"The KDE Community is happy to release the fourth Beta for KDE 4.0. This Beta aimed at further polishing of the KDE codebase and we would love to start receiving feedback from testers. As KDE has largely has been in bugfix mode, this latest Beta aims to encourage testers to have a look at it to help us find and solve the remaining problems and bugs. Besides the stabilization of the codebase, some minor features have been added, including but not limited to much work on Plasma, the KDE 4 desktop shell. Sebastian Kugler notes: 'The improvements have been huge, and plasma is much closer to what it needs to be before the release. I am confident we will be able to finish it and present a very usable plasma to our userbase with KDE 4.0. We will then be able to extend on that and present truly innovative desktop interfaces throughout the KDE 4 lifecycle.'"
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Member since:2005-07-22
Member since:2006-04-22
I do not expect perfection, even for anything that is out of beta. What I am looking at is quite simply just the user interface as it is presented now. To be quite honest, this is a UI that should never have made it out of the idea stage. Consistency, flow, ergonomics, color scheme, etc.. just about every single aspect of what I see in the previews is just all wrong in a overall sense. What I really have to ask is if they ever did any research or study to find out how this UI would be responded to by users. I simply can not accept that they ever bothered to do this. If open source software is to compete with closed systems like Windows or OSX, then they have to accept that certain practices done by commercial vendors are done for a very good reason. Why you may not like Vista, but there is a reason why a good majority of people are more than satisfied with the OS.
I can tell you one reason, during the development stage they fund continuously focus groups to get users input on every aspect of the UI. The end result is a UI that is extremely functional. Linux fanboys can rant and rave all they want about this comment, but it is a cold hard reality that average users do find Windows very easy to work with for a very good reason. The effort was put in the first place to make the UI workable. Doesn't matter a damn thing what people think of Microsoft etc.. this is the reality of this world
But as Hiev says, the "I'll excuse them at any cost syndrome" is much too rampant these days. For an OSS project to be able to compete in today's world, the attitudes of yesterday like the one above and the "well it's good enough" simply do not cut it anymore. One reason why Ubuntu is finding a lot of success is not just because it is an "easy" OS to use, but also because it has a very functional UI to work with, especially the Gnome iteration (Have not used Kubuntu in ages, so I can not comment).
So what has bothered me so much is a desktop GUI that is about a month away that, in my opinion, is not moving forward. Whatever underlying technologies they have inserted are somewhat meaningless if the front end is an un-usable mess. I understand people can say "well it's skinable, or themeable, etc.." But the point here is to release something that is spectacular from the onset. When I compare these screenshots to other interfaces we have today; SkyOS, Vista, OSX, Gnome, etc.. I do not feel that from what I see this 4 is anywhere close to being in the same boat. Yet in by every means it should be ahead of the curve.
It may very well be that come 2 months from now the final release will surprise me. Which would be a nice thing, as I stated earlier I have come to be quite annoyed with Gnome in Opensuse. The latest 10.3 does have KDE4 preview, which was not to my liking in the least bit which was disappointing. At some point a feature release of Suse is going to have KDE 4, and I personally consider my choice between bad and worse, which is sad because since 9.0 (Novell or Open, can't remember) I have seen a steady progression of improvement I come to like a lot. I hope this gives a better understanding of why I feel the way I do, and in the end it is just one persons opinion.
Member since:
2006-04-22
40 days, is exactly why I said I have little to no confidence that things will change. I find it simply both amazing and unacceptable the attitudes that most seem to take when input is given that is not glowing praise. This is happening more and more too frequently in the past few years, dissenting voices simply are flamed. Instead, it seems that all you are allowed to do now is just kneel and praise, regardless of how horrible an idea.
It is pretty obvious that if they had taken the time to do some research and gathered opinions in the first place, they would not have this UI as it is now. At least in most discussions I have seen, this desktop is not thought of highly.