[arch-general] KDE4.3 Beta - Rocks, still a bit rough, but very usable as a primary desktop

[David C. Rankin]

On Wednesday 10 June 2009 11:21:01 you wrote:
> David C. Rankin wrote:
> > If you have been in the same
> > holding-pattern lately in your thinking about kde4 as well -- I bet you
> > will be pleasantly surprised as well ;-)
>
> Thanks for the heads up.  I'll have to give it a shot one of these days.
>
> Clearly I'm not going to be able to remain on KDE3 for much longer, as
> no one's going to be doing new development on any of the apps.
>
> DR

	Yep DR, that's the boat I find myself in. From what I can tell now, KDE4 will 
be a good follow on to KDE3. 30 days ago, I would have ... and I did ... tell 
you it wasn't anything other than some pipe dream from the gaming crowd with 
cute names like plasmoids and widgets scattered through it that took more time 
to keep running that it allowed to get work done. But as more apps were built 
against the kde4 runtime base that broke kde3 functionality and as more and 
more apps moved exclusively too the kde4 base, it was inevitable I would have 
to go kicking and screaming to kde4 or some other desktop altogether.

	The screw-up, that will go down in history as the worst transition strategy 
ever, was the roll-out or force-out of kde4 long before it was ready for 
public use. (June 2008 to roll-out 4.04 in 'alpha' state as the default choice 
for a desktop by suse? What where they smoking?) First few releases of 4.1 
were just as bad. No one in the 'general "linux-user"' category should have 
ever been faced with having that as a desktop when the kde3 alternative was 
near flawless. No wonder so much of the community has the mindset that kde4 is 
"broken", "not ready", "unstable", etc... Hell, it was.

	If it had just remained under development until where it is now, and then 
been rolled out as an "alternative" KDE version in the major distros, then I 
guarantee you the community response to KDE4 would have been fantastic and 
with a fanatical desire to see the next release. As it was done, there is 
still a large percentage of the user base that won't touch it with a 10 foot 
pole until KDE3 is no longer available. That's the true cost of an early push 
of an unready desktop on the community. You have half the crowd completely 
lose confidence in a beloved desktop and the direction the developers have 
taken.

	As I said earlier in the thread. It is now ready and is now usable as a 
primary desktop with no more than the run-of-the-mill bugs that need to be 
squashed. To have pushed it out the door a year ago as a default choice for a 
desktop was sheer stupidity. It was as smart as if GM and Chrysler suddenly 
decided to put out nothing but 3-wheeled cars as the policy that would save 
their financial futures and lift them out of bankruptcy.

	But now, with 4.3beta, KDE4 is usable, and even enjoyable, by the general 
linux user, so it is time to roll up the sleeves, dive in, and each send in 
their dozen or so clean up bugs to kde.org and then we can look forward to a 
great kde4.3 release. (which is something we should have been able to look 
forward to as a 4.1 release, but for the premature release;-)


-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
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