source, remember?

The full quote is "Release early. Release often. And listen to your customers.", it's directed at getting code out there in the open rather than waiting until it is perfect before letting anybody see it. It doesn't mean that you should label anything you can compile as a stable release, just that you shouldn't do all your work behind closed doors until it's perfect. Not to mention the fact that the advice was garnered from the Linux kernel, something significantly smaller than KDE and not anywhere near as directly exposed to end-users. And if that advice is so useful, how come the KDE project doesn't follow two-thirds of it? They have very long release cycles, ignored anybody who told them that it wasn't ready to be called 4.0 and told anybody asking where the missing features were to wait until 4.1.

KDE is THE desktop environment for Linux newbies.

I'm a KDE user myself, but I would not go so far as to say that. KDE is for power users, and almost all the distributions default to GNOME, which is quite a bit simpler.

Or do you want them to follow enlightenment release cycle instead?

The problem is that they are too much like the enlightenment release cycle. KDE tried to do too much in one go. I remember when KDE 4 was supposed to be a short release cycle that was nothing but a straight port to Qt 4. Somehow they decided to totally rewrite everything important and invent major new subsystems that everything critical is based upon — while porting to Qt 4 at the same time! There is simply no way a step that large is compatible with "Release often" or "Listen to your customers", because it's an incredible amount of work just to remain where you are.

Re:

[RiotingPacifist]

They have very long release cycles, ignored anybody who told them that it wasn't ready to be called 4.0 and told anybody asking where the missing features were to wait until 4.1.

To be fair this is what end users have come to expect. Also any new project can either release 0.9 releases or has a userbase that will test thier beta enough ( e.g firefox) but KDE has a large scope but few users are going to switch there DE to a beta. They didnt lie they didnt say it was a finished DE.

KDE tried to do too much in one go. I remember when KDE 4 was supposed to be a short release cycle that was nothing but a straight port to Qt 4.

It makes alot more sense to have the 4.0 release contain all the major changes instead of doing:
4.0 to port, 4.1, 4.2 to stabilize, 4.3 major rework, 4.4 -4.6 to stabilize
For end user products it makes mor

Re:

[junglee_iitk]

Their naming convention for version numbers is know, and has been discussed to death on Slashdot everytime someone says KDE 4.0

I am no fan of KDE 4.0 myself. I have been hearing the hype about it since what, end of 2004? That is 3 years ago. They had something on kde-look.org where users will be posting mockups of what they want and other users would look and say, wow, KDE 4 is going to be so great. They promised Kopete which will have proxy support (WTH is it not a priority for Thiego is something I could

Re:

[gnud]

Well, the move to qt4 was the perfect opportunity to bring change, all the apps had to do a rewrite anyway.
And the KDE4.0 release _is_ stable, for the core libraries. As the developers have said again and again.

Re:

[RicardoGCE]

The "release early, release often" mantra is great for developers, but potentially terrible for end users.

If I evaluate KDE 4.0 with developer's eyes, I see a ton of potential, and I KNOW it will be incredible in a year or so. But as an end user? It's appallingly incomplete.

This should have definitely been marked "for developers only", but the KDE team were so eager to make their already-rescheduled deadline that they seem to have said "fuck it" and released anyway. When your release comes with "reviewer re

point oh

[Anonymous Coward]

"The fact that the definition of stable varies widely within our userbase and the expectations of everyone doesn't make it any easier."

Unless your userbase consists of no one but fanboys, I would expect the userbase to define "stable" as not crashing every 20 minutes. Shame on KDE for redefining the meaning of a point oh release. I realize they want more people to test their beloved product, but misleading them into doing it was a mistake. In fact, the tradition in open source is in the opposite direction - not calling it a point oh until it's acquired the targeted features and destroys no data.

Re:

[RiotingPacifist]

The article agrees, he believed that it should have been called a point-oh-oh release. But your completely wrong claiming they are redefining the meaning of a point oh release, the practice of releasing early and releasing often, is completely normal. They've got a development cycle quite similar to that of the kernel, only because kde is an end user "feature" they have to compromise with the distros and have a more ridged release cycle. I do however encourage you to go the the LKML and convince Linus that

Re:

[Jurily]

Yup. Plasma is a big disappointment. Give me an option to keep kicker and I'll help test the rest of KDE4.

