Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 21st Jan 2008 18:22 UTC
Ars reviews KDE 4.0.0: "KDE 4.0 was officially released last week after extensive development. The long-awaited 4.0 release ushers in a new era for the popular open-source desktop environment and adds many intriguing new features and technologies. Unfortunately, the release comes with almost as many new bugs as it does features, and there is much work to be done before it sparkles like the 3.5.x series." They were also at the KDE 4.0 release event.
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Member since:
2005-07-08
The controversy over the maturity of KDE 4.0.0 challenges the dynamics of the free software community. It's an expectations gap caused by a cultural shift within the community that deserves some consideration.
The "enthusiast" class has become far less tolerant of immature code than it has been in the past. The same type of user that used to be willing to jump through some hoops and shake out some bugs in order to try out the latest and greatest now expects nothing less than a finished product.
That's why every thread on this issue devolves into a discussion of numbering and naming conventions. Enthusiasts no longer have any patience for rough edges, they don't want to touch it until it's "done", and they don't want to hear any excuses from the developers.
I worry that our community of peers is decaying into a mixture of producers and consumers. Enthusiasts don't want to see themselves as partners with the developers, and the developers don't want to see themselves as service providers to the enthusiasts.
All software, both free and proprietary, goes through a continuous maturation process. The free software ecosystem was built on the assumption that, from the perspective of any given project, the community is layered like an onion. The core developers are in the middle, followed by project contributors, distributors, third-party developers, enthusiasts, and end-users.
The theory is that, as the software matures, it can be exposed to more layers of the onion. But in the case of KDE 4.0.0, one or more of the follow happened: 1) it got exposed to enthusiasts before it was ready, 2) enthusiasts had unreasonable expectations, or 3) the project failed to make the distinction between enthusiasts and end-users.
What is in a name? Could the expectations gap have been addressed simply by selecting more conservative names for KDE 4.0.0 and the releases that preceded it, or is the problem deeper than that?
Is it still possible to release software with rough edges and expect a productive response from the enthusiast community? Do enthusiasts understand and accept their role within the community? Do enthusiasts and end-users self-identify as such, and are they comfortable with those identities?
Just like an economy collapses for lack of a strong middle class, the free software community will collapse for lack of a vibrant enthusiast class with enough skills and patience to help steward fresh code to maturity. If developers begin to doubt that there is a middle class in the free software community willing to contribute some effort toward a better future, then they will be reluctant to ever challenge "the big friggin' wall".
For those of you who don't follow American politics, the major narrative right now is about how "change" happens. Some think it comes from shrewd work behind the scenes, some from a spirited fight against the opposition, and others from rallying people around a compelling vision.
In my view, the engine behind the growth of free software has been the latter, an idealistic and optimistic belief that if we work together in a transparent and inclusive community, then we can turn the conventional wisdom of the software industry on its head and challenge the entrenched interest in the status quo.
The strength of our community and its ability to produce fundamental change (like KDE4) lies in its ability to engage and empower the user in the development and maturation process.
If we reject this role, if we don't care to see how the sausage is made, if we don't want to have anything to do with immature software, if we choose to become passive consumers of finished products, then the status quo will prevail, and our hopes and dreams will be subordinated to the conventional wisdom.
The KDE project has articulated a compelling vision for the future of the free software desktop, and they've delivered a strong foundation for realizing this potential. It's impossible to please everybody with a finished product let alone a work in progress. All I ask of anybody who cares about free software is to either get on board or get out of the way.
It doesn't do any of us any good to criticize a project for reaching for new heights, for daring to set out in a bold new direction. What bothers me the most about KDE4 is that other projects are perceiving this as a referendum on ambitious development. If we reject the premise of substantive change, then we deserve the stagnation that might follow.