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:2005-04-01
I hear what you're saying. By this logic though, why not release six months ago? Why not release 3 months ago?
Let me sum up everything I've said in one sentence: if you have to tell *real users* "this isn't really the finished package," you shouldn't be tagging it as a general release.
That's all I'm saying, and I stand by it.
Member since:2005-07-07
I hear what you're saying. By this logic though, why not release six months ago? Why not release 3 months ago?
Let me sum up everything I've said in one sentence: if you have to tell *real users* "this isn't really the finished package," you shouldn't be tagging it as a general release.
That's all I'm saying, and I stand by it.
Let me sum up everything I've said in one sentence: if you have to tell *real users* "this isn't really the finished package," you shouldn't be tagging it as a general release.
That's all I'm saying, and I stand by it.
OK-- it boils down to 'good enough' vs 'as good as'. Since this is a KDE thread we'll use the Dolphin file manager. It didn't spring free form into existence. If the developer said, "I'm not releasing until it's as good as Konqueror." there would be no Dolphin. Back in the KDE 3 days it was released as a basic file manager- Some people saw it, liked it, helped out and gave feedback. Another release, same thing. And again. And again. Now it's in KDE 4.
If the developer waited until it was 'as good as' it would probably be bitrotting on a hard drive half ported to KDE 4. For active projects the benchmark HAS TO BE 'good enough'. Because 'good enough' is needed to get to the point of 'great'. That's the real value add of distro's stable release... Even if you disagree with their choices, they have the role of the arbiter on the meta level. On the project level 'good enough' is 'good enough'.
For example, you might be an informed choice about the risk vs reward of installing any given bleeding edge piece of software... But try doing that for every package on a Linux box. Say, "I Heart My $DISTRO". So if unsure, wait for your distro-- Otherwise a projects call on what's 'good enough'. And KDE 4.0.0 meets that bar, at least here.
Member since:
2005-07-07
Sure it is. You just don't like it. That's doesn't make it "not an option." "
OK- What happens in the broader ecology? The 3rd party apps all start another feature cycle against 3.5. Porting doesn't start. You still don't get a complete KDE 6-12 months down the road. What happens in KDE's SVN? The maintainers of the polished apps, since thay can't hack, move on. The developers of the less complete bits are hacking and bugfixing in a in an empty house as the first group developers is only paying marginal attention, or have moved on. Worse yet, you get this nasty case of incest-- Without a release you're preaching to an ever shrinking group of folks.
They can and they should, at least until it's actually ready for release. I hope you NEVER said anything negative about Vista, after all, they can't work on it forever!
Let the world know: Leos says "don't bother testing your software or waiting until it's ready to release, just ship it according to a calendar and let the users find the bugs." "
Truth-- The KDE Developers pushed the release back twice. They assessed the gains of sitting on KDE 4.0.o for longer and reached a consensus that it wasn't 'worth it'.
Well, there are a fair number of people doing skewering IMHO-- So it's hardly all flowers and puppies. As far as the 'not finished' goes, KDE 3.5 isn't 'finished' either. 3.5.9 ships next month. Software is never 'finished'. Now, if you mean, "Yarr, there be bugs and features have gone overboard!" I'm right with you.
Now, with that being said-- The difference between Virgin Vista or OSX 10.0 is that with KDE you'll see a lot of bugs quashed on the Jan 30th release. (With thanks to the broader testing 4.0.0 gave it.) You'll see panel 'regressions / missing bits' get filled in over 4.0.x, and you have the whole KDE ecosystem based around KDE 4 by the end of the summer. That's pretty darn quick turn around, no?