Re:

[Joe Tie.]

Apologies if you're already aware of this partial solution, but figured it was just far enough out there to be worth mentioning. As long as you have kde3 still installed, its kicker should run fine in kde4. Just remove the plasma panel, and everything feels fairly normal. Even the effects for kwin minimization seems to run fine with it.

Re:point oh

[pherthyl]

Shame on KDE for redefining the meaning of a point oh release.

This gets tiring quickly. Gnome 2.0, PHP 5.0, Apache 2.0, Linux Kernel 2.6.0, etc, etc

None of those releases were completely stable or polished, or had all features from the previous series. That's how .0 releases for large projects are, no matter if they are open source or proprietary (Vista, OS X 10.0).

That doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to do better, but it's not like KDE 4.0 is an exception.

Re:

[garvon]

The difference is that they where complete at the time they hit .0.0 they may have had bugs but they had the features that they said that (2.0 or 2.6 o 5.0 pick one) was supposed to have. kde 4 is loaded with features that are not there yet not buggy, nonexistent . You don't usually have a big release party for Development version but a release should be feature complete..

Also can someone tell me what is with those cartoonish windows around every icon?
Is there any way to get rid of this butt ugly

Re:

[pherthyl]

The difference is that they where complete at the time they hit .0.0 they may have had bugs but they had the features that they said that (2.0 or 2.6 o 5.0 pick one) was supposed to have.

Same with KDE 4.0. They said not all the features would make it into the .0 release.

kde 4 is loaded with features that are not there yet not buggy

Not there yet not buggy? That's the easiest software to write :)

You don't usually have a big release party for Development version but a release should be feature complete..

And

Re:

[digidave]

Nobody expected KDE 4.0 to be completely stable, but as of this moment Konqueror can't use the ctrl-tab shortcut to switch browser tabs because that shortcut crashes it. Kate can't properly save a new file (or save as an existing file) when using the fish protocol because it always saves into the root directory. Also try setting the alt-d shortcut in Konqueror (focus address bar to make it behave like Firefox) and a bug will actually reset all your shortcuts to their defaults instead of creating the new sho

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a Gnome user (because I value simplicity a lot), so naturally I'm less into reading about KDE than people who care more, but I think I've seen this pointless discussion 1000 times. Devs say exactly why they released 4.0 relatively early. And for every such statement there are 10 whiners who keep saying "but x and y are broken, it sucks", skipping everything the dev said.

TFA mentions the reason, too. But you'll keep saying, that your fucking keybinding is broken.

Please, oh please go back to 3.5.x and

One thing that bugs me about KDE

[teslatug]

I've been using KDE for a long time and I really like it. There is one thing that annoys me though, I'll find a bug and try to report it, only to be told that I'm not on the latest version. I'll need to upgrade and see if it's still a bug. Well, as much as I'd like to help make KDE better, I'm not going to upgrade my entire OS just to test a bug. They're not very receptive to bug reporting.

Re:

[Reivec]

agreed, I have had this problem as well.

I am really looking forward to the OS X and windows ports for KDE 4 when they become stable. I have actually been looking forward to this for years. This would allow me to use all the same stuff in windows and linux and make everything uniform. The only reason to boot to windows will be to play games I want to play though. This could also help linux adoption. First people switch to firefox and pidgin and maybe even openoffice, then they see someone using KDE on wind

Re:

[mgkimsal2]

No. If you read the post, you'll see that the poster was saying the KDE team was telling him to upgrade to see if it's still a bug.

"the bug is fixed - upgrade" is wholly different from "upgrade, then tell us if it's still a bug".
   

Re:

[pembo13]

I've been using KDE for a long time and I really like it. There is one thing that annoys me though, I'll find a bug and try to report it, only to be told that I'm not on the latest version. I'll need to upgrade and see if it's still a bug. Well, as much as I'd like to help make KDE better, I'm not going to upgrade my entire OS just to test a bug. They're not very receptive to bug reporting.

