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On Fri, 13 May 2011 07:19:35 -0700 (PDT), BRM wrote: |
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> KDE did seem to drop the ball a bit with their management of the |
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> transition from KDE3 to KDE4. |
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There's no doubt it could have been a lot better. The problem was that it |
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was based on their prediction that 4.0 would be a dev release while 4.1 |
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would be usable, it wasn't. |
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> Okay - that's not entirely KDE's problem; though it would have helped a |
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> long way with the KDE4 transition if they kept a few people working on |
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> those issues. |
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How would you feel if you were a KDE dev told "we're all going to play |
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with the cool new toys now, but we want you to stay here and look |
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after the boring musty old stuff."? It would be bad enough if you were |
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being paid for it. |
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> The big issue is that in moving to sole development of KDE4, distros |
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> started to drop KDE3 and replace it with KDE4. For example, Kubuntu |
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> 8.04 TLS dropped KDE3 and used KDE4 long before KDE4 was really user |
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> worthy - long before KDE was calling it user worthy. |
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I think that says more about Ubuntu than KDE, after all ,they'd done a |
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similar thing with GNOME/Unity now. |
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> But KDEs actions |
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> of moving sole development to KDE4 prompted most distributions to do |
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> likewise. |
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Many distros, especially the enterprise focussed ones like SUSE, kept 3.5 |
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around for quite a while. |
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> Had they kept a small team working on at least the build issues until |
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> KDE4 reached 4.3 then the transition would have likely gone a lot |
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> smoother. |
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True, but no one expected it to take that long to get ready, and |
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diverting resources to look after 3.5 would have meant it taking even |
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longer. |
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> > So install a distro that still supports KDE3 if that's what you want |
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> > or need. KDE 3.5.10 is still there, it hasn't been withdrawn from the |
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> > shelves. You're hardly likely to use Gentoo for such users, so lack |
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> > of core support for 3.5 in Gentoo is not an issue either. |
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> > |
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> |
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> While I am not personally interested in it, please name one. |
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> |
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> Gentoo doesn't support KDE3 any more. You have to go to Trinity to get |
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> the newer, forked KDE3 series. Last I heard they were equivalent to a |
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> 3.5.12 or so; but I haven't seen anything on the Desktop list for a |
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> while about Trinity. |
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> |
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> Needless to say, you may be very hard pressed to find a modern, |
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> up-to-date distribution that offers KDE3 support. |
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If it defaulted to KDE 3.5, it would be neither modern nor up to date. |
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But at the time of the transition, when KDE4 was still too flakey for |
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many, there were several - openSUSE for one. |
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-- |
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Neil Bothwick |
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Can vegetarians eat animal crackers? |
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