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Yes. I understand that 4.0 is mainly infrastructure and not *use* of that infrastructure. Or are you saying that the usability improvements are waiting for 4.1/4.2, as well?

In which case, I should take that into account when evaluating 4.0. :-)

It's not that anyone is waiting with usability improvements. In new applications and fully ported ones, you will see the benefits of the usability work that has been done.
However, the ultimate usability test is real users working with the software, so there will probably be some substantial changes in 4.1/4.2 based on the feedback of real users instead of usability best practices.
Also, there are quite a few applications that won't be fully ported until a few months after 4.0 is released, so they will be the same as in KDE 3.5 for a while longer.

Even with the upcoming final release of KDE 4.0, that release will be mostly targetted at developers (3rd party apps, Plasmoids, etc.).
KDE 4 is the biggest leap in KDE history. The KDE devs had to draw the line somewhere. It won't be perfect and some planed features will have to wait.

Pardon? Where is the evidence for that?

4.0 will be a release, and like all x.0 releases, it'll have bugs, possibly big ones - with that being said, there will be 4.0.x releases afterwards that will address those issues.

Remember, this is a beta, and unlike the commercial world, things can be merged later on on the development as the development can occur independently off the maintree then merged back once that project has stablised.

Regarding 4.0 - This will be the *first* official release of KDE which will have Solaris x86/SPARC as an officially supported platform - so hopefully a few months after 4.0 has been released we'll see KDE available for Solaris (be it GCC compiled) and maintained along with the Linux versions.

For Solaris users, its a big step forward - the choice of desktops, applications and improvements in hardware support not only will help these desktops but *NIX over all and providing a viable alternative to Windows.

Really? This is not the good thing to do. Lots of people have big expectations with KDE4. They want a new GUI to play with. Most people don't care about under the hood stuff.

Honestly, I think a all-in-one release would be far more interesting ;-)

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Really? This is not the good thing to do.
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I would say that it shows that the release plan is controlled by people with good engineering sense, and not by the marketing department. Which means that they need a good PR department to prepare the rest of us for the fact that KDE 4.0 is only laying down the solid infrastructure to be built on later.

I think it is a *very* good thing to do.

Edited 2007-08-02 14:47

It's good that you wrote 'KDE4'. Because there is a difference between KDE4 and KDE4.0.

Yeah possibly. As a KDE developer I wonder whether it's better to wait. But then when do you draw the line and actually get a release out? Also the longer you wait, the harder you make it for app developers. You also don't get the same number of testers etc.

I think the advantages of releasing early and releasing often outweigh the disadvantages. Hopefully the criticisms will be constructive and help us make a more polished 4.1.

I know that personally I am keen to see how people like my app and look forward to constructive criticisms and comments.

Most free software desktop users will first encounter KDE4 when their distribution gets it sufficiently integrated, which might take until next summer or even later for the commercial distributions. In the meantime, it will get a decent amount of exposure among enthusiasts backed against experimental repositories.

It will be a mixed bag. Remember GNOME 2.6, when they basically ripped everything out in a massive KISS initiative? It was a bit spartan with some glaring feature omissions, but most users realized that this purge would pay off in the long run. GNOME entered its golden age, coming to dominate the commercial distributions.

I expect KDE4 to follow a similar pattern. There might be some rough edges and missing features. But the underlying framework overhaul will pay off in the long run. I think we're about to enter KDE's golden age, and given the overall progress since the last desktop revolution, this could be a bigger bang.

Perhaps more importantly, the KDE community is firing on all cylinders. This is a healthy community with a good combination of leadership, vision, creativity, and passion. They demonstrate good taste and style in the way they design and develop software. The result is high-level abstractions, lots of code reuse, and tight integration. Free software through and through.

It's hard to think of a free software project, past or present, that functions better than today's KDE.

Thankfully, the developers have the better attitude:

build a strong foundation for app developers to build on first (all the new technologies and frameworks in KDE4)

then build the exciting apps on top after (all the apps that get ported/updated to use the stuff in KDE4, and all the new apps built using KDE4 stuff)


Personally, I wouldn't want it any other way. You need a strong foundation to build on, or you end up with strung together hacks that rely on chewing gum, hay wire, and crazy glue, with nothing more than a fancy plastic cover.

That's enough to make me excited

-JAGU

Just Another Gnome User

Well, one of the pittfalls in software engineering is to assume that, given a good architecture and infrastructure, everyting will fall into place. I'm not saying that KDE4 will not be an improvement, I'm just somewhat reluctant to presume that KDE4/4.1/4.2 will be a huge improvement thanks to just the infrastructure.

Well, one of the pittfalls in software engineering is to assume that, given a good architecture and infrastructure, everyting will fall into place.

Well believe it. KDE has always focused on architecture, and if you provide it people will make use of it. Just look at current KDE. Consistent spell check, keyboard shortcuts, transparent network access, password storage, various components like text editor widgets or html rendering are the same in all apps, etc etc. These features are all only possible because the architecture was developed first and then application developers took advantage of it.

It will be the same with KDE4. Phonon, Solid, the new spellchecker (forget the name), Plasma, Decibel, etc. are the pillars for a new generation of programs. Amarok is already using Plasma and Phonon, and KCall is already using Decibel, so you can be sure that these technologies will be heavily used.