Well... KDE isn't an entire OS, as big as it may be. Besides that however... the bug may be of the kind that was likely fixed

Besides that however, have you ever submitted a ticket and got that as a response? This wouldn't be a good thing, but not specific to KDE either

Re:

[Kjella]

Well... KDE isn't an entire OS, as big as it may be. Besides that however... the bug may be of the kind that was likely fixed

Have you tried updating *one* KDE application? In my case it pulled all of KDE out of stable for 450MB of downloads. You're right, it's not an entire OS... but it tends to replace everything BUT the kernel!

Re:

[Penguin Programmer]

Well... KDE isn't an entire OS, as big as it may be.

What distribution do you use that always has the latest KDE in the current version repositories? It's unreasonable to expect users to update a major package like KDE (and quite likely all the arcane dependencies it has) just to verify a bug.

The point is, the developers _are_ running the latest version and, assuming the bug report has enough information in it, they should be able to verify the bug, or verify that it's been fixed in the latest version. Put

Re:

[chromatic]

The point is, the developers _are_ running the latest version and, assuming the bug report has enough information in it....

That's a big assumption! My wild guess is that maybe one out of four bug reports have enough information to reproduce the bug.

Re:

[techno-vampire]

It doesn't surprise me, though. When I decided to try Linux, I examined the popular desktop environments before installing, to see which one I wanted. When I went to the KDE website, all I could find was advocacy; there was a lot about how wonderful it was and how happy I'd be to use it, but no details. I sent them an email asking for details and got back a reply full of more advocacy. Not one detail. No information about just what's so great about KDE. When I installed, I did not install KDE. After

Re: need to upgrade and see if it's still a bug

[pbhj]

I just got this response from OO.org for a bug I filed. I'll check when I next upgrade but in common with most users don't have time to "upgrade and see if it's still an issue".

Re:

[Robert The Coward]

Simpler Fix report it to you distro. I have reported issue in Fedora many times. People who do the porting look at find the issue a either back port the fix or fix it and send it upstream. Either way they are the best way to fix many thing.

Thanks
Robert

Linux as just a Kernel / Platform

[pembo13]

I like the dudes comment about KDE not neing a Linux desktop but just an open source desktop environment.

Re:

[mwlewis]

Well, duh. It runs on *BSD, of course.

Re:

[corychristison]

I'm with you there.
Everything seems so big and lollipop-ish. Since learning about enlightenment DR17 I always wanted to use it. But it's been in development for too long.
I gave up hope on e17 and moved to XFCE.

Re:

[corychristison]

Wow... totally clicked on 'reply' for the wrong topic!

How? I'm not sure. :-)

Re:

[MrCopilot]

I like the dudes comment about KDE not neing a Linux desktop but just an open source desktop environment.

He isn't kidding the Windows Port is coming along nicely. Can KDE Save a Dying Windows Platform? [mrcopilot.com]

Re:

[Ilgaz]

While replying to your comment on Omniweb/OS X, I also have Kopete 0.2.17 running as my Leopard OS X instant messenger. Zero issues, in fact, it also remembers its window position on OS X desktop unlike many "native OS X" programs.

People yet doesn't get what Kopete.exe or Kopete.app running on Windows/OS X means. I am close to experience it since Leopard comes with rootless X11. Now imagine a native OS X/Windows application. It will really change things.

As Nokia didn't pay $150 M for nothing, now imagine Ko

get ready for the flamewar...

[debatem1]

Let me preface this by saying that I just downloaded and built KDE 4. I didn't get a prepackaged one, so, your milage may vary.
Having said that- is it just me or does KDE 4 look cartoonish? I mean, I love the K apps- Ktorrent, Konversation, and K3B, which is probably the best burner software anywhere, and now looks great to boot, but KDE itself looks like mickey mouse and mario got together over a few powerups and decided to bang out some code. I can't really recommend it to clients anyway- even the KDE t

Re:get ready for the flamewar...

[Psychotria]

Ahh, the penny drops. That explains the latest poll.

Boots: the boot process
Kape: the desktop effects
the evil side Kicker: kicker
the doomsday devices: the device manager
fighting heroes: gnome vs KDE
the super villainess: plasma
the infamy: ?
the evil laugh: the new sound effect when a program crashes

Re:

[MrCopilot]

Having said that- is it just me or does KDE 4 look cartoonish?

http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2008/01/lca-and-fluffy-bunnies.html [blogspot.com]

I don't know what you are talking about.

Re:

[poopdeville]

I haven't been following KDE4 very much, but if what you say regarding Mickey and Mario is true, I'll have to build it at work.

