alukin wrote:Well, this is the root of problem. Look at Apache Tomcat or Netbeans. They release often. But not so EARLY. I think that some guys took this damned stupid "early" too close and decided to call "release" things that are pre-alpha.

Depends on who you ask and what you expect. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I didn't trust that the first version of apache in the 2.x series would be as stable as the earlier ones, neither did I trust that the first version of the 2.x Linux kernel would necessarily be stable.

So why is KDE supposed to be different in that respect?

Hans wrote:Eh. Greatest ever KDE 4.0? Where did you get that from? I thought it had been stressed that the oh release was only for developer.

Nothing personal, but when people say this it really yanks my chain.
At this point we all understand that it was a development release, but as to it being advertised as such I'd like to submit as evidence to the contrary:

http://web.archive.org/web/200801261939 ... ments/4.0/

Please quote me the part that mentions 4.0 being a developer's release? In fact, check out the first paragraph:

The KDE Community is thrilled to announce the immediate availability of KDE 4.0. This significant release marks both the end of the long and intensive development cycle leading up to KDE 4.0 and the beginning of the KDE 4 era.

Notice that the 4.0 release "marks the end of the development cycle". I don't know how we could have missed the fact that 4.0 was only a development beta it'll eat your cat release.

So please don't blame users for not knowing that 4.0 was not a development release, and don't try to revise history when the internet archive exists.

alukin wrote:I mean that update is available but bugs still there.

ALL software has bugs. That is a fact. And the bugs you experienve might not be because of KDE, it might be because of your distro.

I find the complaining about KDE4 to be quite ridiculous. Sure, KDE 4.0 was not that good. But we should all remember one fact. KDE 4.0 is not the same thing as KDE4. 4.0 is the very first public release of the entire KDE4-series. 4.0 will at some point pass on, just like KDE 3.0 did. It will be replaced by 4.1, 4.2, 4.3....

Do we judge KDE3 based on KDE3.0? No we do not.

It's all good to complain about KDE 4.0. That's an individual release with obvious shortcomings. But if we complain about KDE4, things get more complicated. We can't judge KDE4 because "KDE 4.0 was buggy!". Like I said, KDE 4.0 and KDE4 are two different things. 4.0 is ONE release, KDE4 will cover SEVERAL releaes.

If we are to complain about KDE4, then we should be talking about stuff like:

- The direction KDE is taking
- New usage-paradigm in KDE
- new technologies in KDE
- and so forth

And even when we talk about those things, it's easy to derail the discsussion by saying something like "plasma sucks, because it was so buggy in 4.0!". That's derailement, because 4.0 was (again) just one release. It doesn't really tell that much about the actual technology. Yes, that release was buggy. Does that mean that KDE4 as a whole sucks? No it does not.

What should be comforting to all of you, is the fact that KDE has a very vibrant community. Both user-community and developer-community. KDE4 is developing very, very fast. If it was stagnant, we would have a reason to worry. But it's not.

And I'm kinda glad that people are so passionate about KDE3. I just hope that KDE3-users would try out KDE4 occasionally with an open mind. If they think "I want KDE4 to be identical to KDE3!", they will be disappointed. KDE2 was not identical to KDE1, and KDE3 was not identical to KDE2. And I have used all of those.

Instead of trying to replicate their KDE3-experience with KDE4, I would encourage them to explore new ways of doing the things they do. Such exploration would bring with it progress and advancement. If we cling to the past, things will not change or improve.

And main point is not the difference between minor releases. Again, main point is false advertising and release rush.

The complaining is about 4.0. So it was buggy. Then don't use it. Problem solved. Do you feel that 4.1 is **** as well? Then don't use it.

Fact of the matter is that if KDE-folks hadn't released 4.0, but they were still working on it, it would be in a worse shape than KDE is now. 4.0 (and 4.1) brought lots of bug-reports, suggestions and users. Were they still polishing the release, the userbase of KDE4 would be about 95% smaller than it is now, and that would mean less bug-reports and suggestions.

4.0 was a drink that had a bitter after-taste. But that taste should be all but gone by now. Instead of complaining about it, why not divert your attention to 4.1 or 4.2? Complaining about 4.0 is about as useful as complaining that Ford Model T had some shortcomings....

Yes, 4.0 was buggy. But come on people, it's time to move on!

admoore wrote:So please don't blame users for not knowing that 4.0 was not a development release, and don't try to revise history when the internet archive exists.

