Re: [kde-linux] Status of KDE 4.1.2?

Kevin Krammer <kevin.krammer@xxxxxx> wrote in
news:200810121414.53517.kevin.krammer@xxxxxx:

I think there is some need for a bit of clarification on this topic.

Actually purely porting to Qt4 as in making it build and link with Qt4
libs came first. Laurent Montel did tons of that work all over KDE.

At this stage some applications not only built but also worked, while
others just build, i.e. small behavioral changes in libs lead to
broken application functionality or weird visual effects.

The next step was cleaning up libraries and runtime support
infrastructure, i.e. making changes that are only acceptable at major
version changes due to introducing incompatabilities between base and
apps.

Depending on an application developers' resources, they worked on
replacing Qt3/KDE3 compat code with real Qt4 based one, sometimes
performing similar cleanup task like the library developers.

Some application developers didn't have enough time to track the
rapidly changing libs so they decided to improve on application
specific things, somethimes related to visualization.

"Glitter and eye candy" have mostly been picked up by new developers,
since they often didn't require as much domain knowledge or code
reading than working on application internals.

My guess is that more than half of the long term contributors haven't
reached the "Glitter and eye candy" stage yet, since they are still
neck deep in cleanup/refactoring/modernization.

Cheers,
Kevin


Hello everyone,

Thank you for your comments Kevin. As a user who reads and rarely posts
some introduction is in order. I am a dyslexic hardware engineer who
remembers the arrival of the 8080, the ARPANET, Gopher, and the World
Wide Web. Usenet was first seen on computers that called each other. At
times, the latest version of some open source project is compiled from
source. Embedded processors and their software are my current
activities.

Kevin's comments fits what what has happened and they are come from
someone on the inside. Those that have contributed to the open source
world have made a great contribution.

My frustration started with hardware failure on a notebook running XP.
New hardware for windows thrust me into the world of Vista. Too much did
not work. Vendors were dropping technical products rather than rewrite
for Vista. Moving back to XP presented the problem of hardware
manufacturers position that VISTA has replaced XP. The new notebook was
sold at a loss. XP is now run as a client under VMware that travels on
an external disk between Linux hosts. I am dependent on VMware
supporting Linux as a host and XP as a client.

An upgrade on Linux computers was in order. Having followed the path
from the early days of Red Hat, there was no thought put into the choice.
An old friends, Fedora with KDE desktop, was not the answer. Dejavu, too
much did not work, too much change. Stepping back to the prior release
of Fedora revealed that the end of support was less than 6 months away.

The need to move forward is understood from having worked on, and
managed, products. An example is an open source tool I use appears to
be dyeing because of the closed nature of the hardware it supports. The
cutting edge of development is also the bleeding edge. I am a user
looking for tools that fill needs. Open source development is now
followed and these issues are not unique. The last Apple computer I
owned was an Apple IIe. An Apple may be my next.

The point I am trying to make is for some stability so the users can be
brought along. By using what the developers produce, the value of the
development is enhanced.

Once again, I thank Kevin for his insight.

Have a good day,
Robert



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