No news on Nokia?

[Markos]

Really, what happened to Slashdot. I'm surprised there hasn't been any mention of Nokia buying Trolltech. Pretty big news, I think. http://dot.kde.org/1201517986/ [kde.org] Maybe it's been posted, but I haven't seen it.

Re:

[RedK]

Really, what happened to Slashdot. I'm surprised there hasn't been any mention of Nokia buying Trolltech. Pretty big news, I think. http://dot.kde.org/1201517986/ [kde.org] Maybe it's been posted, but I haven't seen it.

So because you haven't seen it, you automatically assume something is wrong with slashdot ? The only thing wrong here is you :

http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/28/136204 [slashdot.org]

I used KDE once...

[Doug52392]

I just didn't like it. When I used OpenSUSE Linux, I installed KDE. Right when I started using KDE, I noticed how cluttered everything was. Instead of a nice bar at the top with 3 items, one for Applications, one for Places, and one for System, you must navigate through endless start menu items to get to where you want to go.

The file manager for KDE was also a little quirky. By default, single clicking a file opens it? And the icons weren't that good either...

GNOME has much more to offer...

Re:

[westyvw]

Gnome has a lot LESS to offer. I tried gnome once...You have to click twice to open a file? WTF you want carpal tunnel? So you want a bar on the top with 3 items like Ubuntu Configured Gnome? No problem with KDE, just set it up. KDE doesnt have to look like OpenSuse, and Gnome doesnt have to look like Ubuntu, but KDE gives you greater flexibility and more contextual menus then Gnome, along with their awesome KIOSLAVES (well with KDE 3.x anyways). BTW you can double click in KDE and Single click in Gnome, if

Re:

[cbart387]

tried gnome once...You have to click twice to open a file?

Edit > Preferences > Behavior > Select 'Single click to Open Items'

I learned "Settings" once...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Fact is, you can configure KDE to work pretty much the way GNOME does, if you really want to.

The reverse is not true. Maybe the GNOME people have better defaults, according to you. But they have a nasty habit of removing functionality because it might confuse someone. Classic example: In KDE, I can configure what clicking my title-bar does. Or double-click, or middle-click, or right-click, or mouse-wheel. In GNOME, well...

Here, Linus said it best. [linux-foundation.org]

Re:

[cbart387]

It really depends on what you prefer. Myself, I use GNOME because its defaults happen to be how I would spend the time configuring KDE to function as. It saves me time with setting up my desktop and more time doing the stuff I want to do. The GP's reason for liking it (organization of applications) is also something I like about it. I haven't tried KDE for a while, does it put all the applications in one 'start menu' dropdown by default like the GP says?

Re:

[SanityInAnarchy]

Yes, but again, "by default".

There are a few other things that I've had to tweak. For instance, I've now set just about all KDE apps to respond to the ctrl+M shortcut that Konqueror did already -- hides the menu. (Except Konsole, for obvious reasons.)

Basically, I tend to carry home directories around for many years. I figure, I can configure it once, and carry that home directory to my next computer, and the one after that. I do agree that sane defaults are nice, but I happen to like single-click-everywhere

Re:

[RedK]

When I use Gnome it feels like somebody took KDE and broke it.

The most ironic part of that statement and of the OP's post is that the most successful commercial fork of Gnome, the Java Desktop System, was made to look more like KDE than GNOME.

Re:

[nguy]

That's a pretty ironic statement, too, because you're saying that Sun really wanted KDE but had to settle for Gnome. Why do you think that is? I think it's because of licensing issues.

Re:

[abigor]

It's also because Sun's compiler couldn't deal with C++ name-mangling issues, if I remember correctly. I don't recall Sun coming right out and saying Qt's GPL licensing was a problem, but that's entirely possible.

Re:

[nguy]

It's also because Sun's compiler couldn't deal with C++ name-mangling issues, if I remember correctly

I don't understand. Are you saying that KDE and Qt rely on specific name mangling algorithms?

Re:

[abigor]

No, if I recall (this was years ago), Sun's compiler had troubles with standard C++. Another problem I recall was const correctness - it was picky about that. I can't remember all the details now, but early versions of KDE3 wouldn't compile.

