Re: [gentoo-user] Re: How's the openrc update going for everyone?

[Mike Edenfield]

On 5/12/2011 9:25 AM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Apparently, though unproven, at 14:54 on Thursday 12 May 2011, Dale did opine
> thusly:
>
>> Neil Bothwick wrote:
>>> The pattern I see is that of selecting only changes that failed and
>>> implying they are the norm.
>>>
>>> Why not add other improvements that were so bad, like the switch from
>>> floppy disks to hard disks, or CDs to DVDs? Companies try to predict
>>> where the market should go so they can lead. No one gets it right all
>>> the time, the ones that survive are those that get it right often enough.
>>> The ones that are most likely to fail are those that never try to
>>> innovate in case someone doesn't like it.
>>>
>>> The important point is that KDE wanted something better, it's unfortunate
>>> that it took so much longer than planned, but it would have taken even
>>> longer if they had not tried.
>>
>> I just hope they also learned from their mistakes.  Dropping KDE3
>> support long before KDE4 was ready was a big one.  That shouldn't be
>> repeated.
>
> They can do any damn thing they want to with their code. They also you owe
> support for it in exactly the same amount you paid for it. Which is to say
> "nothing".
>
> It's not a question of "should", it's only a question of "Dale would prefer it
> if"

<parent>
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
</parent>

Of course the KDE3 team had every right to drop KDE3 support whenever
they pleased. And we as free consumers had no real recourse other than
to stop using KDE and/or deal with it.

But it was still a bad decision from a software development standpoint,
and one that ideally should not be made again.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say "If the KDE4 team expects users
to continue to use the software they spend so much of their time making,
they shouldn't make that kind of decision again."

--Mike