Okay so we have KDE 4, and oh my yes, it does rock, but it does seem kind of big and complicated and full of stuff. There's a legitimate fear that we're going to pay a price for our widgets aned themes in simplicity and direct access to the data. Preserving KDE3 in the long term is impractical because it's built on obsolete technology and forking KDE3 would divide the community and waste lots and lots of programmer hours.

So what you do you propose, Mr blackbelt jones,( if that even is your real name?)

First of all, lets just let KDE4 roll out, and see how it looks. The traditional desktop is represented in KDE4 by the folder view option. Right now, folder view kind of looks to me like the ugly stepchild, but maybe as KDE4 matures, and folderview will get more attention, and gain back some of that old agility.

After KDE4 is rolled out, if people still want a simpler, more traditional desktop, I would look into the possibility of building one right into KDE, and shipping them together. It would be like a dirt bike you carry in the trunk of your car, or like a kangaroo carried in the pouch of another, larger kangaroo. It would launch as if it were a seperate desktop environment, but it would be KDE. It would use the same libraries, sort of like dolphin and konqueror use the same libraries, and it would launch the same applications. It wouldn't divide the community, and the extra work that would be required would be minimized. I think there would be an eye toward a certain consistency in function and experience. People should be able to import their projects from one to the other without much effort,

Well I don't know anything about C++ or Qt, so maybe this idea is crazier than I think. If I ever bring it up again, I will know something about programming. Next time KDE goes through a revolutionary change, I don't intend to be standing on the sidelines helplessly fretting and fuming.

I'm done with trying to preserve KDE3. Even if something vital is lost, it's not necessariily lost forever.

blackbelt_jones wrote:It would launch as if it were a seperate desktop environment, but it would be KDE. It would use the same libraries, sort of like dolphin and konqueror use the same libraries, and it would launch the same applications. It wouldn't divide the community, and the extra work that would be required would be minimized.

The desktop is basically just a specialized application and combined with other applications such as the window manager, it makes what we refer to as the "workspace".

Replacing one implementation, e.g. plasma_desktop, with a new one would still be quite some work, because there are all kinds of advanced functionality needed for things like panels, systemtray, etc.

However, since Plasma is extremely plugin based, it will almost certainly be possible to replace some aspects with different plugins, e.g. doing a totally new "background" handler or other types of panels.

Cheers,
_

Could you think about this idea a bit more?
I think it's a great idea, it would bring KDE to users that prefer WMs because they can "build" their own desktop.
So, please do post this in brainstorm section also, I want to see what other users think of it.