I'm not sure, but I don't believe KDE 4.0 was packaged as the default KDE environment by any major distribution. The same goes for the 4.1 release, although distributions like Ubuntu and derivatives are slowly moving towards default inclusion.

So getting KDE 4 is a bit harder than just installing the default KDE environment, KDE 3, in most distributions. This means people have made a conscious choice to give KDE 4 a try. You might say - and justifiably so - that downplaying the alpha quality of KDE 4.0 was misleading those users, but it's unfair to say that of all subsequent releases. Now with every release it's emphasised that that KDE 4.x is still a work in progress, so I think you can safely say that in that case running KDE 4 is solely the responsibility of the user who installed it in the first place. You might argue that default inclusion of pre 4.2 releases in distributions isn't smart and I agree with that. But it's mostly distributions like Ubuntu who're known for making those rather controversial decisions.

mensch wrote:

admoore wrote:So please don't blame users for not knowing that 4.0 was not a development release, and don't try to revise history when the internet archive exists.

I'm not sure, but I don't believe KDE 4.0 was packaged as the default KDE environment by any major distribution. The same goes for the 4.1 release, although distributions like Ubuntu and derivatives are slowly moving towards default inclusion.

Ubuntu is not moving "slowly" towards default inclusion. It's already moved. And dropped KDE3. And KDE 4.0 was an option in Hardy within weeks of its release.

Fedora has also moved, if my information is correct.

As I've said before it's the way Ubuntu works. [size=xx-small]"Slowly moving" is a relative thing, of course, when you have 6 month release cycles. [/size]They include the latest and (often) greatest new releases at the cost of stability. Support has been dropped, but third-party backports are offered. If you don't want to use backports and strongly desire a stable and feature complete system I would advise you not to use Ubuntu. Simply because it's going to happen in other areas as well, the Ubuntu team will make controversial choices about dropping older software again in the future.

Fedora has included KDE 4 starting from the Fedora 9 release in May 2008. You can blame the Fedora project maintainers for making that decision, it's a bit unfair to blame the KDE 4 team for making their software available for all to package. I agree that the initial release was met with hyped up expectations, but you can't blame the KDE team for the decision of major distributions to include KDE 4 by default. It's not a smart move, but on the other hand the 4.1 release has made life much better.

admoore wrote:Nothing personal, but when people say this it really yanks my chain.
At this point we all understand that it was a development release, but as to it being advertised as such I'd like to submit as evidence to the contrary:

http://web.archive.org/web/200801261939 ... ments/4.0/

You're right; the release announcement didn't mention that it was a development release. It seems that I misremembered, I apologize for that.

The reason could be that I read many developers' blogs on planetkde, and there it had been said many times that the 0.0 release was mostly for developers. I began to take it for granted.

Of course I don't expect regular users to read planetkde to get this information. I agree with you that the release announcement was misleading.

Please quote me the part that mentions 4.0 being a developer's release? In fact, check out the first paragraph:

The KDE Community is thrilled to announce the immediate availability of KDE 4.0. This significant release marks both the end of the long and intensive development cycle leading up to KDE 4.0 and the beginning of the KDE 4 era.

Notice that the 4.0 release "marks the end of the development cycle". I don't know how we could have missed the fact that 4.0 was only a development beta it'll eat your cat release.

Marks "the end of the long and intensive development cycle leading up to KDE 4.0" it says. Quite different from what you wrote, don't you agree?

To summarize: I agree that the 4.0 release could have been handled in a better way. However, I don't think "release often, release early" is silly.

It gets silly if someone takes this damned "early" too serious. You see, I'm 20 years Unix user, sysadmin and developer. I know what things are. This is not the first time when great projects gets whole load of negative feedback. Projects get it from time to time when some "fresh blood" pushes to much innovations and rushes to release it. So much that no one can not swallow it. Nor users nor developers.

Now this silly paradigm just legalizes such pushers as "right thing doers". As I can see, there is 90/10 of negative/positive posting. Only blind can't see it. Does it says something to you?

I'm not trying to blame someone or give more negative opinions on KDE4. I'm trying to explain my vision of problem roots. I really like KDE. This big failure of KDE4 among regular users is real sorrow for me. Yes, I hope that 4.2 will be good and stable and feature rich. I'll wait patiently. But all this long time more users will install Kubunu, Fedora and other distros, and they will be constantly distracted. Who can predict consequences? How much more bitter pills all we've got got to eat?

alukin wrote:
I'm not trying to blame someone or give more negative opinions on KDE4. I'm trying to explain my vision of problem roots. I really like KDE. This big failure of KDE4 among regular users is real sorrow for me.

