With KDE4 I suddenly have bloody religious stuff on my desktop!!! When I configure country/region and language, there is an option for "Day of the week for religious observance:" It even seems to have a weekday selected by default! Has KDE been taken over by biblenuts or jihadists? (Or was it Gentoo that sneaked it in?). It was certainly not there in KDE3 and I would never install weirdo stuff like KBibleTime, so what the hell is that option for? Will it shut off work applications that day?

And it is not even explained in the manual! That makes it even more suspicious. The last part of the manual section says "Till sist finns en kombinationsruta som heter Första dag i veckan, som låter dig välja vilken dag som är den första i veckan i ditt land." (Which means: Finally there is a combobox called First day of week, that lets you chose which day is first in the week in your country.)

I thought that KDE came from the free world. This must be fixed promptly. A user should get a secular desktop by default.

sigra wrote:I thought that KDE came from the free world. This must be fixed promptly. A user should get a secular desktop by default.

I'm not sure I see the problem. Yes, there's a setting for that in the country/region settings module but if you're not religious it won't bother you. If you are religious, you can have kontact or the calendar plasmoid show those days as special. That's it. Sounds unproblematic to me. Besides, free in this context can mean both free from relgion AND free from secularists, depending on the point of view of the individual.

Kryten2X4B wrote:

sigra wrote:I thought that KDE came from the free world. This must be fixed promptly. A user should get a secular desktop by default.

Yes, there's a setting for that in the country/region settings module but if you're not religious it won't bother you. If you are religious, you can have kontact or the calendar plasmoid show those days as special. That's it. Sounds unproblematic to me.

Wrong. How would you like a "Night of the week for strip club attendance:" Option. completely unproblematic. If you do not go to strip clubs, it won't bother you. Plasma desktop might show a special wallpaper that day. What other activities that some people might do once a week should I have an option for in my desktop environment?

The point is that I should not have any such options.

Besides, free in this context can mean both free from relgion AND free from secularists, depending on the point of view of the individual.

Apparently I want a desktop environment free from religion while you want a community free from secularists.

Perhaps you should try looking up 'options' in a dictionary. They do not dictate to you, and there is no way you have the right to dictate to someone else. Options say 'user me if it helps, don't if it doesn't'. It's as simple as that. Please do not use this forum to express bigotry, whatever your own beliefs.

sigra wrote:Wrong. How would you like a "Night of the week for strip club attendance:" Option. completely unproblematic. If you do not go to strip clubs, it won't bother you. Plasma desktop might show a special wallpaper that day. What other activities that some people might do once a week should I have an option for in my desktop environment?

I don't think that's a valid comparison. Days of religious observance can be useful for people to know about even if they don't follow them or even believe in them. They're often holidays for example, so economic software may need to know about them. People from other cultures could, when in a culture not their own, need an easy way to see when days of specific significance is coming up (not only which day of the week but other days as well).

Besides, if that option was to be removed we would need to remove some other options in KDE and its apps as well to be consistent. One example just on top of my head would be the summary view in Kontact. There are entries for up-and-coming special occassions there, including days of religious significance such as easter, christmas, ramadan, or Yom Kippur to just use example from three religions.

sigra wrote:The point is that I should not have any such options.

Which is the opposite of free. Please, be considerate and do not try to impose your world-view on people who may not share it. And to be honest, I hadn't even noticed the option was there until this thread so I think you're blowing things way out of proportion.

sigra wrote:Apparently I want a desktop environment free from religion while you want a community free from secularists.

No. I want a community that's welcoming to everyone. It doesn't matter if they're jews, muslim, hindu, christian, atheist, or whatever else as long as they are civil and respectful of one another. What they believe or do not believe is irrelevant.

I have to agree with the consensus here, I don't see it hurting anyone. Further, even for non-religious people it is still important since many officially secular societies still give special significance to what was traditionally the day of religious observance in the dominant religion in that society. So it has an impact on non-believers even if they ignore the day themselves since many businesses and government offices still pay attention, at least to some extent.

I should also add, there is an option to set "none" for the day of religious observance, if someone does not have such a day. There would be grounds for complaint if someone who is non-religious is forced to recognize some day as a day for religious observance, but since the "none" option is available that isn't an issue. I don't think denying people the ability to integrate their religion into their computer is free, just as forcing people to integrate religion into their computer isn't free. But neither is the case here, so I don't think there should be any problem.