At the time, Sun claimed they picked Gnome for technical reasons, mainly the use of CORBA. Of course, now that Gnome officially discourages the use of Bonobo, that doesn't seem so smart. I remember a Register article that claimed that senior Sun execs were appalled at th

Re:

[nguy]

and felt that a buyout of TrollTech and a subsequent opening of Qt would have been the smarter route.

That probably would have been the best thing for everybody.

Anyway, there was never any mention of licensing that I can recall. I could be wrong though.

Well, you just did: if Sun felt that opening the code was important, then they weren't happy with the license as it was. Since Gtk is under the LGPL, its license was fine.

But this is a problem with Qt's dual licensing: people choosing a platform are basically

Re:

[RedK]

That's a pretty ironic statement, too, because you're saying that Sun really wanted KDE but had to settle for Gnome. Why do you think that is? I think it's because of licensing issues.

Yeah, the GPL did work in this instance. Sun doesn't get a high quality product it wants if it doesn't want to play ball and keep the source open. Instead, they're profiting off GNOME's back.

Re:

[nguy]

Sun doesn't get a high quality product it wants if it doesn't want to play ball and keep the source open. Instead, they're profiting off GNOME's back.

But Sun has been playing ball and keeping the source open. They have also open sourced Java. See, the KDE/Qt license sucks even for companies that support open source and that "play ball".

Kernel vs. DE

[mindwanderer]

From TFA:

Should it matter to the user if he runs Linux or BSD on his machine? Not at all. It only matters because things just don't work so well (mostly caused by to driver problems, often a matter of ignorance on some vendor's side).

The term "Linux" serves more or less as a buzzword, but I think calling KDE "The Linux Desktop" is harmful.

So is calling GNU/Linux, Linux, yet he doesn't seem to care. Also, no mention of Qt at all. Was this interview done before the Nokia acquisition, I wonder.

KDE rocks!

[Britz]

No seriously, by now there are sooo many programs for KDE for every possible use. I just checked for a gui program for creating bibtex files: kbibtex was the first one I stumbled over. KDE 4 will run under OSX as well as Windows. Personally I also dislike the MS Office / OpenOffice.org approach to Office tasks. OpenOffice.org might be great for people coming from MS Office, but I rather like the KOffice way of doing stuff. Though there are a couple features I am still missing.

The user also doesn't care about the os their programs and their guis are running on. They only care about what they are looking at while using the programs they want to use. So I think it is rather KDE vs. Gnome vs. Luna vs. (whatever Apple calls their desktop) vs. "that new thing in Vista.

Re:

[JohnFluxx]

I find 'kbib' to be better than kbibtex, btw. Not much difference between them, but there you go.

The only niggle is that you have to remember to save the file. I really wish it would just automatically save after adding a record.

Re:

[ByteSlicer]

[...] vs. (whatever Apple calls their desktop) vs. "that new thing in Vista.

That would be Aqua and Aero...

Good thing

[Mathness]

Good thing he didn't use the Microsoft speech recognition software, or he wouldn't have spoken to Kuegler, but Freddy who hangs around on Elm Street.

2.0

[slapout]

I remember when I first started playing with Linux. I wanted to use KDE 2. So I had to download it and install it myself. This was when you installed Linux and got a command prompt. Of course, this was after I defragged my Windows 3.1 pagefile and used FIPS to partition the drive. I was proud of myself that I got it to work.

Re:

[RedK]

I remember when I first started playing with Linux. I wanted to use KDE 2. So I had to download it and install it myself. This was when you installed Linux and got a command prompt. Of course, this was after I defragged my Windows 3.1 pagefile and used FIPS to partition the drive. I was proud of myself that I got it to work.

KDE isn't that old. By the time 2.0 came out, Windows 98 was on the market. The KDE project was announced in 1996, 1 year after Windows 95 was released. By that time, most distros already had default installs that installed X and FVWM.

No MS Patent for the Task Bar?

[cavebison]

In a time when companies are trying to patent a mouse click, I wonder at why MS never patented the Task Bar. That is, "an interactive strip, positioned on the desktop, displaying running programs and facilitating control over program windows" or something like that.

Sounds like something that could have been be patented, since (I assume) MS first came up with it, for Windows 95.

Re:

[zakeria]

Software patents in the EU mean nothing anyhow and KDE being German...