Again: Instead of talking about "failure of KDE4", shouldn't we be talking about "failure of KDE 4.0"?

Yes, I hope that 4.2 will be good and stable and feature rich. I'll wait patiently. But all this long time more users will install Kubunu, Fedora and other distros, and they will be constantly distracted. Who can predict consequences? How much more bitter pills all we've got got to eat?

I don't really see a problem here. First if all, loads of people are happy with KDE 4.1. Second, if they aren't.... So what? Most WIndows-users seem to dislike Vista and they are sticking with XP. But that doesn't mean that they are abandoning WIndows. Far from it.

Many users avoided first few versions of OS X like plague. Now people are moving to it in droves.

II tried GNOME long ago. I believe it was version 2.12 or something. I used it for day or two and I hated it. I went back to KDE3. Years later I tried it again (version 2.20 or thereabout). It was a lot better, and I used it for quite some time.

What is the point of all this? The point is that if some individual release(s) disappoint, it doesn't have to mean that that user will never try it out again. And if (or rather, when), KDE4 starts to really deliver on new and exciting technologies, people will notice it. They might remember that the first few releases of KDE4 were not suitable for them, but when they see everyone praising 4.2, or 4.3 or 4.4, they will try it out again.

There's no reason for panic here. There really isn't .

The KDE 4.x marketing was abysmal. 4.0.0 was really a technology preview, with 4.1. being the beta. I'm vainly hoping 4.2. will be the end user release. If it still doesn't have the feature parity of 3.2, I'm going to raise an unholy ruckus.

Brandybuck wrote:The KDE 4.x marketing was abysmal. 4.0.0 was really a technology preview, with 4.1. being the beta. I'm vainly hoping 4.2. will be the end user release. If it still doesn't have the feature parity of 3.2, I'm going to raise an unholy ruckus.

KDE4 will probably never implement each and every feature found in kDE3. No, that does not mean that it's worse. It just means that some features are replaced by some other features.

I would guess that pretty soon KDE4 will have A LOT more functionality than KDE3.5 has. And there would still be some people complaining because some individual feature is not there, or because it works differently. But that's just the nature of the beast.

>There's no reason for panic here. There really isn't Smile 2.
But there IS REASON to think! You're making good face after bad game, I see. No body among KDE people does not want to say that whole marketing trash around 4.0 and 4.1 was big mistake, I see it too. No shame, no conscience, only brave "yes, we did it!" and "you're nothing and your opinion is insignificant to us!".

Yes, may be I'll agree with thread author. May be KDE4 must die if such attitude to users dominates.

alukin wrote:
Yes, may be I'll agree with thread author. May be KDE4 must die if such attitude to users dominates.

The attitude you talk about is there because users complained about things that where coming but it wasn't fast enough for them. Attitude come from 2 sides, and those users could still use the fully working kde3.5 till kde4 was ready for them, complain over and over and over and over again about points that are explained then i can understand that someone is reacting. You still see it on this forum to users that complain but don't even give examples and if they give examples it mostly is already there our it is coming.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?stor ... 0131440951

I said "feature parity", not "feature equivalence". There is a difference. KDE4 should cover nearly all of the use cases of KDE3, with at least the same level of usability. It doesn't have to do everything in exactly the same way, but it should at least do them.

One example: network management. For most laptop users this is a necessity. They shouldn't have to resort to a KDE3 tool, or a GNOME tool, or commandline iwconfig. I realize that KNetworkManager wasn't standard KDE until very late in KDE3, but removing Network Interfaces as well really put a lot of people in a bind. Of course, this is free software, and no one is obligated to provide this feature parity. But I just don't recall a "we're going to drop all network management stuff unless someone steps up" call for help in the pre-4.0.0 days.

Brandybuck wrote: necessity. They shouldn't have to resort to a KDE3 tool, or a GNOME tool, or commandline iwconfig. I realize that KNetworkManager wasn't standard KDE until very late in KDE3, but removing Network Interfaces as

Will "Bille" Stephenson has put up an explanation on why the KDE 3 version of KNetworkManager was like that on the dot:

http://dot.kde.org/1224100877/1224141352/1224190666/

Also, the Plasma API breakage after the first Toakamak and real life activity prevented the person working on the NetworkManager plasmoid to move it into 4.1 trunk before hard freeze.