I think it's obvious that I'm not overly enthusiastic about the current state of affairs in terms of the KDE4 desktop a.k.a. Plasma. Why make so much of a point of it? Because as I said, it is by nature the pièce-de-resistance of KDE4. Every serious user of KDE applications is confronted with the drive to follow KDE into version 4 in the end. Why? Because there is no guarantee that the current KDE will be maintained and extended as it used to be some time ago. I think that from the moment applications could be ported to KDE4, a serious amount of energy and attention has been diverted from KDE3 to KDE4. In my humble opinion that movement has been showing in the state of affairs of several KDE applications alas. What it comes down to is that if a user wants to keep current in terms of application functionality, that user will need to migrate sooner or later to KDE4. And as soon as that user decides to do that, that user will be confronted with Plasma. Why? For the simple reason that there is no migration path to the functional equivalent of kicker/kdesktop/kmenu, not even one offering remotely similar functions. The unsuspecting user is all-of-a-sudden confronted with a totally different manner of conducting his desktop business. Think rearrange all his drawers, change the configuration of his chair, lower his desk 5 centimeters and hiding his pens-and-pencils kind of change. I think that is unacceptable. I think we have forgotten to provide a migration path for the less KDE-savvy amongst us and have fallen into the classic developer trap. We forgot to make the step of porting the old desktop before starting the new one. The effect of that oversight is what concerns me deeply.
For the trap of 'OK do you want to port xyz to KDE4' I will not fall. You know perfectly well as a marketeer that the KDE community does not solely consist of developers. It also consists of users with more than the average interest in the platform they are using. For the other trap 'Telling us developing KDE4 technology is a waste' I'm not falling either because in the first place the underlying technology in KDE4 is not only concerning the subject of diatribe, secondly, I think you cannot hold the position I said or implied that.
Let me conclude with this. I hope that in the end we have the collective wisdom to create a proper migration path from kicker/kmenu/kdesktop to Plasma that is palatable for the not-so-revolutionary and have the guts to postpone a KDE4.0 release until that is possible.
8 comments:
The problem, Ruurd, is that your original post that triggered this discussion comes across as being unfair, not constructive, and even rude (though I understand that may not have been your intention). Beware that your blog is syndicated on Planet KDE, which gives you some responsibility on the contents of your "brain core dumps" (sic).
As an aside, I share your discontent with Kickoff. The navigation system in particular is broken by design, and needs some serious loving before it is usable. Moreover, I do find it a bit disconcerting that some of Kickoff's developers think the current design as been validated by some "user testing" and is therefore good. It just illustrates the tragedy of doing some half-arsed user testing, taking those statistically meaningless results, and brandishing them as gospel.
Another big blunder is of course the release names. Calling the current version RC1 is just a mockery of the entire notion of a "release candidate". Personally I would prefer if it was called what it really is: a beta 5. This is an example of a release team getting so obsessed with their own release schedule they end missing the big picture. However, once you get past the naming issue, you'll see that this Beta 5 is already quite usable.
To conclude, I also think you are being extremely unfair with Plasma. You've essentially seen a caterpillar and decided that butterflies are after all ugly. Plasma is actually developing quite nicely. Moreover, it is innovative and has a tremendous amount of potential (you will feel quite silly come 4.1...).
I really don't think KDE4 will fail. I'm a 7 year (hardcore) Gnome user and KDE4 has gotten me interested in open source development. I'm probably going to start out by messing with plasmoids (learning APIs and what not) and then flock to a project.
If you put KDE4 in a lineup of modern OS it holds it's ground.
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/5/55/Windows_Vista_Desktop.png
http://64-bit-computers.com/wp-content/uploads/mac_osx_leopard.jpg
http://home.cfl.rr.com/gamma/images/kde4.png
I personally find the new Kmenu to be faster and more efficient than Gnome's Applications menu so I'm for it. As other people have commented, why not make constructive comments of what changes KDE4 should make? Why is the new Kmenu bad and how can they fix it? What specifically don't you like about Plasma? Just because you don't like widgets doesn't mean Joe user doesn't love them? You get the point...
Sorry, but you seem rather uninformed.
There's still a relatively large amount of developers working on KDE 3 (compared to how much work is needed...). Many large distributions can't just drop KDE 3, and therefore make sure that it stays in working order.
Secondly, you don't seem to have even peeked beneath the surface, at all the other amazing technology that is now a part of KDE (as of version 3.9*), and working. This technology, phonon, solid, etc. makes KDE heaps and bounds in front of any other free DE.
You can actually write meaningful posts :-).
I totally agree that RC is the wrong tag for the current state.
But it has been mentioned so oftenly that it is still work in progress and kde4.0 will be far from perfect.
Just give it some time, and maybe wait until 4.1...until things have settled and people are concentrating on working out a smooth migration path; which I'm sure will happen.
There have been some huge changes since 3.5.x, you can't expect kde4 to feel, right now, exactly like the previous major release...and nobody ever claimed that.
I for one am testing kde4 regulary and am amazed with the progress it makes.
And as soon as the desktop works as I need it too and sessions are properly saved and restored I'll switch :-).
Hey, I don't know if you know this Ruurd, but Kickoff is NOT the default K-menu for KDE4. It is just a quick port of SUSE's replacement for the K-menu. There is a group of developers working on something called Raptor. And there's a guy working on something else called Lancelot. And I bet that a K-menu clone could be done with only a few lines of code.
From your talk about "useless desklets", I don't think you understand them either. They are the successor to Kicker applets. The system tray, the K-menu, the taskbar, the clock, the desktop pager... everything... are now "plasmoids". You can have them in panels (like they had to be in KDE3) OR you can put them on the Desktop. And they can change their shape depending on whether they're on the desktop or in a panel. The desktop is like Firefox now, everything is just a plugin. Gazillions of people will write them, and all sorts of choices will be available. There will be no single "K-menu". There will be bunches of plasmoids to choose from that can be used to launch programs, and different people will like different ones. Most of Seigo's effort has been in writing the back-end for this stuff (making sure the layout engines work, including support for different languages), NOT writing the actual plasmoids. And the plasmoids that have been written are still in their infant stages. But they'll improve quickly.
Lastly, maybe you don't read Planet KDE, but you I'm afraid you really are the most recent in a long line of people who have griped about Plasma on Planet KDE. Plasma was vaporware a few months ago. Now everybody wants it to be perfect. Obviously, since it is the second most visible change in KDE (the first being the Oxygen theme, which gets a lot of gripes too), it is important for it to look and work well. I know that. Seigo knows that. I don't blame Seigo at all for being tired of hearing this stuff; he already knows it. That's why he keeps trying to make Plasma better! Hopefully, you'll "get" the whole Plasma/plasmoid idea when you start to see more competing plasmoids, and you'll like KDE 4.0 better.
What exactly is it that you do for KDE? You say you're not a dev, and you don't seem to be a usability guy, and you're _definitely_ not in marketing... so, why is your blog on planetkde?
"What exactly is it that you do for KDE? You say you're not a dev, and you don't seem to be a usability guy, and you're _definitely_ not in marketing... so, why is your blog on planetkde?"
+1
He's treasurer for kde.nl and occasionally does translations, I would say he does his share.
This blog post was not his most elegant move, but he cares about KDE and the future of KDE. The current state of the rc just stressed him up.
"Since I'm aware of my bluntness" It is just a pitty that his bluntness is counter productive and has to be world wide visible on planetkde.
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