Re: [gentoo-user] Has semantic-desktop really become compulsatory for kmail?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 12 February 2010 01:49:18 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> On Freitag 12 Februar 2010, Christian Apeltauer wrote:
> > Am Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:18:42 +0000
> >
> > schrieb Neil Bothwick <neil@××××××××××.uk>:
> > > On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:03:15 -0600, Roy Wright wrote:
> > > > IMO, mandatory semantic-desktop is a very good reason to find
> > > > another desktop manager (even after being my primary desktop for 7
> > > > years).
> > >
> > > It's so mandatory it takes a whole mouse click to turn it off :(
> >
> > If you do not want a piece of software, why should you install it?
> > Installing and not using it instead of not installing it at all, is the
> > wrong way and (to my opinion) it is defintely not the Gentoo way.
> >
> >  Well, I have drawn the conclusions and got rid of kmail and am on the
> >
> > verge of migrating the whole desktop. I loved kde-3.5, I seriously
> > tried kde-4.*, but I could never befriend with it. And one point I
> > detaste is that "Social Semantic Desktop" thing (as Nepomuk is
> > characterized on its afore mentioned wikipedia page). For me it is just
> > another instance of what Kant called "selbstverschuldete
> > Unmündigkeit" (self-incurred immaturity).
>
> sure. Be able to tag and quickly find information is immature.
>
> Question, when you have KDE installed and some app pulls in gconf or gvfs -
> do you throw the same temper tamtrum?

People by and large do not comprehend what KDE-4 is all about, and the naming 
convention actually reinforces this misconception. Folk think KDE-4 is the 
natural evolution of KDE-3.5 - more of the same just more of it and supposedly 
better.

Nothing could be further from the truth. KDE-4 is nothing like KDE-3.5 and 
visual similarities are just that - superficial. kmail's appearance in 3.5 was 
good and in 4 it looks the same because there is no good reason to change the 
skin. Underlying that superficial layer you find something entirely new which 
bears no resemblance at all the the old one, and this has been confounding 
people since the first code commits.

KDE-4 is built on an array of new technologies: Plasma, Akonadi, Nepomuk, 
Phonon, Solid, Strigi and more

Those things encompass what KDE-4 is built to do, they are the reason for 
KDE-4's entire existence, it's raison d'etre. Without Plasma, it is just 
another desktop. Without Phonon, you have to use what came before together 
with it's problems.

There is a reason why latest versions of KDE do not have magic switches to 
remove semantic desktop:

SEMANTIC DESKTOP IS SUPPOSED TO BE THERE. IT IS THE ENTIRE REASON KDE4 EXISTS 
AT ALL.

Complaining about it reveals only a deep fundamental understanding of what the 
software is supposed to do, so folk should stop trying to shoehorn it into a 
box that the devs deliberately built it to not fit into.

To all those folk who do not like building a semantic desktop with kmail:

You need to get over it. Seriously. There are other options. 
Or try building a browser without an html rendering engine for a vivid example 
of what you are attempting. Don't bother trying to justify why this is not a 
valid analogy to KDE4 - it is a valid analogy and KDE really is what I 
described above. It's that way because the devs who built it say so.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com