Re:

[cavebison]

Then why does Amazon try to patent the one-click checkout? If a site in Germany can just do the same thing regardless, where's the reason for them to patent? There must be some benefit surely?

Re:

[arevos]

To stop companies in the US having that feature.

The one-click checkout idea sucks anyway, so I can't see a lot of sites using it even if it weren't patented.

Re:

[flowsnake]

Prior art. Examples of earlier operating systems and desktop environments with Task Bars similar to that in Win95 include:

• Arthur (1987) http://www.ooooooooo.net/arthur/art.html [ooooooooo.net]
• RISC OS (1989) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_OS [wikipedia.org]

There are others too that predate Win95, but suffice to say Win95 was not the first. Thankfully Microsoft did not also borrow the Arthur colour scheme!

Re:

[pherthyl]

Aside from the thousands you'll spend on Windows licenses, Visual Studio licenses, and pre-built closed source components and other developer tools. Don't fool yourself into thinking that developing for windows is cheap.

Re:

[DAldredge]

Windows Vista = ~200.00 USD Visual Studio Express 2008 - 0.00 USD

Re:

[pherthyl]

Sure, if you're a hobbyist that'll be enough. But no serious software development company uses Visual Studio Express. Then if you're building a big projects you need access to libraries, and you'll have to buy software components to accomplish certain tasks.

So yes, if you're wanting to write a little shareware utility, then Windows will be a cheaper target (not to mention that there is about zero point in writing that kind of stuff for Linux), but if you're at all serious about getting into the business,

Re:

[DAldredge]

What features is VSX 2008 missing?

Re:

[abigor]

A friend tells me that Visual C++ Express has no Windows app library support (MFC, ATL) or resource editors, and also no 64 bit compiler. Also something about debugging and breakpoints being crippled?

Re:

[DAldredge]

Visual Studio Express consists of the following separate products: * Visual Basic (.NET) 2008 Express Edition * Visual C# 2008 Express Edition * Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition * Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition * SQL Server 2008 Express Edition (to be released in the first half of 2008) Microsoft Visual J# 2005 was not updated for this release and is currently not planned. The version shipping with Visual Studio 2005 will be supported until 2015 as per the product life-cycle

Re:

[DAldredge]

Trying that again.

Visual Studio Express consists of the following separate products:

* Visual Basic (.NET) 2008 Express Edition
* Visual C# 2008 Express Edition
* Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition
* Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition
* SQL Server 2008 Express Edition (to be released in the first half of 2008)

Microsoft Visual J# 2005 was not updated for this release

Re:

[abigor]

Right, I was only speaking to the C++ part of VS. But it looks like there's a whole bunch of crippled stuff. Still, it's probably enough for small projects and learning, which is just what MS intended it for.

Re:

[pherthyl]

You listed some of them. But also reusable software components on windows need to be purchased. You get all the KDE libraries for free once you have a Qt license. MFC and its ilk are not comparable, so then you have to go to .NET which brings its own set of restrictions. Just look at software development companies and see how much professional tools cost.

Re:

[SanityInAnarchy]

Did you even read what you wrote?

Too bad that I can develop closed source commercial apps for KDE with out paying thousands. Developing closed source apps for Windows or Mac doesn't cost a dime.

Mac costs a Mac, and Windows costs a Windows license. So that's an up-front cost right there, unless you already have both. In addition, Windows, at least, is going to cost you Visual Studio, and KDE/Qt is hardly the only framework that will cost you money.

And you can always use Python -- if I remember, the Python

Re:

[KTheorem]

This has already been fixed: http://vizzzion.org/?blogentry=806 [vizzzion.org]

Re:

[JackieBrown]

I have been using Debian's experimental packages.

I miss being surprised by new features like this after a daily compile.

Re:

[Epsillon]

The program that modifies plasma's bar at the bottom

Indeed. To paraphrase that shape-shifter from ST6: "Not everybody keeps his panel in the same place." Mine sits at the top, is 90% of the display width, 38 pixels deep and has been that way for five years. Before anybody starts, it's nothing like the MacOS X look'n'feel. It just feels more natural up there to me. It was this ability to personalise the desktop, along with sensible defaults and no assumptions made that couldn't be altered, that made me sett